Are you subscribed to Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and Hannah Hart on YouTube? You really should be, because these three ladies are taking over the world of online entertainment, one video at a time. By the way, I’ve already covered two thirds of this Trinity in Web Crush posts, so don’t try to pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about. Their latest venture is a full-blown movie called Camp Takota!
Look, it even has an IMDb page and everything.
The ladies announced the movie at this year’s Vidcon, and the internet has been buzzing with excitement ever since. If you don’t believe me, check out the Camp Takota tag on tumblr to see how many people are promoting the movie and following production updates. This has a lot of people excited and I think I know why.
Beyond the fact that these three comedians are extremely popular on YouTube, I think people are excited to see more women headlining a comedy. As a genre, comedy hasn’t been particularly welcoming to female performers but that view is slowly changing. In mainstream media, movies like The Heat are exciting for this reason. Probably the first female “Buddy Cop Movie”, it did extremely well at the box office and showed that audiences can embrace women leading more than just “chick flicks”. Female comedians are found on Comedy Central almost as often as males, and in the world of online entertainment, YouTube has become a great place for funny women to grow an audience. I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention the most successful of these YouTube comedians, Jenna Marbles, who is one of the most subscribed YouTubers of any genre. Yes, she has put out problematic content from a feminist standpoint (especially that slut-shaming rant), but for better or worse I can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist in/currently dominate this field.
It’s heartening to see women making a name for themselves in the world of comedy and taking on bigger projects in the field. It means that the public’s perception of women is changing, however slowly, because success in comedy is so dependent upon an audience embracing the performer. If audiences are embracing women in comedy, it hopefully means they’re willing to embrace women in other typically male roles, like action hero or multi-dimensional protagonist. Or President, whoops, who said that?
While Camp Takota still has quite a way to go before it can be enjoyed by the masses (filming just began last week), we can still follow updates on the movie’s official site or by subscribing to Grace’s channel (Seriously, why haven’t you done that yet? How many times do I have to tell you that she’s awesome?) because she’s posting daily vlogs as the cast goes into production. Unfortunately she’s been very good at keeping the plot under wraps, though, so there’s still not much known about the movie’s actual story. That won’t keep other fans and me from following every update, though, and I hope you’ll join us!
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 