In light of the new Ocean’s 8 trailer released this week, I thought I’d take a look at what is quickly becoming a new trend in Hollywood: gender-flipping film franchises. With one already released, two more coming in the next few months and many in development, it seems as though the industry is sticking hard and fast to this new formula that adds to franchises, but in a different way to the tiring sequels of recent years. There is a lot of debate around the merit of doing this; some arguments seem fair and valid, others just seem anti-woman and rail against the ‘current fad’ of female led films (newsflash: women only accounted for 37% of speaking roles in 2017 cinema, and we have had many, many years of purely male-lead films). The question really boils down to what the artistic advantages are of taking these films and flipping the gender of their leads as opposed to creating separate, original franchises to star women.

One of the main arguments for gender-flipping hinges on the idea that men and women have inherent differences, and thus, even if put in the same situation, the dynamics and results could be wildly different (albeit successful pre-production gender swaps of the past – a la Ripley – have also proven this isn’t always the case). An all-male group and an all-female group would likely have differing approaches to a bank heist, for example, so two films essentially covering the same concept could actually act as a slight commentary on the difference between the genders. However, that idea relies on the fact that these films be grounded in some sense of reality, which slick Hollywood heist films rarely are. These are generally made for fun and entertainment, and thus include some aspects that are larger-than-life, and, with a female spin being an afterthought, there isn’t a through line of a conscious comparison between the two genders. Alternately, taking Ocean’s as an example, perhaps the upcoming gender-flip is really for the female crowds who would enjoy seeing someone like them up on the screen pulling off an elaborate heist. Whilst it is perfectly easy to relate to and enjoy a film starring people who don’t look like you, having someone to relate to more in that sense can add an extra edge. These films, which seem to simply take the concept of the original, are perhaps only really tied to the franchise by name, perhaps to avoid doing it separately but then being derided for being a copy of the male-dominated predecessor. Instead, by wearing their inspiration on their sleeves, they acknowledge the similarities themselves, warding off that criticism, but also, perhaps, use the name as almost purely a marketing tool to attract attention.

These new gender-flipped films aren’t only taking the premise of all-male stories and spinning them off into a female led film, some are standing as actual remakes as opposed to spin-offs. Whilst Ghostbusters and Ocean’s 8 are simply taking the concept from their originals, other upcoming projects, such as a new Overboard and Splash, are remaking their source material, but with the characters’ genders switched. These films (intentionally?) leave themselves open to more direct comparison with their predecessors, and are arguably aiming more towards highlighting the different attributes of the genders in directly swapping them to explore the consequences. This is a very different beast to the concept spin-offs as it is directly lifting a story, as opposed to taking inspiration from it. This, arguably, leads to more pressure as it clearly has such close ties to something people love. Some of these proposed remakes, however, seem to make little sense. For example, there is a Lord of the Flies all-female remake in the works that, whilst being the most potent tale to explore gender differences, will likely lose a huge amount of its dramatic pull. The point of that tale is to explore toxic masculinity. A female version would go completely differently (the plot would not occur in even a remotely similar vein), so unless they are completely changing the entire story, the film would make no sense and defeat the entire point of William Golding’s classic (it doesn’t especially inspire faith that the film is also going to be written by two men). It makes no sense.

Other than failing to navigate past the stories it would be nonsensical to adapt, the other main issue the industry faces is the backlash when they try to touch the ‘untouchable’, ‘sacred’, beloved cult films. This was especially prevalent after the announcement for Ghostbusters. Whilst a large amount of the backlash for that film came from woman-haters, a fair portion was from fans who riled against anything trying to remake the comedy classic, female or not. As someone generally against unnecessary sequels/remakes, I wasn’t especially for the reboot (especially not after the poor trailers), but not at all for the reason of putting women in the role, purely for the fact that it wasn’t needed and would be unlikely to reach the lofty heights of the original in the general zeitgeist. Looking back, it was an interesting experiment, but an unnecessary one, which had the tricky job from the start in fighting an uphill battle against sexist bigots, Reitman loyalists, and a behemoth of an original. This kind of ‘remaking the classics’ pales in comparison to the suggestions of changing the gender of iconic characters (not merely taking the premise). Most notably this notion has been kicked around in the conversation surrounding who will be the next to play James Bond, with some suggesting it could be a woman. Now, I’m all for the new female Doctor Who (I haven’t watched the show since I was little, but with the limited knowledge I have that the Doctor is a shape-shifting alien, it seems bizarre that all 12/13 so far have been white men), but I disagree with switching the gender of Bond, Indiana Jones or others. These are established characters which, in Bond’s case at least, may change actor, but maintain the same history and broad characteristics. Changing the gender would change the entire composition of the world and franchise and turn it into something completely different, not the extreme transformation that we need or want from beloved, decades-spanning franchise. Whilst, yes, I agree that Bond still needs to get a bit with the times in terms of its treatment of women (it has improved, but could still go further), I disagree with making him a woman. Instead, give us our own female spy. Create us our own characters and heroes to love, not the controversial PC-laden hand-me-down of a literary and cinematic icon.

This leads me to my final point. Whilst all of these gender-flips are interesting, we deserve and need our own original characters and stories (and not purely for cinematic variety’s sake). This surge in gender swapping seems to be an instinctive and unimaginative kickback against the still extremely poor representation of women in Hollywood, and still further feeds into the ridiculous notion that women could not open or lead a film or franchise on their own, without having the foundation of a male-led original to stand on. What is also amusingly ridiculous is the fact that as the film industry has been so ridiculously male dominated for so long, some of these films and concepts could have been released with female leads originally if * gasp * studios could have handled such a risky and ridiculous notion (or, at least, if there were more Ridley Scotts making the decisions). It seems to be a lazy way to up the statistics and give women more representation on screen. Whilst I’m all for some of these gender-switched spin-offs and remakes, this shouldn’t just become the new trend that makes up for the low output for women in cinema. This is not the way to solve the problem. Give us our own stories and worlds; women don’t need the past success of men in order to open their own film. We deserve our own icons and original concepts just as much as the boys, and hopefully the current glacial pace will pick up to do just that.

I’m excited for Ocean’s 8 (just look at that cast of awesome women), and some of the other proposed gender-flipped films sound interesting (others really don’t). However, Hollywood needs to be looking elsewhere too, to find the interesting roles for women we need on screen (and off screen).