Natasha Romanoff's Presentation Of The Superhero Genre

The average person can assume that in most cases a superhero will be cast as a white male. In Can You Save Me?: Black Male Superheroes in Film, Tia C. M. Tyree and Liezille J. Jacobs (2014) that “When the average American moviegoer thinks of great cinematic super- heroes, many will probably envision Superman, Captain America, Batman, Spider-Man, or Iron Man.” (1), the misconceptions of the black male in particular by society have been that they are to be feared, beat down, or labeled as thugs.

Women are deemed as a “minority” yet make up 51% of the world population and in 2014 made up only 12% of protagonists in films. And that is just on-screen, the percentage decreases as you go farther and farther into behind-the-scenes positions such as directors, cinematographers, and writers. Add race and ethnicity and those characters' percentages decline even more (Lauzen, 2015.) Women in film and television are often portrayed with emphasis based on their body type and in advertisement are largely objectified. The large objectification and misrepresentation of women in the media has led to an offset psychological view of women from growing up to adulthood.

Stereotype is the most common issue that people get effect from superheroes. Due to the fact that superheroes are men, boys are the most effective group in the real world. Boys think that they should be “superheroes,” and they should be as strong and powerful as superheroes. In the article “Today's Superheroes Send Wrong Image to Boys, Say Researchers,” Psychologist Sharon Lamb, PhD, distinguished professor of mental health at University of Massachusetts-Boston told the American Psychological Association (APA) news interviewer about the influence of superheroes in boy basic on her survey, “She and her co-authors found that marketers take advantage of boys’ need to forge their identity in adolescence and sell them a narrow version of masculinity.”

In today’s society, its similar. Men aren’t looked down upon, but it is unusual for them to be upset, nervous, or even crying. Superheros are a perfect example of what men should be. They are strong, powerful, and not

Society always keeps the idea of heroes alive through media. Girls inspired by movies or television shows dream of knights in shining armor saving the day. These same shows often represent the women as weak and dependent on men. Men fight the bad guys and save the day while the women work behind the scenes giving information to the men. The gender stereotype of men protecting the women often reveals itself in television shows, especially in one episode of a television show called The Flash. The episode from The Flash titled “The Flash Reborn,” illustrates the gender stereotype of men as the protector of women and this negatively shows a stereotype of beautiful women that cannot take care of themselves.

In addition, we will explore the context in which the members of the group communicate with their intended audience using mass communication. The last part will try to examine the recent changes in the comic-book world in regard to giving the traditional male superhero role to a female lead and what changes might it bring forth by breaking some of the female gender stereotypes and norms.

Bercuci, L. (2016). Pop Feminism: Televised Superheroines from the 1990s to the 2010s. Gender Studies, [online] 15(1), pp.252-269. Available at: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/genst.2016.15.issue-1/genst-2017-0017/genst-2017-0017.pdf [Accessed 14 Jul. 2017].

She's a female agent working in a man's world. The show's period set in 1964, a time where feminism was still in its fighting stages. It is overtly obvious that Peggy is a character really geared towards a female audience. To say she is simply "relatable" is an understatement. The fact that she is the only female agent in the entire office of her workplace is an image many women can connect with.

Women are continually demeaned on television and are shown as the inferior gender. Hypermasculinity causes problems like gender inequality in our society, leading to the mistreatment of non-masculine characteristics in our culture. By presenting hypermasculine traits on television, this stigma is spread throughout society for everyone to indulge, creating mass conflict. More often than not, female characters are the victims or damsels in distress and the men are heroes that come to their rescue, usually expecting sexual favors as an award for their “manly” acts. This is the case for a multitude of superhero dramas that have surfaced recently over the years.

The presence of media is prevalent in our technology savvy lives. Yet with inequality shown in media, we are constantly bombarded with sexist concepts. This issue was specifically exemplified in the movie “The Avengers” where a bunch of superheroes get together to collectively defeat an enemy.

Frequently, most superheroes in cinema are portrayed by male characters rather than women, creating a distinction between gender roles. Indeed, through the passage, “These results may suggest to viewers that women are less important, knowledgeable, and capable than men – and less likely to be a hero” (Miller et. al) women are much less likely to be featured as the hero within the film, and more likely to be featured as the “damsel in distress” of the story. Furthermore, women are much more likely to be depicted in a sexualized fashion, even when displayed in the role of hero. This feature of women with a lack of dominance defies feminism, as they lack roles in superhero films and they are portrayed with the sole purpose of boasting

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.

Strong feminists are an absolute necessity when living in a world where girls are constantly demeaned for our gender, preferences, and lifestyle choices, and J.K Rowling is one of the most knowledgeable and inspiring feminists in the world. By including strong female characters in her novels, such

In the beginning of comics, it was male-dominated and that didn’t seem like it was going to change, until Wonder Woman came along, and this fact alone makes her a massive emblem of female empowerment in the world. She was still written by a man, but it was a start of a whole new era. Wonder Woman’s story begins on an island of all women who called themselves The Amazons. The queen of The Amazons wanted a child and her tribe told her to make one out of clay, and thus, Diana AKA Wonder Woman was born. Diana was “as lovely as Aphrodite, as wise

Books, plays, and movies that depict culture and social life often make statements about social issues such as gender roles, racism, and class distinction. Stories set up a context in which characters relate, often representing “stock” characters chosen from society and placed in situations where their stereotypical behaviors—and sometimes their breaking of these stereotypes—are highlighted. As feminism became a popular movement in Western countries in general and the United States in particular, female voices were naturally heard through fictional characters. Social and political issues commonly fuel entertainment; feminism, racism, and classism—recurring themes in entertainment through the 20th Century and into the modern day—have