Women In American Cinema

Rise of the Strong Female Protagonists - Representation of Women in Contemporary American Cinema"

Cinema has always been an integral part of a culture and has been presenting various ideals of the time such as gender roles. American Cinema has been abundant of gender representation and through many years the roles of men and women have been presented according to the formulaic stereotypes. For a long time up to the present, men have dominated the movie industry and have been depicted as saviours and protectors while women have often been presented as the weaker sex, objects of desire or just as the support of male characters. Even though it is not difficult to enumerate a few movies such as Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Guardians of

Considering other movies from the last few years such as Non-Stop or The Wolf of Wall Street it is easy to spot that men and women are still often presented in a typical gender manner. Nevertheless, recently the representation of female characters has also been improving and women are gradually becoming more prominent in the movie industry. In Hollywood, there was a certain rise of casting women as the main characters who take matters into their own hands and are no longer waiting for men to save the day. By making female protagonists as strong and independent, the stereotypes as women being weaker and submissive to men are subverted. What is more, movies whose protagonist is a woman often present the reversal of archetypal gender roles. There are a couple of heroines who undoubtedly defy the tired conventions, among them there are Alice from Resident Evil, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, The Divergent Tris Prior, and Wonder Woman. Taking a closer look at the given movie examples, men are ever-present and even outnumber women, however,

Although Katniss is a female she is rather characterised by masculine qualities. She is endowed with typical male traits, she is a hunter, the head of the family and the only provider for her relatives after her father 's death. Furthermore, Katniss appearence is also closer to masculine, she is a tomboy. She does not pay great attention to her looks and she always wears dark protective clothing on the contrary to her sister who wears light-coloured clothing and evinces typical feminine characterictis. Additionally, she does not like displaying emotions or being romantic. Katniss, however, has also the typical female traits. After her mother breaks down, she plays a role of a mother to her younger sister and takes care of her. During the reaping day Katniss shows her maternal instinct towards Prim, she volunteers as a tribute to take her sister 's place in gruesome games, as she knows her relative would not survive. Since Katniss is strong, skilled at hunting, and determined to survive, she makes a great potential winner of the deadly games. During the games she is "paired" with male counterpart from her district who is the opposite of Katniss. On the contrary, Peeta Mellark is weaker and more emotional than she is so the typical gender roles are reversed. It is Peeta who needs to be helped during the pageant, not Katniss - she becomes the hero while he takes