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The Hunger Games using feminist criticism
Film and gender roles
Gender roles in american popular culture
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Recommended: The Hunger Games using feminist criticism
Gender roles play an important function in almost everything. Countless examples of this can be seen in popular culture, which is heavily influenced by gender roles and the media. One form of media that is greatly impacted are films; gender in films rarely goes against the standard. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of gender divide in movies. Less than a quarter of films surveyed by UNWomen and Rockefeller Foundation found (23.3 percent) had a female lead or co-lead (Chemaly). However, in the past few years, there has been an increase in female lead film franchises. Recent examples of this have been increasingly entering popular culture like movies including The Hunger Games, Divergent, and the Twilight series. The first movie bringing in
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
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
This quote explains, how gender roles are portrayed to people all over the world, many people are concerned about their sexuality and question it at times because they think that they don’t meet the masculinity or femininity standards of society. This has gone on for many years and these stereotypes and doubts about one 's self need to stop. Not only are we bringing ourselves down but also educating young children with our uncertainty about our “gender roles” when in reality there are none. Children are learning about gender roles at a young age, making them feel like they are not “masculine” or “feminine” enough for society to accept them as they are. Men and women are equal in all aspects however not all people think the same way and unfortunately
Smith, Jeff, and Chloe Beighley. "Normalizing Male Dominance: Gender Representation in 2012 Films." Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy. N.p., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Popular music in the United States throughout the decades have always consisted of different genres of music and during the late 70’s and early 80’s, many of the popular bands consisted of only male artists and members. In an era dominated by male artists, Fleetwood Mac featured their lead female singer Stevie Nicks, who went on to transcend the gender expectations of the time and pursue a solo career in the midst of heavy adversity. Fleetwood Mac’s lead singer, Stevie Nicks, is a prime example of the evolution female artists have endured as they struggled to gain equal footing in this male dominated industry. This essay will examine the different factors contributing to Stevie Nicks’s popularity, along with her breaking these normative masculine roles and the way she combined different genres and personal
Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Girls are supposed to play with dolls, wear pink, and grow up to become princesses. Boys are suppose to play with cars, wear blue, and become firefighters and policemen. These are just some of the common gender stereotypes that children grow up to hear. Interactions with toys are one of the entryway to different aspects of cognitive development and socialism in early childhood. As children move through development they begin to develop different gender roles and gender stereotypes that are influenced by their peers and caregivers. (Chick, Heilman-Houser, & Hunter, 2002; Freeman, 2007; Leaper, 2000)
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
The female gender role in society has created a torturous fate for those who have failed in their role as a woman, whether as a mother, a daughter, or a wife. The restrictive nature of the role that society imposes on women causes extreme repercussions for those women who cannot fulfill their purpose as designated by society. These repercussions can be as common as being reprimanded or as severe as being berated or beaten by a husband or father. The role that women were given by society entails being a submissive homemaker who dotes on her husband and many children. The wife keeps the home impeccably neat, tends to the children and ensures their education and well-being, and acts obsequiously to do everything possible to please her husband. She must be cheerful and sweet and pretty, like a dainty little doll. The perfect woman in the eyes of society is exactly like a doll: she always smiles, always looks her best and has no feelings or opinions that she can truly call her own. She responds only to the demands of her husband and does not act or speak out of turn. A woman who speaks her mind or challenges the word of any man, especially her husband, is undesirable because she is not the obedient little doll that men cherish. Women who do not conform to the rules that society has set for them are downgraded to the only feature that differentiates them from men; their sex. Society’s women do not speak or think of sex unless their husband requires it of them. But when a woman fails to be the doll that a man desires, she is worth nothing more than a cheap sex object and she is disposed of by society.
Feminism is a movement that supports women equality within society. In relation to film, feminism is what pushes the equal representation of females in mainstream films. Laura Mulvey is a feminist theorist that is famous for touching on this particular issue of how men and women are represented in movies. Through her studies, she discovered that many films were portraying men and women very differently from reality. She came up with a theory that best described why there is such as huge misrepresentation of the social status quos of male and female characters. She believed that mainstream film is used to maintain the status quo and prevent the realization of gender equality. This is why films are continuously following the old tradition that males are dominant and females are submissive. This is the ideology that is always present when we watch a movie. This is evident in the films from the past but also currently. It is as if the film industry is still catering to the male viewers of each generation in the same way. Laura Mulvey points out that women are constantly being seen as sexual objects, whether it is the outfits they wear or do not wear or the way they behave, or secondary characters with no symbolic cause. She states that, “in traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote it-be-looked-at-ness.”(Mulvey pg. 715). Thus, women are nevertheless displayed as nothing more than passive objects for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Mulvey also points out through her research that in every mainstream movie, there is ...
There has been a culture shift over the past century: gender roles in society are changing, and people are less and less conforming to the same traditional characteristics they are expected to fulfill. Now we have families with women breadwinners and stay at home dads. What caused these changes? Wars, feminism, metro sexuality, and the internet/media have contributed to the changes in gender roles in western culture specifically it was. Growing up in a time with all these challenges in what is the appropriate way and inappropriate way to act has left kids more than ever struggling to find where they fit into society.
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. 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. This was an astonishing change for the American industry of film. Sometime later, in 1984, Linda Hamilton starred in ‘The Terminator’, a film where she was not the leading character, but a strong female character as Sarah Connor. She had a combination of masculine and feminine qualities as “an androgynous superwoman, resourceful, competent and courageous, while at the same time caring, sensitive and intuitive” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 41-47). These changes made in action films for female’s roles stirred up a lot of excitement in the “Western society” (Starlet, 2007). The demand for strong female characters in action films grew to a new high when Angelina Jolie starred in ‘Tomb Raider’ in 2001 and then in the sequel, ‘Tomb Raider II: The Cradle of Life’ in 2003 as Lara Croft. Her strong female character was not only masculine, but was also portrayed as a sex object. Most often, strong women in these types of films tend to fight without even gaining a mark. At the end of each fight, her hair and makeup would always be perfect. The female characters in these action films, whether their role was as the lead character or a supporting character, had similar aspects. I...
Zurko, Nicholas. "Gender Inequality in Film." Film School Blog New York Film Academy. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.