Sexualization Of Women In Action Movies Essay

In Hollywood film women 's roles have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and period settings. These factors contribute to the different representations of women 's roles in the film they are present in. The roles are diverse going from the traditional maternal role to that of manipulative murderer. Women 's roles in movies can be almost equal to the male roles, and the co-stars are not given the majority of the acclaims just because they are male. Society has set certain standards that women are supposed to follow. The most common image of women is that they are very passive and try to avoid conflict in any situation. More and more in society women are breaking down the social barriers that confine them to their specific roles. The films Rear Window and Resident Evil show women in roles that are untraditional for our society. These two movies help to show how women are rebelling against social norms and that they are taking more active and aggressive roles. In film noir’s we can see women represented as the femme fatale, a woman whose mysterious and seductive charms leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. In action movies we see the heroine who is strong both physically and mentally, and has the ability to use weapons. Women seem to be more trapped than men because they are supposed to live up to society’s standards dealing with beauty and size, which are more physical characteristics. These specific guidelines have been set by

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

In conclusion, the film She’s the Man shows the audience how gender gets represented in films. It shows the traditional femininity as well as the traditional masculinity. This illustrates that gender has impacts on power and gender relations to contribute gender inequality. Gender norms are enforced in films which maintain the power inequality difference between both genders. These issues confine the way modern films represent gender and gives a direct effect to the

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

With the media becoming the main source from which the current society gets their daily information concerning products, news stories, and entertainment, it is wise to think critically about the messages they are conveying to us. These corporations spend large sums of money every day in order to grasp our attention. The question as to whether or not they have their customer’s best interest in mind arises and leaves the public no answer but to look to the advertisements they have produced. Consider the pistachio industry using a woman with a whip to grasp the viewers’ attention. In reality, is a provocative image what it takes to sell us a simple bag of pistachios? With advertising decisions like these come negative consequences such as the

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 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 male gaze puts his fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled, in a unique sort of way. In this traditional exhibitionist, role women are continuously being looked at and their appearance is delivered to the male gaze in such a way as a strong visual and erotic impact and provides male desire. The presence of a woman in a normal narrative film is the key of the movie. However, the key of the narrative film works against the development of the story-line and stops the action due to the erotic gaze. Butt Boetticher said: “What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance”.

Throughout motion picture history, women have experienced more transition in their roles, as a result of changing societal norms, than any other class. At first, both society and the movie industry preached that women should be dependent on men and remain in the home, in order to guarantee stability in the community and the family. As time passed and attitudes changed, women were beginning to be depicted as strong willed, independent minded characters, who were eager to break away from convention. The genre of the crime film represents such a change in the roles handed to women. Two films that can be contrasted, in order to support this view, are: The Public Enemy by William Wellman (1931) and Bonnie

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

Since its humble beginnings in the later years of the nineteenth century, film has undergone many changes. One thing that has never changed is the filmmaker’s interest in representing society in the present day. For better or worse, film has a habit of showing the world just what it values the most. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to what kinds of ideas films are portraying (Stern, Steven E. and Handel, 284). Alarmingly, viewers, especially young women, are increasingly influenced by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that they learn from watching these films (Steele, 331). An example of this can be seen in a popular trope of the “romantic comedy” genre in this day and age: the powerful man doing something to help, or “save” the less powerful woman, representing a troubling “sexual double standard” (Smith, Stacy L, Pieper, Granados, Choueiti, 783).

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