Effects of Female Portrayal in Action Movie Posters on

COMM240
Jessie Mao
Effects of Female Portrayal in Action Movie Posters on Movie Success
In this study, I am interested in finding out if there is a relationship between the placement of a
sexualized female on an action movie poster and the movie’s box office. In addition, I wanted to know if
having an unsexualized female on the poster will have a similar effect.
Today, there is a lot female sexualization used in media to attract attention and viewership. A known
phrase goes, “Sex sells”, explaining the motivation for putting sexy women in ads, commercials, music
videos, games, and movies. And indeed, when we take a look at some of the top­paid women in the music
industry, a lot of them do indeed flaunt their sexuality: Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Fergie, just to name a
few. In the video game industry, we see popular games featuring unrealistically proportioned female game
characters such as Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and Mileena from Mortal Kombat designed to target the
young male audience.
So the question is then, when we speak in terms of top grossing action films in America, do people
also go to see movies because they see sexy women advertised to be in the film? In today’s entertainment
industry, sexuality is a ubiquitous and common technique used by marketers to boost their campaign.
Since it is a technique that works, I wanted to see if it had the same effect on movies. Most action movies
I’ve seen do actually involve a sexy woman that has an affair with the hero, and I believe that is because sex
does boost sales for movies. My expectation is that having a sexy female on the movie poster will indeed
boost box office compared to movies that don’t, while having an unsexualized female on the poster will not
affect the box office at all.
Method
The pool of movies that I conducted my study on are from the list of the most popular action films listed
on IMDB. However, there are several systematic procedures I took to select the films from the list:
1. There must be a female listed in the top three actors of the film. I was only interested in
movies that featured at least one female major role. This is to remove a third variable: the possibility
of a relationship between action movie success and having any major female characters at all.
2. No films older than 2000. I was interested in recent data and effect.
3. No animated or family films. Animated and family films tend to have a younger target audience
than other action films, which automatically eliminates them from the category of having sexualized
females on the posters. This may cause imbalance in the data and more unaccounted variables.
4. No foreign films. The measure I used to calculate movie success is the opening weekend box
office in the USA. Films that were more popular in other countries than the US will cause
inconsistencies in the data.
5. And for obvious reasons, no unreleased films or films that do not have US opening week box
office data.
From the 500 most popular action films listed on IMDB, I was able to obtain my pool of 151 qualifying
films for this study. After I have created data pool, I began to classify each movie into one of three groups:
A. Movies that feature no female on the poster.
B. Movies that feature female(s) on the poster in an unsexual way.
C. Movies that feature female(s) on the poster in a sexual way.
Separating movies into categories A and B was straightforward and logical. However, seeing that
“sexual” could be potentially a subjective characteristic, I used a set of criteria to determine whether the
woman on the poster was portrayed as “sexual”. This is to eliminate inconsistencies in personal opinion and
keep the study as unbiased as possible. Qualities that I defined to be “sexual” include:
● Showing cleavage, stomach, back, large portions of the upper leg, shoulders, etc
● Suggestions of nudity or partial nudity
● Tight clothes and poses that obviously enhance outlines of breasts, hips, or butt
Data
Using these criteria, I was able to organize the 151 movies into the three groups. There was a total of
66 movies in Group A (no female), 47 movies in Group B (unsexualized female), and 38 movies in Group C
(sexualized female).
Figure 1: Sample movie posters from each pool
Figure 2: Female Portrayal in Action Movie Posters vs US Opening Weekend Box Office
Figure 3: Female Portrayal in Action Movie Posters vs US Opening Weekend Box Office
Evaluation
When we look at the box office averages, there seems to be only slight deviation across the three
groups. The union of groups B and C ­­ movies that feature any female on the poster ­­ have a 5.67% lower
average box office than Group A. This could be attributed to the fact that top­grossing action stars are
predominantly male and that action films are usually associated with a male action hero, with females often
considered counterparts to the movie. I also noticed that many of the top grossing action films are part of a
franchise, whether it be superheroes (Spider­man, Superman, Batman), Star Trek, or James Bond. For
many of these well known films, the marketers probably do not feel the need to advertise more than their
main actor, since their logo or hero speaks for itself. And thus, films with just a logo or male action star on
the poster may get better box office averages due to these large franchises.
If we analyze the box office medians, however, there is a significant drop for Group B. Group A and C,
on the other hand, are fairly consistent from the overall median. This originally appeared to be an
unexpected finding, but realizing the handicap previously mentioned about the male­dominated action realm,
I compared the data to the union of Group B and C ­­ movies that feature any female on their poster. (The
union group had a 29.36% lower box office median than the overall box office median which, again, shows
that having a female on your action film poster is correlated with lower box office ratings.) Upon comparison,
I saw that Group C’s median is 45.34% higher than the female combined median, while Group B’s
median is 12.81% lower than the female combined median. This shows that having a sexualized
female on your action movie poster is correlated with better box office ratings than that of action movies with
an unsexualized female on its poster.
One explanation for this is in congruence with my original hypothesis: sex sells, and so if the female
was sexy, they have a better chance of being overriding the handicap and becoming “on par” with the box
office of a movie with a no­female poster. It could also be something particular about the action genre that
associates itself with sexy females. Danger, cars, and a dashing male action hero ­­ these all very naturally
lead to the audience expecting some sexual affair with a beautiful woman. In the same vein, it is possible
that having an unsexualized female on the poster may suggest something that the action fan does not want
to see. For example, an unsexualized female may suggest a serious relationship with the hero, which isn’t
something action fans are interested in. A popular action film formula actually involves the death of the
hero’s lover. Action fans usually don’t want to see the hero get tied down by some serious relationship
because they came into the theater expecting to see the hero doing dangerous and exciting things. Action
movies are fast­paced spectacles, and while sex fits right into the formula, romance does not.
Conclusion
My findings show that displaying an unsexualized female on action movie posters is correlated with
lower box office, while displaying a sexualized female is correlated with higher box office, but does not
exceed the box office of action films that do not feature any females on their posters.
Citations
"Most Popular Action Feature Films." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
Paul Messaris’ COMM240 Lecture Notes