They say that saying "I told you so" is a bad character trait, but I feel no guilt about saying it to the legacy media and Hollywood. In fact, it's one of my favorite pastimes.
As I've been pointing out for years — even longer than I've been writing at RedState, which is about a decade — I've been saying that despite the overwhelming narrative that women are done wanting feminine things and are ready to change up gender roles, women still want things women have always wanted. As it turns out, years of attempted reprogramming and a pile of liberal arts degrees doesn't reprogram nature.
Hollywood has become filthy with the "girlboss" trope, and I don't think I have to delve too deep into it for my loyal readers. Suffice to say it's modern culture's attempt to pressure women into divorcing themselves from their femininity and embrace selfishness, power, and more masculine traits while still treating men as creatures worthy of either scorn or, at the very least, kept at arm's length.
Especially over the last handful of years, Hollywood turned the girlbossery up to 11, creating or recreating characters to be less feminine in order to "have it all."
But despite Hollywood's attempts to morph women into something it considers stronger and more worthy — as it views femininity as weakness and in need of fixing — women seem to be less and less interested. Tinseltown is down $8.75 billion, 23 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels. Despite churning out all the "empowerment" a feminist could ask for, women aren't showing up.
But they haven't abandoned escapism, they're just going somewhere else. That somewhere else is a book genre called "romantasy," and it's giving producers and writers obsessed with passing the Bechdel Test headaches.
Romantasy usually combines the fantasy book genre with the romance genre, usually resulting in a fantastical journey of a young woman who is easy to self-insert with for female readers, and falls in love with a masculine male character that holds some sort of high social power or, is very dangerous to everyone but her. These romances often feature damaged love interests, sweeping fantasy backdrops, masculine devotion, and steamy, passionate encounters. The most popular of all of these is, of course, Twilight, but that's old hat.
Thanks to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the romantasy genre has taken off like a rocket. If Hollywood was wondering where it's billions are going, a solid chunk of it is going there.
"BookTok," or the discussion women are having with one another that often centers around the romantasy genre, couldn't stop talking about one series from author Sarah J. Maas titled "A Court of Thorns and Roses" or "ACOTAR," as it's referred to by readers. The series follows a young mortal woman named Feyre, a pretty (but not blowout gorgeous) young woman who has to hunt animals to feed her family. She's illiterate and poor, and emotionally wounded. She kills a wolf who ended up being a "fae" (a supernatural being) and the prince of the fae lands, Tamlin, ends up dragging her to his land to demand retribution. Oh, and he has washboard abs.
What unfolds is a "Beauty and the Beast" type story, but the books don't stop mainlining feminine fantasy there. By book two, a villain named Rhysand ends up being the love interest because, unlike Tamlin, Rhysand isn't domineering but respects her autonomy while also being protective in a "I could burn the entire world for you" way. Also, he's "soul-bonded" to Feyre, because it's a romantasy book. Oh, and he has washboard abs.
Most of my readers probably feel their eyes glazing over, but here’s the point: this is where your daughters, your wives, your girlfriends, and your younger sisters are going for emotional connection. Not Netflix. Not Marvel. Not HBO.
ACOTAR alone sold 4.8 million print copies in 2024 alone. But understand that this isn't new, and women have kept "romance" at the top of the fiction hierarchy for years.
It's a $1.44 billion industry. In fact, the romance genre of books accounted for 33 percent of all mass-market paperback sales.
I think it's safe to say that women are signaling what they really want. They're not interested in Hollywood's tasteless feminist offerings that are so old and tired at this point that it's literally killing the industry. What they want is romance, danger, protective masculinity, and adventure. They want to self-insert and get whisked away by some mystical man with a gravely voice and muscles made of steel.
They don't want to be the masculine character in the room, they want the masculine character to fall for them, and then burn the world for her if she wanted him to, but still emotionally intelligent enough to be vulnerable and devoted. Hollywood wanted women to become the hero, but what women seem to want is a hero who'd choose them.
Also, washboard abs.
