Recently, Disney has seemingly been pushing to gain a female audience for Marvel and Star Wars. Contrary to some narratives spun by the media, the audiences for both franchises skew male and older.
Of course, this does not mean that women don’t enjoy these franchises, but they are not the main demographic, and in attempts to force change, Disney could be hurting the brands completely.
According to The Wrap, both Marvel and Star Wars fans are more male-identifying, with Star Wars being even more so than Marvel at a 70% male audience share. Plus, over 60% of the audience for both franchises comprises people over the age of 30.
Marvel has only three instances of female-dominating audiences, and those were for “Agent Carter,” “Jessica Jones,” and “Loki.” The first two were before Disney tried to produce their own shows for Disney+, and the latter had a character/actor that many women thought was hot.
The Wrap has this Parrot Analytics Audience Solutions chart that breaks down the demographic.
Star Wars has no female-dominating shows or films. The closest they get is “The Mandalorian,” and that is likely because Grogu was so cute!
Marvel is faring better with women and younger people than Star Wars.
Now, this does not mean that women or younger people do not enjoy either franchise. There are many that do, but they are not the biggest market. Nor has that improved with each attempt Disney has made to change it.
In an attempt to change the demographic, Disney is alienating its core fan base. It does not help them that the media and social media push paint those who do not like the new direction as “bigots,” “racists,” “misogynists,” “toxic,” “toxic male,” “white male,” etc.
Yet, when a movie with a strong male demographic is made with a predominantly female cast, like “The Marvels” or “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the audience is still mostly men. It isn’t fixing anything, but the narrative is hurting goodwill with the fan base. No one is going to put up with being unfairly called horrible things like “bigot” and “racist” for too long before they leave.
That is exactly what is happening. More and more of the fans Marvel and Star Wars have counted on for years are turning away and taking their money with them. Maybe when they leave it will skew the way some people want it to, but that doesn’t mean there will be a large enough audience to support it.
If the goal is to destroy the franchise, then by all means, continue these trends, but if Disney wants to reverse course, it will need to cater to the actual market and learn what makes these franchises popular to begin with.
That is what this female long-time “Star Wars” and “Marvel” fan thinks.
Source: The Wrap
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