Top-Billed Females – Rare Birds

16Apr/080

Top-Billed Females – Rare Birds

Although this research probably won't surprise anyone, it's still shocking. Of recent movies...

There were about 110 movies with a male lead and 5 with a female lead. Of the second-billed females, nearly all are written as love interests of the first-billed man. There were over sixty movies in the sample with two male stars top-billed. The only movies with two top-billed female roles, on the other hand, were The Devil Wears Prada and Scary Movie 4.

--xkcd » Blog Archive » Two Female Leads

The post goes on to break things down by genre, essentially concluding that movies with leading femmes are in a horror/mother-daughter drama ghetto. I feel like there used to be more action movies with female stars, but maybe that was just the Alien movies. This gives me an idea. It would be great to take the James Bond formula and create a female-centered espionage thriller. Or if the protagonist slept with as many men as Bond sleeps with women, would she be considered... a bad influence on our nation's youth?