preview

Portrayal Of Female Empowerment And Gender Roles Essay

Better Essays

In politics, power is a crucial component, and having authority over others is critical in legitimizing that power. Women consistently lack agency and power, especially in political spheres. Fantastical worlds, like HBO’s television series Game of Thrones (GoT), portray women in roles of empowerment, but their power is contingent on men and on their own sexuality. Despite gaining positions in political power, women only attain that power or can only use that power in the realm of men and masculinity. This essay argues that women in Game of Thrones, as political and non-political actors, are only powerful to the extent to which it roots from archetypical masculine characteristics and to which it advances their storylines from a man’s standpoint. To do so, I will first contrast political power and apolitical power, namely in terms of female participation and involvement. Next, I will examine HBO’s Game of Thrones in relation to its portrayal of female empowerment and of stereotypical gender roles. This paper will then distinguish notable Game of Thrones female characters as political powerful and apolitically powerful actors. This paper will conclude with an analysis of how Game of Thrones magnifies women’s roles in political power while also generalizing women as powerful only in regards to their sexuality.
Power is central to politics and political action. The Oxford Dictionaries (2016) characterize politics as “the principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity,

Get Access