Women first: 'Titanic' (1997), action-adventure films and hollywood's female audience

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 599-618

  Krämer, Peter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61949139633     PISSN: 01439685     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01439689800260421     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. For a systematic and historically wide-ranging introduction to the blockbuster phenomenon and the patterns of release and box office performance in contemporary Hollywood, see Thomas Schatz, The new Hollywood, in Jim Collins, Hilary Radner & Ava Preacher Collins, eds, Film Theory Goes to the Movies (New York, 1993), pp. 8-36
2. Newsweek (23 February 1998)
3. David Ansen, Our Titanic love affair, Newsweek (23 February 1998), pp. 44-50
4. Leonard Klady, Titanic wins domestic B.O. crown, Variety (23 March 1998), p. 8. For the UK trade press, the domestic market includes Canada. All subsequent references in this essay to the US or domestic market therefore also refer to Canada
5. Timothy M. Gray, Ship's Oscars come in, Variety (30 March 1998), p. 24
6. What is perhaps even more astonishing is that by the first half of April the film's foreign gross of over $870 million and its continuing steady performance abroad made sure that its revenues outside North America would eventually even top the total of $913 million that Jurassic Park had grossed in foreign and domestic markets, Variety (13 April 1998), p. 6
7. Ansen, Our Titanic love affair, p. 47
8. Karen Schoemer, A women's liberation, Newsweek, (23 February 1998), p. 50
9. For a discussion of the crucial role of the cinematic 'event' throughout film history see Peter Krämer, The lure of the big picture: film, television and Hollywood, in John Hill & Martin McLoone, eds, Big Picture, Small Screen: the relations between film and television (Luton, 1996), pp. 9-46
10. For a historical survey and critical discussion of the marginal status of the female audience in contemporary US cinema which takes into account research on audience preferences and habits, production trends and debates within the industry, see Peter Krämer, A powerful cinema-going force: Hollywood and female audiences since the 1960s, in Richard Maltby & Melvyn Stokes, eds, Hollywood Audiences and Cultural Identity (London, forthcoming)
11. Cameron's status is confirmed and problematised by the fact that the poster for the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Strange Days (1995) implied that it was in fact a James Cameron film so as to generate more interest in the film. This strategy did not work, however and the film was a disastrous flop (earning $8 million in the US against a budget of $39 million). Information on box office revenues and budgets are taken from the German magazine Steadycam, which derives its figures from the US trade press; see 'In Zahlen', Steadycam, 31 (1996), p. 12
12. For selected critical responses to and basic credits for the films discussed below see Christopher Tookey, The Critics' Film Guide (London, 1994). There is also a considerable academic literature on Cameron's films
13. information on Academy Awards from John Harkness, The Academy Awards Handbook (New York, 1994), pp. 266-7
14. A brief sketch of Cameron's career is provided in Robyn Karney, ed., Who's Who in Hollywood (London, 1993), p. 70
15. In Zahlen, Steadycam, 15 (1990), p. 10. The Abyss was again written and directed by Cameron and produced by Gale Anne Hurd, who he did however split up with during the production of the film. He later married action director Kathryn Bigelow and after that Terminator star Linda Hamilton
16. Budgets and box office revenues for 1991 from In Zahlen, Steadycam, 21 (1992), pp. 15-16
17. In Zahlen, Steadycam, 29 (1995), pp. 8-9. Cameron again directed and adapted the screenplay from the 1992 French film La Totale!
18. By using the term 'production trend' rather than 'genre' for the classification of films, I follow Tino Balio's example. Production trends can be identified both by textual features (such as story, iconography and forms of spectacle) and extratextual features (such as target audience, release pattern, budget, cultural status and key personnel). See Tino Balio, Grand Design: Hollywood as a modern business enterprise, 1930-1939 (Berkeley, 1995), Ch. 7
19. For extensive discussions of the action film see, for example, Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular Bodies: gender, genre and the action cinema (London, 1993)
20. and Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood masculinity in the Reagan era (New Brunswick, 1994)
21. On the marketing of Star Wars to a diversified audience (including older people and women) rather than to a limited audience of young males, see Olen J. Earnest, Star Wars: a case study of motion picture marketing, Current Research in Film, 1 (1985), pp. 1-18
22. For an extensive discussion of this production trend, see Peter Krämer, Would you take your child to see this film? The cultural and social work of the family-adventure movie, in Steve Neale & Murray Smith, eds, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London, 1998), pp. 294-311
23. Interestingly, both Aliens and Terminator 2 are sequels to films which can be seen as science fiction variants of the 'slasher' film, as discussed in Carol Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws: gender in the modern horror film (London, 1992). Slasher films, such as Halloween (1978), revolve around a monstrous figure who goes around systematically killing people, usually teenagers, until a somewhat androgynous, strong young woman, the 'final girl' in Clover's terminology, finally manages to stand up to the monster and kill it (albeit it only temporarily; the monster is invariably revived). Ripley and Sarah Connor are the big budget action film versions of the slasher's final girl. While slasher films were originally addressed very specifically to a young male audience, there is considerable anecdotal evidence that they found a secondary audience in young females, watching these films in groups during slumber parties and similar social occasions. These viewing habits may well have prepared the way for a later female demand for action heroines
24. Steadycam, 29 (1995), pp. 8-9
25. In Zahlen, Steadycam, 33 (1997), pp. 19-20
26. Steadycam, 33 (1997), p. 21
27. There is a particularly strong resistance in the industry to make films centred on the exploits of young females. As one shocked film producer recently reported 'Somebody at one of the studios once said to me "Don't bring me any girl protagonists." ... I asked if I brought Wizard of Oz would they reject it. And they said yes.' Quoted in Dan Cox, Family fare, adult price, Variety (7 April 1997), p. 9
28. See, for example, the following reports in the British press which are based on interviews with Cameron and/or publicity material: Sarah Gristwood, Sink or swim, Guardian (2 January 1998), Section 2, pp. 2-3
29. Sarah Gristwood, Jim'll fix it: the world's biggest liner's hit an iceberg. Cut to demented director, Observer (11 January 1998)
30. Simon Hattenstone, A screaming director, freezing water, a cast driven crazy, and danger on all sides. Who'd be the chief Stuntman on Titanic?, Guardian (23 January 1998), Section 2, p. 4
31. Also see, for example, the issue of the special effects magazine Cinefex dedicated to Titanic, the first article of which is summarised as follows on the contents page: 'Titanic is an apt title for the latest film from director James Cameron, denoting not only the subject matter of the picture, but the scope of the endeavor, as well. On his Odyssey to bring the story of the 1912 maritime disaster to the screen, Cameron went to the bottom of the North Atlantic to photograph the actual Titanic wreck, then reconstructed the celebrated ship, almost full-size - and sank it! - at a studio built expressly to house the massive production.' Don Shay, Back to Titanic, Cinefex, 72 (December 1997)
32. The following analysis is based on several viewings and the detailed synopsis of the film in Todd McCarthy, Spectacular Titanic a night to remember, Variety (3 November 1997), pp. 7, 106
33. Also cp. Richard Williams, Waving not drowning, Guardian (23 January 1998), Section 2, p. 7
34. Jose Arroyo, Massive attack, Sight and Sound (February 1998), pp. 16-19
35. By focusing on elemental forces, the film harks back to the disaster film cycle of the 1970s, although there are also important differences (mainly to do with the centrality of the couple rather than of a larger group of people) which would be worth exploring further. Cp. Nick Roddick, Only the stars survive: disaster movies in the seventies, in David Bradby, Louis James & Bernard Sharratt, eds, Performance and Politics in Popular Drama, (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 243-69
36. No doubt, this theme can be found in most of Cameron's work, including his script for Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), in which Rambo, just after he has narrowly escaped the bad guys, returns to the POW camp to save its inmates. Structurally, the similarities between Rambo II and the rest of Cameron's oeuvre are striking, although ideologically they would appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum
37. Cameron quoted in Don Shay, Back to Titanic, p. 16
38. Gristwood, Sink or swim, p. 3
39. James Cameron's Titanic (New York, 1997), p. IX
40. Jon Herskovitz & Chris Petrikin, Titanic preem a sellout, Variety (3 November 1997), pp. 7, 11
41. McCarthy, Spectacular Titanic a night to remember
42. In Zahlen, Steadycam, 30 (1995), p. 15
43. Steadycam, 31 (1996), p. 12
44. Steadycam, 32 (1996), p. 25
45. Cp. Schatz, The new Hollywood, pp. 25-36
46. See Paul Karon, Titanic steams on with 4 Globes, Variety (26 January 1998), p. 20
47. Ansen, Our Titanic love affair, p. 47. While the release of Titanic has not been supported by and feeding into a merchandising craze typical of youth and child-oriented blockbusters, Ansen points out that, by February, 10 million units of the orchestral soundtrack album had been shipped worldwide and that the glossy paperback version of James Cameron's Titanic had been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Even the film's ancillary products had an air of prestige
48. Screen International (16 January 1998), p. 37
49. Klady, Tara torpedoes Titanic as the real B.O. champ, p. 105. There is considerable overlap with the list of international top grossers. The most up-to-date version that I could find is from June 1996, which is before the rerelease of the Star Wars trilogy in 1997 and before the release of the superhits Independence Day, Twister, Men in Black (1997) and The Lost World (1997). The list has Jurassic Park at no. 1 with $913 million followed by The Lion King, E.T., Forrest Gump, Ghost (1990), Star Wars, Aladdin (1992), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and Terminator 2 with Home Alone at no. 10 with $454 million, Variety (3 June 1996), p. 70
50. DiCaprio can be seen as a teen idol much like many pop stars. Yet, his appeal goes beyond this, as even Vanity Fair could not help declaring him to be 'simply the world's biggest heartthrob', quoting Winslet's statement that he is 'probably the world's most beautiful-looking man'; Cathy Horyn, Leonardo takes wing, Vanity Fair (January 1998), pp. 54-9, 112-114; quotes from title page and p. 112
51. Cp. Balio, Grand Design, pp. 1-12, 179-312
52. Richard Maltby with Ian Craven, Hollywood Cinema: an introduction (Oxford, 1995), pp. 10-11
53. Joel W. Finler, The Hollywood Story (London, 1988), pp. 276-7
54. Ibid
55. Cameron quoted in Shay, Back to Titanic, p. 76