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Gender Stereotypes Of Femininity In Film

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Is it true to say that the representation of women and femininity has had limited development over the last 25 years… or would it be more accurate to say that these representations have dramatically changed? Has stereotyping become less accurate and more common or has the Romantic Comedy genre developed its representations to break female stereotypes? This investigation aims to explore these questions and, ultimately, to evaluate if the representation of femininity has developed over the last 25 years in addition to finding out to what extent the female role within Romantic Comedy has changed. Exploring the representations of female characters by comparing and contrasting the representation of femininity in the chosen texts; Pretty Woman (1990) directed by Garry Marshall and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) directed by Gil Junger to Love, Rosie (2014) directed by Christian Ditter. 

‘The shortened term "romcom", first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1971, carries implications of a film …show more content…

Statistics show that females have been losing out in the film industry, female protagonists within film have dropped from 16% (in 2013) to 14% (2014 statistics) within the top 100 films on IMDB3. Showing the decline in equal representation of females. Women make over 50% of the population in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Japan. This would suggest, statistically, if there was to be any significant inequality between male and female lead characters, within film - female leads would be featured more often. After carrying out a self-conducted interview (of 20 participants), I found that, over 15 participants thought that females were represented inaccurately within Romantic Comedies. This highlights that the public recognise there is a limited representation of females within Romantic

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Orson Scott Card has written countless novels during his career, filled with excitement and sci-fi themes. Card has implied many western stereotypes throughout his reign of the sci-fi entertainment business. Arguably his most famous of those being Ender’s Game. Throughout the book Ender must go through training to become a commander in the war against buggers while Earth was going through a worldwide crisis. The book introduced minimal realistic male and female characters, of which followed close traditional stereotypes.

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In Charlotte E. Howell’s, “Tricky” Connotations: Wonder Woman as DC’s Brand Disruptor,” Howell argues the many points on how DC Comics failed to represent Wonder Woman in a superhero leading role for many years. The author discusses how DC failed to see that the comic book industry fan base consisted not only of males, but also, many female fans as well (141-142). In addition, she points out DC’s use of the word “tricky” in regards to marketing and film production for Wonder Woman; DC Comics couldn’t come up with a way to envision an on screen leading role for Wonder Woman or how to market one (142). As a result, Howell gives examples of how the fans weaponized the term “tricky” to show DC’s business failings (141-143). Furthermore, she points out how the many scripts were leaked and how the public scrutinized the writers on their attempts to represent an accurate Wonder Woman character (144-145).

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In contrast to the twentieth century we still see some of this in our current day and ages. Contrasting portrayals of men and women in films leave us with the fact that we haven’t changed. Men and women are sought to have different gender roles within

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Throughout history the portrayal of gender roles have been maintained by a specific standard, specifically where the man is the main figure, and the woman is the submissive figure that is being acted upon. However, lately, specifically the last ten or so years, many movies have shifted this ideology. These movies in modern times show increasingly more women in positions of power, as well as in marriages where there is an equal amount of power between both the husband and wife. There are also more movies showcasing non-traditional relationships, such as, domestic partnerships and LGBTQ+ relationships. One movie in particular that showcases a shift in the status quo, in terms of the masculinity and femininity expected from individuals especially that of a relationships, is Tyler Perry’s

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Although superhero movies have become some of the most popular and successful movies of the 21st century, most of these movies have been about men and focused on their trials and triumphs while also creating and perpetrating negative stereotypes of women. The female superhero movie falls into one of three gendered stereotypes: the victim, the tomboy and the bombshell. In the first category, the victim constantly finds herself at the centre of trouble and requires the main man in the movie to swoop in and save her as she is a passive and weak character. The bombshell tends to be highly sexualised, wearing tight clothes and given a ‘femme fatale’ characterisation, not physically powerful but manipulative and unscrupulous. The tomboy is a strong

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Similarly, television has long been captivated with images and representations of single women during these golden years. While contemporary audiences often take single heroines for granted, back in the 1960’s, however, the single woman was a compelling and controversial figure (Lehman 1). It took a while for the single woman to find her place on the small screen because back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, television tried to capture the American majority by favoring the white suburban sitcom (Press 140).

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The film industry is developing films that do not give women enough of a purpose besides pleasing the male eye and fail to present them

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Gender roles and stereotypes are commonly known throughout society and continuously demonstrated as film as well. Through the work of director Judd Apatow, we can compare these stereotypes to the portrayal of gender in Knocked Up and identify how this film pokes fun at gender stereotypes. As we watch this film and follow the story line of Allison and Ben, we can see how Apatow reversed the gender roles of the two lead characters, Ben and Allison and how this effected the films meaning. In romantic, geek centered comedies such as “Knocked Up”, the roles of men and women are often reversed.

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Ridley Scott’s ‘female buddy movie’ Thelma and Louise centres around issues of male dominance and the freedom of release from society. Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are women suppressed by the men in their lives. They take a vacation to escape for a few days and after an attempted rape and murder they end up fugitives on the run for their lives. This unintended event ends up being for them the best adventure of their lives, as they are able to divest from the rules of society and become the independent women they are. By subverting the traditional role of gender in the genre, the film shows how feminism impacted the film industry by challenging Hollywood and the gendered myths and social patriarchy, providing women with a voice, and changing how spectators view how women are looked at through women’s eyes and their experiences.

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As feminism and gender equality are becoming more important to society, the way gender roles are depicted in literature and media are shifting to conform to society’s views. This usage of gender roles can be seen in two popular contemporary animated movies: Frozen and Spirited Away. Both of these films are geared for younger audiences and attempt to teach important life lessons, like friendship and growing up. Through closer examination of how each film portrays gender, however, Frozen appears to not be as egalitarian as many have come to believe. Comparing both films, Frozen is not very feminist as it continues to perpetuate traditional gender roles and fairytale tropes, such as love at first sight and damsels in distress, whereas Spirited

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Gender roles have been noticeable in Disney films especially the Disney Princess series. Women are typically portrayed as a princess, homemaker, or queen while men are portrayed as strong, dominant and authority characters. The portrayal of the prince or knights in the movies usually highlighted with the strong and powerful characteristic, whereas the Disney princesses are weak, vulnerable and being protected. According to Tiffany, gender stereotypes and behaviours illustrations are very common in Disney culture and their depictions have become sophisticated over the years especially those of female characters.

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Since the 1300’s women rode sidesaddles just because society considered it unladylike to ride astride a horse and categorized them to be unruly, unfeminine and overly sexual while ignoring that it restricted women’s movement. It also did not allow women to be in control of their horse reinforcing the societal belief system that women need to be controlled, protected and restricted. The ideal femininity in the western society has been split between the ‘woman as sexual’ as the prostitute and the ‘woman as nurturing’ as the mother, instead of seeing both these traits a possible aspect of the same woman. This ‘fantasmatic’ or orgasmically fantastic dueling myths of femininity hugely impact the social expectations of women. These contradictions,

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Abstract: In most parts of the world, females have always been the victim of oppressive patriarchy and male chauvinism since ages. This problem has been represented by many people through various forms of creations be it art, literature or films. Films are the most popular visual mediums of entertainment through which a large segment of people can be approached. Like literature, a film is also a work of art which mirrors the society, it also depicts the reality of the society though it has some fictionality in it.

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