Why can't guys watch a show starring a girl?

Because of the patriarchy! BECAUSE OF THE PATRIARCHY, MAN!!

@dbvse7:

female vs male/ female vs female fight scenes in animes are horrendously boring. they are an embarassment to fight scenes.

they just don't have the same intensity as a male vs male fight.

I can

I usually don't watch shows with female leads. If I do, they have to be really good fighters. The ones I have liked are.....

Claymore

ummm can't think of any others

Of current shows: I watch Homeland (Showtime) and Madam Secretary (CBS). Homeland is probably my favorite show. Hope to add Supergirl (CBS) and A.K.A. Jessica Jones (Netflix) to the rotation. Its hit or miss really just like with any other show. Agent Carter was one I thought I'd like, but ended up not liking.

You can watch as many "girls shows" as you want, nobody's going to stop you. I love Powerpuff Girls, always have.

What?

Generalizing much.

I don't think you can't watch movies/series/comics were the star is of the opposite gender. We tend to prefer our own for obvious reasons but saying you can't or you can't be interested is plain trolling.

For example I have been following Wonder Woman since Greg Rucka's run.

@delphic: Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie were my favorite shows at a kid. I'd get up at 6:00 AM every morning to watch them in syndication.

Typically, young boys have trouble relating to women, and so they don't watch shows starring female leads or play games that feature them. Action based stories usually draw a predominantly male audience and so, it's more reliable (think profitable) to have a male lead. There was a discussion recently as to why there was so little Black Widow merchandise with the release of Avengers II. The truth of the matter is that it doesn't sell as well. Action isn't marketed to women and for the few films that are, they don't make up a great enough share to motivate studios and toy companies to create more. Boys understand what being a boy is and girls are an unknown quantity and the relationships between the sexes invites muddled, conflicting emotions. That's probably one of the reasons why an element of the audience who saw Avengers II rejected the Banner/Romanov story. It makes something simple more complex and that's something some boys (and men) just don't want to deal with.

As for me, I grew up watching every episode of Wonder Woman, The Secrets of Isis, and the Bionic Woman, so I've been into female lead shows all my life.

Who said they can't?

I been watchin' Buffy for a minute.

Powerpuff girls

Victorious

Buffy

Charmed

Zena

Orange is the new black

I never hear anyone complaining about these shows

Kind of a generalization but I'll play along. I can't speak for those you got this assumption from, but I do. I like iZombie and I actually thought that the Supergirl pilot was pretty decent.

Says who? I've watched Girlfriends and Charmed.

I'm a grown man who loves Lucky Star. Sue me

Because the guys you know are a mere drop in the ocean.

I watch shows with female leads all the time. My three boys watch shows with female leads all the time. I'm going to guess that all the guys you know are between 11-24 and probably on the younger side of that. They will either get over it or you will get over them.

Edit: Of course there are always older guys like my father in law who does the whole "I'm a macho former navy seal" thing. People are just weird about gender identity, in the 1950s remember that the idea of a guy dressing as a girl was so disturbing that many british comedies where it was commonplace were banned by local ordinances.

Bullocks!

Without Phil the show wouldn't be worth a damn :P

@superadam That would be because shows targeting women tend to cast women, and shows targeting men tend to cast men.

Intended audience comes before casting.

As for your examples:
The wizard of oz is a musical (which has a lot more weight in the shift than the lead, even Sweeney Tod doesn't sit well with me because of singing)

Wonder Woman was latched onto by the feminist movement (well part of it, either way, casuals see her as the only real female superhero) and why would they ignore an audience that throws money at them?

power puff girls had stiff competition form shows like spider-man, yu-gi-oh, and Dexter's lab which were all very male-oriented, AND they were competing with pokemon and digimon in their prime for shows that were for both genders, so it fell into it's own niche (action show for girls).

Pretty sure OP has been proven wrong by now.

I like Agent Carter. I loved Buffy as a kid.

To be fair, most shows on TV suck.

Buffy, Fringe, Penny Dreadful, and iZombie are all great shows with female protagonists.

Lets see. If there is a show starring a women as an awesome lead character, how many girls will go see this instead of the guy equivalent? Same goes for guys.

They want to see someone they can physically identify with.

I watch shows starring girls all the time....

I watch some shows with female leads (SVU, Parks and Rec) but this is a simple truth sort of.

Shows like Supergirl seem to be too obsessed with the fact that they are focusing on a girl rather than a guy that they can't get the story right.

@americanspeeddemon said:

i like Buffy

Agent Carter

Charmed

Fringe

Once Upon a Time (Though i gave up on it)

Yeah!

Yep.

It don't matter to me. if the show is good, it's good.

All of the people saying they all suck are trolling

~MiB

@penguindust: Typically, young boys have trouble relating to women, and so they don't watch shows starring female leads or play games that feature them

This theory was blown out of the water the second Legend of Korra came out.

I feel like most female-led shows are usually geared towards women specifically. Pretty Little Liars, for example. Tried to watch that with my ex before. Totally a chick show. Every major character is a woman yet the dudes are essentially underdeveloped, terrible love interests. It's the complete reversal of low level dude entertainment. There's nothing intrinsically "wrong" with that but what character am I supposed to relate to when the strongest character in the show is mad at blank because blank kissed so and so, and what's-his-name found out so what's her name can't go to the dance .___.

At least 95% of shows/movies have been reduced to "guy" stuff and "girl" stuff. Everything is pink or blue still. Too much gender specific.

@extremis: So, one example of a mediocre teen drama = 95% of all shows are gender specified?

I forgot about this show. I watch it also. Nice that the release date for the last season finally came out.

I personally watched the whole series of Charmed because my wife started it. I actually started diggin' it as the show progressed. Plus Alyssa Milano. Also, just watched the Supergirl pilot that CBS leaked. I'm looking more forward to that now than I was before! Though Jimmy Olsen being suave still feels absolutely weird.

Anywho, a good show is a good show no matter if it's a male or female lead... I guess that is the criteria? The lead role? Or is it lead role+girly content? I have watched Legally Blonde 1 and 2 with my wife. Those aren't horrendous, just girly, but not bad really. Oh, and there are some pretty decent Nora Roberts movies that were adapted to film that I have seen that were pretty good.

Actually, the series ratings dropped over the course of its airing and the show was pulled entirely during the third season due to low ratings. The fourth season aired online only.

[The] series, which saw ratings decline from its 3.7M/week average in Book One by almost 30%. In addition, the premiere of Book One - 4.55M - was the highest rated for that book before ratings fell to 3.613M/week for its remainder, about a 20% decline. If that decline extrapolates out to Book Two, ratings would tumble to 2.08M/week, with the potential for episodes to drop under 2M. Not good numbers for a major cable network.

By October 2013 ratings had dropped to 1.9M/week and by the summer of 2014, the show had dropped to 1.5M/week, thus instigating Nickelodeons move.

The [third] season premiered with 1.5 million viewers.^[40] After declining TV ratings in the third season, Nickelodeon stopped airing the series on television and shifted its distribution to online outlets, where the show had proven to be much more successful.

The series would use this shift to explore non-traditional plot points, which may have been a good thing as far as storytelling goes, but that does not negate the reality that following its premiere, viewership waned to the point where the fan base was concerned about cancellation.

@penguindust: Actually, the series ratings dropped over the course of its airing and the show was pulled entirely during the third season due to low ratings. The fourth season aired online only.

Holy crap! Series lose viewers by the third season! That's... completely expected. Not to mention most of that's because of LoK's very quick production and advertising cycle as stated in that very article.

By October 2013 ratings had dropped to 1.9M/week and by the summer of 2014, the show had dropped to 1.5M/week, thus instigating Nickelodeons move.The series would use this shift to explore non-traditional plot points, which may have been a good thing as far as storytelling goes, but that does not negate the reality that following its premiere, viewership waned to the point where the fan base was concerned about cancellation.

And that waning viewership had nothing to do with the fact that LoK's accelerated schedule and little advertisement break for the series, it's divided second season, it's very dark subject matter for a kids television channel (even compared to TLA) and a large amount of it's fanbase moving online and less time on the TV. Nope, it's all because the main character is a girl.

But that had more to do with the fact that TOK had just came off of a particularly bad second season which caused alot of people ( both boys and girls) to lose taste for korra as a character.

Hyperbole bro

Because it's not a manly thing to do, but I personally don't care. These types of arguments are always about shows starring white males vs shows starring white females. I'm getting bored of it.

I Love Lucy is the longest running show so.....

Coulson and the Asian thing are the only reasons why I watch the show.

@makhai: yup)