Role Models From keeping a spotless house in Leave It To Beaver 50 years ago, to controlling the fate on Star Trek Voyager, female roles in movies and television shows have drastically evolved. Women in TV and movies are no longer gender-bound to stereotypical female roles like homemakers and nurses as they were in the 50s and 60s. (Weiskopf, 1997) Instead as we stand at the beginning of the new millennium, women in movies and TV can be as strong and powerful as their male counterparts. In earlier research, Catherine Weskopf said that TV shows like Law and Order portray women who are able to solve crimes, problems and are not weaker than men. This sends a clear message that women are intelligent and unyielding. With independent and smart female …show more content…
The example given was Sandra Bullock’s character in Speed (1994) saving a whole bus of people. (Weiskopf, 1997) Similarly, iconic pop-culture films like Hunger Games(2012) and Divergent(2014) portray main female leads that are independent, intelligent and strong. In Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence character portrays women as courages, kind and smart people. Shailene Woodley’s character in Divergent portrays women as fearless and resilient. From the influence of these films, both teenage boys and girls will receive a positive message about women. However, there are other movies and TV shows that would disrespect and promote negative messages about women to …show more content…
The objectification of women isn’t restricted to clothes alone. The manner in which a female character addressed in some of the dialogues and songs clearly references her sexuality and how a man is going to exploit it,” commented actress Taapsee Avers. Hemanth Kumar made a conclusion that there is a growing trend in objectifying and sexualising women. In this I fully agree. Due to the objectification of women, many children and teenage girls believe that in order to be beautiful or appreciated, they would have to be sexy. (Geoff Shearer) They start to believe that it is okay for men to sexualise them and end up also idolising the sexualised female characters. In addition, teenage boys also get the message that women are only used as a form of sex