The Ugly Truth, a film which was released in 2009, displays many particular stereotypes and gender issues which we find within American society. Gender is made up of socially constructed ideas which are reinforced by society in regards to what it means to be masculine or feminine. We first learn gender from our parents; however they too had to first learn it from their families and society. Within the American society, the media takes on a large role in creating gender norms. The media is made up of films, magazines, television programs, and news papers. The Ugly Truth, although a funny film, perpetuates these stereotypes and ideas of gender provided by our society.
Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl, are two very famous stars who represent America’s acting industry as two of the most highly regarded feminine and masculine actors. Both are thought to represent femininity and masculinity and very. It comes as no surprise that these two characters were chosen to play the parts of Abby and Michael within The Ugly Truth. The Ugly Truth displays a lot of stereotypes of men and women or what is expected to be masculine and feminine. According to Gendered Live: Communication, Gender, and Culture by Julia Wood, “A stereotype is a generalization about an entire class of phenomena based on some knowledge of some members of the class” (Wood, 2011, 122). Stereotypes can cause a lot of problems in society if individuals don’t fit the particular mold or idea of what it means to be feminine or masculine. Within The Ugly Truth, the first stereotype which arises is that women in powerful roles cannot have a relationship (Luketic, 2009). As an example, this particular stereotype causes a large amount of trouble for Abby when she takes to...
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...on. Communication Research Reports, 26(4), 271-284. doi:10.1080/08824090903293551
Emmers-Sommer, T. M., Farrell, J., Gentry, A., Stevens, S., Eckstein, J., Battocletti, J., & Gardener, C. (2010). First date sexual expectations: the effects of who asked, who paid, date location, and gender. Communication Studies, 61(3), 339-355. doi:10.1080/1051097100375267
Lester, P. M., & Ross, S. D. (2003). Images that injure, pictorial stereotypes in the media. (2nd ed., pp. 1-336). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Luketic, R. (Director) (2009). The ugly truth [DVD].
Tragros, P. (2009). Monster masculinity: Honey, i'll be in the garage reasserting my manhood. Journal Of Popular Culture, 42(3), 541-553. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2009.00695.x
Wood, J. T. (2011). Gendered lives: Communication, gender, and culture. (9th ed ed., pp. 1-227). Boston,MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Steffen’s article, “Gender Stereotypes Stem From the Distribution of Women and Men Into Social Roles”. In this article, they discuss the root of gender stereotypes being derived from the unequal distribution of roles for men and women in society. They believe too many women are left to be “homemakers” while men become professionals. This is evident in Survivors as the show chooses to have Abby take on this maternal role. This unequal distribution of roles then, in turn, leads to men and women being labeled with certain qualities. According to Steffen and Eagly, women are believed to have communal qualities, or “manifested by selflessness, concern with others, and a desire to be at one with others”, and men agentic qualities or, “self-assertion, self-expansion, and the urge to master” (Eagly, Steffen 736). Abby epitomizes this desire to help others and selfness, while the surrounding men are less likely to trust others by questioning the actions of other men in the
The usage of media is huge in nowadays. People rely on different kinds of media to receive information in their everyday life because they are thirsty for the diverse and informative content. However, inaccurate portrayals of people from different races always appear in the media and audience will exaggerate those portrayals by their inflexible beliefs and expectations about the characteristics or behaviors of the portrayals’ cultural groups without considering individual variation (Ting-Toomey and Chung, 2012); in fact, it is also called as stereotypes. According to a study by the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University (Stein, 2012), racial stereotyping continues to occur in media and the mainstream media's coverage of different cultural groups is full of biased reporting, offensive terminology and old stereotypes of American society. It specifically emphasizes that majority of the stereotyped characters in media will only bring out the dark side of their cultural groups which many of them might not be true, especially for the portrayals of black community: African American.
For many years, racial and ethnic stereotypes have been portrayed on multiple television programs. These stereotypes are still illustrated on a day-to-day basis even though times have changed. Racial or ethnic stereotypes should not be perpetuated on certain television programs. These stereotypes provide false information about groups, do not account for every person, allow older generations to influence younger generations, create tension between groups, and affect people in many ways.
helping. Television is making the shows out to seem like one race is better than another. For
...only accepted stereotypes are not based in reality at all, and that these stereotypes are harmful to everyone, not just the victims of being typecast. This conclusion is correct in all senses. Judy Mann’s book shows that the only real difference between men and women are their reproductive organs (24). Many professionals support this fact, but not society. Bernard Lefkowitz’s retelling of what happened to the young girl in Glen Ridge, New Jersey shows that believing that women are inferior can have terrifying repercussions. Society’s perception of people and the practice of labeling based on gender must be eliminated in order for women and men to live equally. These books simply help to make more people aware of the problem, which is only part of the solution.
Wood, J. T. (2013). Gendered lives: communication, gender & and culture (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
The documentary Miss Representation identifies the numerous ways women are misrepresented in the media, including in news, advertisements, movies, and television. The title Miss Representation emphasizes that the way we portray women in the media is a misrepresentation, as in it does not do women justice and oftentimes, has a negative impact on the perception of women. Frequently in the media, women lack leading roles and complexity, are held to an unrealistic standard of beauty, and are subject to objectification and beautification (Newsom, 2011). These misrepresentations lay the groundwork for gender socialization, and therefore, shape how women perceive themselves and are perceived by others.
A wise man once said that “music and its videos is as powerful as any medicine” and I solely believe that. In the status quo, people are starting to believe that music has taken a turn for the worst. They believe that music (specifically Hip-Hop) is all about rappers flashing their money, women, drug, and cars. People have let those bad apple videos stereotype all of Hip-Hop, but what they don’t know is that they are not looking deep enough for those rappers that rap about social and political issue. One video I always bring up is Reagan by Killer Mike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU.
The film Missrepresentation, by Jennifer Newsom, is about the underrepresentation of women by the media (2011). The film challenges the viewpoints of media that are constantly depicting females as to being dependent on males. Furthermore, even when females are displayed as lead characters, the plot will ensure that their life’s will surround the life of a male. Examples of these include, a lead female falling in love with her “prince charming” as he saved her from great dangers. We rarely see a female character saving a male in the media (2011). According to the film the media continues to encourage the ideology that a women’s power is associated with her youth, beauty and sexuality, instead of her knowledge and intelligence (2011). The film also provides starling statistics, for instance by the age to 18 78% of females are unhappy with how the look. Also of the 8 million people with eating disord...
Stereotypes In the Media Stereotypes play an important role in today's society and particularly in propaganda. According to the Webster's Dictionary, stereotyping is defined as a fixed conventional notion or conception of an individual or group of people, held by a number of people. Stereotypes can be basic or complex generalizations which people apply to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behaviour and beliefs. Stereotypes are found everywhere in the world. Though our world seems to be improving in many ways, it seems almost impossible to liberate it from stereotypes.
Lester, Paul M., ed. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1996.
Gender stereotypes and biasses exist in media. In most situations, women are associated with more negative stereotypes and their portrayals can “undermine their presence by being “hyper-attractive” or “hyper-sexual” and/or passive” (Smith, 2008). In The Wolf of Wall Street women are objectified. They are treated
Gender stereotyping has been ongoing throughout history. The media has been distorting views by representing gender unrealistically and inaccurately. It created an image of what "masculinity" or "femininity" should be like and this leads to the image being "naturalized" in a way (Gail and Humez 2014). The media also attempts to shape their viewers into something ‘desirable’ to the norm. This essay will focus on the negative impacts of gender-related media stereotypes by looking at the pressures the media sets on both women and men, and also considering the impacts on children.
Kendal, Diana. "Sex and Gender." Sociology in Our Times 3.Ed. Joanna Cotton. Scarborough: Nelson Thomson, 2004. 339-367
Kessler, Suzanne J, and McKenna. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.