Gender Inequality In Movies

Stereotypes in our society are not uncommon. We come across them every day without realizing it. It is in our human nature to create expectations of the people around us, which could be based upon their ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or other factors. Stereotypes help us categorize a vast group of people that we may not know anything about, to think that they are smaller and less intimidating. I believe that the blame for these cookie-cutter patterns can lead directly back to the media in every sense of the word. Media is all around us, and affects our opinions and ability to think for ourselves. Whether it’s the latest box office hit or the headlining news, we are getting assumptions from every point of view, which makes it

In contemporary film women's roles in films have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and between

The film industry has created the conventional gender roles of society into their movies; A majority of films have supported some of the male and female stereotypes. In the history of the film industry, the role of men is primarilythat of the stereotypical working class man or hero, while the roles of women are primarily portrayed as being somewhat inferior to men. In the 1930s through the 1970s, men held the leading roles in films while women played smaller roles. Men were typically employed, successful gentlemen, while the woman’s only job was a housewife. The film industry was mostly dominated by men. In terms of jobs, women were given mostly family roles and rarely were shown outside of their homes, while men had

In the media we see today, and movies that are continually coming out all have a central idea in common. They all show and represent the idealistic perspective of male versus female in society. From cartoons to chick flicks to romances and comedies we notice identifiable differences and trends represented between the two genders. In the movie I watched, “Clueless,” there are many examples illustrating male superiority over female, ideas of what femininity should be, and female appeal towards the male figures in the film.

Still today in the film industry women are paid less than men and often portrayed as supporting rather than leading roles (Haskell,

For this paper, I am going to be discussing gender in the institution of films. Specifically, I am going to be discussing femininity in coming of age films. I am going to discuss how gender is represented in coming of age films in regards to femininity. Coming of age movies set an expectation for teens and young adults it lays out what they should fear and what they should thrive to be in order to transition to adulthood successfully. The media defines cultural and gender norms that are often very stereotypical (). The cultivation theory suggests that exposure to stereotypes in the media can lead to adopting these beliefs in their real lives (Giaccardi et al., 2016). In the media, masculinity is often portrayed as aggression, power, dominance,

Women and women of color play specific roles in movies and films. It is a little more obvious when it comes to women of color to the roles they play in movies and films. We see women and women of color play a couple of roles. Does not matter the movie they will always find a way to play one of the few roles that are “meant” for women to play. Movies such as Southside With You, The Color Purple, and Queen of Katwe show women having these kinds of roles. Today’s movies and films show specific roles for women and women of color to play.

Another interesting finding showed that female speaking characters are slightly more likely to appear in General audiences (G) rated films of about 31.6% than in Parental guidance (PG-13) rated films which is of about 26.5%. The percentage of girls and women in Parental guidance (PG-13) rated films (28.9%) does not deviate from the other ratings by 5%, criterion for documenting a meaningful difference. Thus, as the ratings increases for PG-13, the girls move out (Smith, Choueiti, & Pieper , Gender Roles & Occupations: A Look at Character Attributes and Job-Related Aspirations in Film and Television, 2012, p. 2).

This proverbial mold of what a woman is, usually determined by her status as being motherly and staying involved in their children’s lives. The societal norm is often represented by someone who goes to every PTA meeting, every soccer game, and cooks every meal. Hollywood often provides society with the golden standard of what a mother should be like. The movie industry further promulgates this typical mold by typically portraying women in parts similar to these not only their parts but also the genre of movies women normally participate in. According to the Hollywood Reporter in an article about how “Movies in 2016 Featured a record Number of Women Protagonists”. In this article, it even went into to the cold hard facts where female actors are more likely to appear as protagonists specifically the genre of movies. According to their statistics, women would be most likely to land a leading role in a Comedy with the highest percentage of female protagonists in this genre at twenty-eight percent. In an unsurprising turn of events, the genre of films with the lowest percentage of female protagonists was the actions film industry with a reported three percent. Often times characters in action movies need to be portrayed as though they are serious and strong. If this is the case the implications of not portraying women in a more serious genre like action movies. This exemplifies that society and particularly writers and producers of Hollywood have trouble viewing women in strong leading

This is evident in many animated and live-action films. Additionally, in most recent films, it can be acknowledged that gender positivity has increased because films are against stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity. Furthermore, there are negative gender representations present in many films. A movie such as “Mean Girls” can show the negative representation of women behavior and how they interact with one another.

Movies are an adventure. Whether it’s a fictional galaxy far far away or a true tale of the modern day hero, film has the ability to tell an intriguing story unlike any other medium. Unfortunately, most of these stories told have a similar problem circulating around the demotion of female characters to male characters. Female characters are more often than not othered by their male counterparts and their roles, personality, and purpose in films reflect it. This problem isn’t specific to one genre, nonetheless it’s a cancerous disease spreading the body of work that is film.

While it’s widely known that men dominate board rooms, newsrooms, and political offices, it’s arguably less obvious that they also determine what viewers see when they are relaxing in front of the TV or theater screen. It is not surprising that the male-dominant culture of Hollywood display itself in a lack of female characters. “With a lack of women behind the camera comes with a lack of women’s speaking roles and screen presence (Missouri, M. 2014).” When female characters are present, sexist stereotypes often convert them into little more than background props- the “damsel in distress” who is often saved by a male hero or the “dream girl” who attracts a male protagonist. Because Hollywood is so male-dominated, films and television often gives a limited perspective on women themselves. Viewers see only that the world is driven by men which sends women and girls troubling message and harm.

Even in today's growing world of feminism, young girls, as well as grown women, are being taught by the media to organize their lives around men. Their needs, expectations, work schedules, ideas, and interests become second to the men in their lives. All too often the media associates power and status to men, only to strengthen the barriers between the male and female genders. Take for example Hollywood, where "women get only about a third of all movie and TV roles, and last year earned less than male actors in all age categories..."(Eby, 1). And even though gender should not be used as the determining factor of what one can and cannot do, Hollywood, as well as everywhere else, has proven that the old habits of gender discrimination die

Zhou points out the number of females working behind the scenes and on screen have

Filmmakers use traditional gender stereotypes to produce characters audiences can easily identify with by portraying conventional images of a person with identifiable characteristics. In previous years, the dominant representation of a women in film has been the passive, subjugated protagonist. However, through the development of female empowerment and added feminist representations of film, the female heroine transformed to become strong and independent women in her own right, as an individual character.