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Depiction of women in movies
Classical hollywood cinemarepresentation of women
Portrayal of women in movies
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This is an industry where female centered stories mean stories where a woman is a police officer, who beats goons and does all the badass super hero stuff that an average male lead does, Just look at the irony, The individuality of a woman is only appreciated if she acts like a typical man. Sigh. Yes, most of the world cinema suffers from the issues of sexism at a great level, but they have some rather great exceptions. And better ones too. In the movies where the girls are not desperate, the hero chases, irritates, stalks, and irritates the woman to woo and win her heart over and she is shown to fall for all that. This instills a feeling in the crowds that this is okay and cool to harass a Woman until she agrees. It isn 't. If you see someone behaving in that manner, call the police. No, really. …show more content…
A factor common to all regional industries and Bollywood is the impractical and cliche portrayal of women. It can be argued that women are portrayed in much the same way in all Indian media. That this portrayal is entirely sexist is abundantly clear. Female characters in South Indian cinema are more often than not stereotyped as dumb, mindless creatures with only sexual gratification to offer. Objectification of women, as sexual objects is very common in commercial Indian movies. There are countless examples of such stereotypes. The most common cliche is the Love interest. The main female lead or the actress is always portrayed as the Hero’s love interest and has very little else to do in the movie except to amuse the hero with her beauty and romance. This stereotype is so common that it is not interrogated. The heroine is never portrayed as an individual with intelligence or to put it harshly brain, her ideas and thoughts just revolve around the hero and the other thoughts pertaining to anything other than romance or family are not
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.
The most important events of this film all revolve around the female characters. While there are some male charac...
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
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
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.
Throughout time, women in movies and other similar texts are shown to be generally focused on men. This might make sense if every movie ever made was set in a time where women had absolutely no rights but of course, that is not the case. Older and more modern depictions of women in media, both show women whose lives revolve around men. Even movies that market their female characters as strong and powerful are still shown to be dependent on the male leads and puts them first. Also, since women in movies have more of a focus on men, female to female relationships suffer in the same films. There are very few exceptions to this unfortunate truth.
I personally feel like the subtle forms of sexism that are especially prevalent in the media are far more dangerous to women. I find that I struggle far more with this kind of sexism that some douchey guy calling out “nice tits” as I pass him on the subway. I struggle more with subtle sexism, because I fall more easily into it’s traps. I find myself actively putting woman down in my mind without meaning to. In fact, just the other day I went to see a movie with my friends, when the movie was over we researched the director. It turns out it was directed by a woman. One of my male stated this information with excitement, and I simply responded with “so?”. I honestly didn’t see why that was something to get excited about. Women directed movies right? My friend then asked me to name five female directors off the top of my head. I could name two. Defiantly I stated that it was only because I didn’t have great grasp on directors as it was. I asserted that I probably couldn’t name five male directors. I could name seven. I am telling this story because to me this illustrates perfectly how I put down my own gender by just assuming that the problem isn’t so bad, instead of educating myself on the reality of sexism in film. I let myself stay ignorant to a problem by choice. I have seen enough interviews with directors and
Hannan Goodall, author of Media’s Influence on Gender Stereotypes, once said “If as a society we refuse to accept certain gender stereotypes as truth, then the media makes may not be as inclined to center their message on them”. Do you ever wonder why Windex commercials generally show women cleaning the windows instead of men? Or why beer commercials show men sitting around watching sports with their buddies while sipping a beer instead of women? Commercials, Movies and Television Shows are the vast source of gender stereotyping, because they are adapted to the specific, focusing on male or female’s gender roles as their main target. Deborah Tannen, the author of Sex, Lies, and Conversation, focus on addressing the different communicating styles between men and women and how it effects their relationships as a whole. Media’s gender role stereotypes have shown effect in the Hindu culture, work and family
Also, the film revealed women empowerment and how superior they can be compared to men. While demonstrating sexual objectification, empowerment, there was also sexual exploitation of the women, shown through the film. Throughout this essay, gender based issues that were associated with the film character will be demonstrated while connecting to the real world and popular culture.
The stories on screen are about men and their conflicts, their dreams, their aspirations, their tragedies, their revenge, their desires and their heroism. The women exist only in relation to those men, as their mothers, their wives, and especially their lovers. (shodhganga
During a review by Vox, of the gender biases in Hollywood that were reported by the data visualization website Polygraph, over 2,000 movies underwent scrutiny in determining why men have more dialogue in movies, even in those that are supposed to be focused on the lead female characters. In what was stated to be one of the largest analyses of script reviews of all time, it was determined that the male characters within the study overrule women in over 78% of the analyzed films. This was concluded through a cross-analysis of character information such as name, gender, and age, with the information reported by the popular movie database, IMDB. The results of their study are astonishing. In the 2,005 screenplays across all movie genres that were reviewed by Polygraph, only two movies were delivered 100% by the lead female character. Conversely, the male dominated list has not only the largest number of results;
...ality because everyone should have equal to do what they want. Popular culture spread the idea of nautaral which changed the position of female in the univeral. Women' knowlegdes and abilities seem to have rise a lot compare with 1990s. Woman would be a successful businessman, worker, fireman and so on. As mass media become the most important part of communication in the earth, the most infusive part to affect human's attitudes is the domestic or romantic drama. It spread the different concepts to the families, neighbors, friends etc by the interaction between them. Movie heroes are not spread one single-minded nowadays, the gender and sexuality of people or hero should all be equal.
Feminist theory was derived from the social movement of feminism where political women fight for the right of females in general and argue in depth about the unequality we face today. In the aspect of cinema, feminists notice the fictitious representations of females and also, machismo. In 1974, a book written by Molly Haskell "From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of Women in Movies" argues about how women almost always play only passive roles while men are always awarded with active, heroic roles. Moreover, how women are portrayed in movies are very important as it plays a big role to the audience on how to look at a woman and how to treat her in real life due to the illusionism that cinema offers. These images of women created in the cinema shapes what an ideal woman is. This can be further explained through an article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' written by a feminist named Laura Mulvey in 1975. She uses psychoanalysis theories by Sigmund Freud to analyze 'Scopophilia' which is the desire to see. This explains how the audience is hooked to the screen when a sexy woman is present. In a bigger picture, where Scopophilia derives from, 'Voyeurism' is also known as feeling visual pleasure when looking at another. Narcissism on the other hand means identifying one's self with the role played. It is not hard to notice that in classical cinema, men often play the active role while the women are always the object of desire for the male leads, displayed as a sexual object and frequently the damsels in distress. Therefore, the obvious imbalance of power in classical cinema shows how men are accountable to moving the narratives along. Subconsciously, narcissism occurs in the audience as they ...
“In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, only 20 to 35 per cent of characters in TV show were female.” (Gauntlett D. 2002, p43) These figures generally illustrated the status of female role in the media which were ignored by people. So situation was similar in the films, but the gender role in the film was more complex. Unsurprisingly, gender role was changing with the new notion about femininity and masculinity, the traditional idea of female character was emotional, in need of protection and they offering love to support male role, and male character was still confident, taken the dominant position, they made decisions and lead the story developing. I am going to take James Bond as my example, because it is a long-running series film since 1962 to today and it still filming, so it is a good example to make us see the changing of gender role in the movies. My point of view is they don’t developed so much on the male character-Mr. Bond, he is always charming and attractive when he wear the perfect suit in the film, he is the typical here characters which reflects masculinity is already mature in the
Jill Ruckelshaus, business woman, once said, “No one should have to dance backward all their lives.” She is right. Women should not have to dance backwards and follow a man’s lead but, have the right to turn around and lead. Sexism has a negative effect on society today because of the gender wage gap, violence increasing against women, and the national religion being undermined.