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Female gender stereotypes in media
Female gender stereotypes in media
Sexism in films
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We all know superheroes like Batman, Superman, and Spiderman, but what about female superheroes? In movies, women are usually damsels in distress, princesses, or the classic manic pixie dream girl. It is rare to see a woman play the leading role of an action movie, let alone a superhero movie. This stereotype of women being weak is what keeps women’s roles in society fixed. Movie producers and writers in Hollywood assume that they won’t profit if they have more women in leading roles. I believe that if more movies showed women in important roles, it would lead to more people seeing how strong women can be and it can also influence women and young girls to have more role models. By giving more women leading roles, it can change how they are perceived in society. …show more content…
In movies aimed towards kids, only 17% of roles are held by females (Bruni 31). This small percentage doesn’t give young girls much to look up to. Bruni discusses how Wonder Woman won’t have her own movie, but instead star in a movie alongside Superman and Batman. This is such a disappointment because roles for women are lagging in action movies and especially superhero movies. Hollywood decided to stray away from women superhero movies after seeing movies like “Elektra,” “Supergirl,” and “Catwoman” flop in the box office (Bruni 31). If a movie with a woman in the leading role does do well, it is seen merely as a stroke of
Modern day superheroes still reflect the misogynistic and chauvinist society in which they were first created and this will be argued with reference to two of the films studied.
In the first paragraph of Laurie Penny’s essay “What to do when you’re not the hero anymore” she tells the reader how she recently went to see the new Star Wars movie. To her surprise a female character, Rey, fought off a bad guy as an equal. Hollywood has incredible power in how messages are portrayed in books, TV shows, and movies. It is no secret that media representation normalizes the reality of white male power. Penny explores how it is becoming more common to see a women lead in books, movies, and TV shows, rather than the stereotypical male.
We are currently living in the Golden Age of Superheroes. They dominate our cultural life, and have become seemingly permanent fixtures in modern media. Since X-Men burst onto the screen fifteen years ago, we have witnessed the release of over forty superhero movies. By 2020 we will have seen the release of more than twenty-five more. Today, the much anticipated film Superman vs. Batman has come to theaters. Though a plethora of superhero movies have been released, it is to the dissatisfaction of many, having long been exhausted by the stories of the Hulk, Batman, and Spider-man. Although I must agree that it is quite easy to get bored with the constant action, and flashing colors of these films, if one looks deep enough into the story they will discover universal themes and metaphors. Though they may be fighting off alien invasions, these heroes are also battling with their personal challenges, challenges which we can
Women aren’t represented as incompetent, but rather as limited. In “The Woman Precedent Female (Super) Heroism on Trial”, Julie O’Reilly analyzes the distinctions between the ways male and female superheroes are “put to the test” in narratives. She also describes how male superheroes are the ones who are accepted into the world of fighting and protecting against evil; while the females have to go through much more than males in order to be recognized for their efforts. “What really is on trial, then, is a female superhero’s ability to be a fully recognized subject” (O’Reilly 452). The “heroine in her own right” should be acknowledged just like how male superheroes are recognized. Female superheroes deserve the right of being able to do just as much, and possibly even more, than a male superhero can and they should be given the appreciation as well as the acknowledgment that they rightfully deserve. For example, one book written by Stieg Larsson called “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” depicts the life of a very strong female protagonist. The literature illustrates two people who are trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of a young girl in the 1940’s but the woman isn't getting much credit or motivation as the other characters.
Since many of the roles are given to white actresses, actresses of color are underrepresented in the industry. Only six out of the top 500 box office films feature a woman of color as their protagonist, none which are at the top 200. This only leaves it to around 1% of the protagonist to be a woman of color. As we head towards a better society, more and more examples of media that challenge these statements are being created.
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
The conflict theory in this case discusses the lack of resources that are down to nearly nothing and about how the lower classes are having to constantly compete for them. It shows you how the poor are controlled by the rich. The film “Waiting for Superman” takes a closer look into the public school systems around the United States from the poorest of the poor all the way over to the suburbs. The parents of these students are obviously sending their children to school with the high hopes that they are going to excel academically, but the reality of it is that most of the children that are either born into or somehow end up in a position of poverty end up either dropping out rather than graduating. The upper class will place their children into schools where they are offered quality education. With the way that our nation is growing, I am confident in being able to say that the gap will only expand and the poor will continue to suffer in the educational department as well as others. While the lower class students in public school are failing and dropping out, the upper class students are too busy bettering their future. Our country states that “every child has a dream”, and that “no child will be left behind”. How true is that claim exactly? Yes, it is true that every child has a dream, but how many children are being left behind because they are stuck in poverty? There was one scene in the movie where the charter schools had to draw numbers just to give a child a chance at a better education. That is highly disturbing that a child has to suffer through something as humiliating as that. Our public system does not encourage academic growth, it hampers it. Over the years a lot of money has been put into trying to fix our public schoo...
A sweeping and more positive change would only be likely to occur if more women were behind the cameras and behind the images that are being portrayed. It would modify the entire perspective because it would no longer be male-oriented and male-dominated and it would create an environment in which womanhood would define themselves in relation to themselves and not toward men only. It would convert the case of them being the vehicles of representation and less the case of them being represented (that is being behind the cameras) which would give them more power to control what is on the screen and thus greater power to control and shape the audience’ views on women and how they should be treated. The most harmful issue is that by triggering women to have very low self-esteem and be continually unconfident
Some people might say that these movies provide entertainment and transport families into the lives of princes and princesses. Many critics have said that the films have amazing soundtracks and have detailed and interesting plots. Still, however entertaining the films may be, the way women are viewed and treated outweigh any enjoyment that a viewer could have. The subliminal lessons young women learn from these films have lifelong repercussions and negatively affect the female
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and many other Disney movies all have one thing in common, they feature a female lead who needs a male figure to save them. However, things started to change after the release of Mulan in 1988. Movies that were only representing female leads as weak and always needed to rely on someone, started to feature females who showed off their more masculine side. Mulan was one of the first animated films that had started to dive into that, not to mention it was based on a true story, making it even more powerful. In the article “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Pixar/Disney”, authors Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden explore Pixar movies show male characters who were not afraid to show their emotions
Disney has portrayed women in movies by the use of animation characters for over a century since the 1900s. There has been a very big change since the early 1900’s to modern day in Disney’s depiction of the personalities of the women, their attitudes and ideologies towards men, and the way they are portrayed in the movies. This progression has had a distinct development, from passive damsels in distress in need of the help of men, to being superheroes. Therefore, the evolution of women in Disney movies will be analyzed through the use of university level feminist essays, as well as a research paper written about gender roles in Disney animation. The evolution will also be analyzed through examination of the clips of the movies themselves.
Disney movies have a very narrow view of what women should be like. Since the arrival of the first Disney movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the idea of it has expanded, but rather marginally. There is a clear distinction of what a young women should be and what she shouldn’t be. Those who do not fit the mold of Disney’s expectations are cast aside to become villains, but those who do, end up becoming the damsel in distress. Ultimately, these stereotypes are what influences young girls who watch these films, and can have devastating effects on their self worth and change their idea of what it means to be a women. Films like Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
A number of popular television shows and films filling mainstream media today have taken a spin to promote women to main character roles of power and command. The traits of these female characters, however, become illusionary as plots thicken to reveal their status to be subordinate to leading male character roles; of which are typically controlling or manipulative over gender stereotypic female traits within the script. While media is being blindly applauded for their newfound glorification of women in power, there remains an underlying message of male supremacy in more than many broadcasted portrayals. Today’s mainstream television media delivers a notion that only a man can pave way for the merit of a woman.
Among the highest-grossing movies of all time are numerous landmark films, such as Titanic, Avatar, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Taking their place alongside these cultural touchstones are mammoth blockbusters of a new breed: action-packed superhero epics. Each year, the number of superhero movies due for release seems to grow exponentially. One glance at a list of upcoming movies for this year reveals that the box office is absolutely saturated with superhero films. Some highly-anticipated installments feature heroes already well-acquainted with the big screen, such as Captain America and the X-Men, while others are introducing relatively unfamiliar characters to contemporary movie-going audiences, as in the cases of Doctor Strange and
Women have made progress in the film industry in terms of the type of role they play in action films, although they are still portrayed as sex objects. The beginning of “a new type of female character” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 1). 41-47) in the world of action films began in 1976 with Sigourney Weaver, who played the leading role in the blockbuster film ‘Aliens’ as Lt. Ellen Ripley. She was the captain of her own spaceship, plus she was the one who gave out all the orders. Until then, men had always been the ones giving the orders; to see a woman in that type of role was outlandish.