Sexist Portrayal Of Women In Hollywood

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

The issue of female representation in Hollywood is one of the biggest issues in the film industry. Sexism, discrimination, and a lack of jobs for female filmmakers has been a problem in Hollywood since its early days, and recently this problem has been analyzed using many different genres. The Women of Hollywood Speak Out is an editorial written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. It is about difficulty for female filmmakers to break out and direct big budget films for Hollywood. Celluloid Ceilings: Women Directors Speak Out is a video created by Bloomberg about the issues with sexism and discrimination that female filmmakers have faced. These two pieces will be compared to discover how this topic can be discussed using different genres

This paper will look at how the movies portray women in a way that women can relate to regardless if it’s an insulting

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.

Many of these filmmakers, through the feminist movement, have taken Hollywood by storm. There are many individuals that believe the feminist movement is a woman’s movement — to further the female agenda — and while, it is true

Media portrays femininity on a daily, in our lives. Femininity are the qualities that traditionally associate with females. In movies femininity are strongly showed. People of all ages are exposed to the expectations of femininity which affects our views on female. In the media such as movies like “Cinderella” the portrayal reinforces gender stereotypes to their audience.

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.

Today’s filmmakers have three areas to focus on: the event or theme of the film, the audience who will be watching the film, and lastly, the individual characters and the roles they play and how they are portrayed and interpreted. Many of these films bottom line objectives are to focus on the “erotic needs of the male ego.” The focus on fetishistic scopophilia tend to slant the view such that we see the world as being dominated by men and that woman are

Horror movies throughout history have been known to have their cheesy storylines or continuous bad acting. Especially horror movies. People nowadays could easily spot the flaws in a film and judge them drastically in reviews. Yet, little do people notice the ongoing discrimination between genders. Horror films tend to portray males and females substantially differently because of stereotypical views. There seems to be a pattern in which each gender takes a certain role in a movie continuously. Females are shown to be “objects” such as sex and emotional symbols, while males are shown as strong or powerful and moreover as the main bad guy. Although some of the newer edition films of the horror genre are displaying each gender more and more equal throughout the ongoing years, the gender discrimination dilemma still exists and can be seen by the statistics in the movie industry in general.

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

The first video we watched talked about different areas in the media where women are discriminated. Women have the least protagonist roles in Hollywood movies and make only 7% of the movie director in Hollywood. When a woman is the protagonist in a movie, her role is usually about getting a man or being a sexual character. In TV commercials or magazines, women are presented as sexual objected and as easy prey. Many commercials try to show young teenager girls dressing very sexual

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 primarily that 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. In terms of jobs, women were given mostly family roles and rarely were shown outside of their homes, while men had successful careers and did many activities outside of home. “Women were shown doing housework and men were the beneficiaries of their work” (“Women’s roles in the

The first research entitled “The representation of gender roles in the media - An analysis of gender discourse in Sex and the City movies ” was constructed by Therese Ottosson and Xin Cheng in 2012.

The presentation of women on screen is another highlighted issue in many of the gathered sources. Because men were ultimately in control of what went on the screen much of what the audience perceived were women from the male imagination or fantasy. Bernard Beck elaborates in his article Where the Boys Are: The Contender and other Movies about Women in a Man’s World that, “…women have been used to dress up a male story or motivate a male character” (Beck 15). Women were often insignificant and trivial characters. Although, Kathe Davis disagrees to a point. In her article, Davis offers a dissonant opinion to the fore-mentioned insignificance of the female character. She instead describes many female characters as “predators,” and analyzes the roles of lead women in three prominent films of the nineteenth century. In each film, she finds parallels and similarities of cases of “female emasculation” and instances where “women are turned into objects of male desire” (Davis 47-48). Davis does not perceive female characters as being insignificant, just stripped of their power and misrepresented. She discusses how females of power are often portrayed as crazy

The simplest way to increase gender equality is by creating more roles for women. According to 2007-2012 film statistics reviewed by the New York Film Academy, the “average ratio of male actors to female actors is 2.25:1.” With less females onscreen than males, men continue to be the majority in movies. It is important to portray realistic representations of everyday life in where “women comprise 50 percent of the population” (Green, Women In Film Los Angeles). It is also important for women and young girls to have a variety of role models to look up to. With more women in movies, young girls will begin to understand that being a woman does not limit what they can do. Organizations such as Women in Film were created to help by “promoting equal opportunities for women, encouraging creative projects by women, and expanding and enhancing portrayals of women in all forms of global