Meridia from Brave. Although she is a Princess, she is not your typical Disney Princess. She is not prissy, her hair is unkempt and doesn’t wait for her knight in shining armor. She is strong, BRAVE, fierce, independent and rides her horse shooting arrows. Rather than focusing on finding her Prince Charming, the movie focuses on her personal growth as a Princess. This is great for little girls because this movie is a great way to teach them about self-development, selflessness and not to focus on boys.
Juno played by Ellen Page. Her character is a teenage pregnant girl who decides to give her baby up for adoption. The movie show how mature teenagers can be. She is empowering because she has a mind of her own, she owns up to all of her mistakes, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. She is a complex character who tries to hide her true feelings from the baby’s father, and yet the takes on all responsibilities of the pregnancy by herself. I want to say that she is not obsessed with boys but she is definitely fond of her best friend aka baby’s daddy. She is not materialistic as most teenage girls are portrayed in movies.
Elizabeth Tudor of Elizabeth played by Cate Blanchett. This is actually one of my favorite movies. This is historical time-piece movie about Queen Elizabeth and how we went against all tradition and ruled without a King. She is the first in history to ever do so. An unmarried ruler was unheard of in the time, maybe even today, I don’t know. Either way, she completely broke and ideals of gender roles especially with such a high title. She proved her reign successful even though she had to fight her way to gain that independence from marriage to rule her country. I honestly cannot think of a better example of a woman’s power.
Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games played by Jennifer Lawrence. She is strong, sensitive, and fighting for something bigger than herself. She doesn’t come off as a dainty young girl, incapable of making it out in the wild. (Although the wild is not really wild but of a simulated world) She proves capable of holding her own against the big boys. Maybe even better. She proves to all young girls watching that girls can do anything. That they are equal to men. That focus is not always on look and love and marriage, but of independence, free-mind and dignity. She is definitely a woman look out for.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Who can I look up to (on-screen)?
It is said the media both reflects and shapes our society. I think films play a HUGE role in how we see ourselves and what our expectations are as a gender. Especially for young girls growing and have no experience in the real world, what they see is what they think. So who can they actually look up to on-screen?
In the early days of film, women played a huge role in the development of the film industry. For one, they were more popular than male actors. Due to that popularity they helped Hollywood boom into the commercial venture it is today. Before the Hays Code , female actresses "sought out challenging and dynamic roles that gave women agency and challenged accepted norms just as much as they conformed to what might be viewed as proper feminine roles." (The National Women's History Museum: Women in Film) Meaning they had the freedom to explore the many different ways women were seen onscreen. Since the arrival of the Hays Production Code, these types of roles came "few and far between" (The National Women's History Museum: Women in Film) and Hollywood still struggles with it today.
Just to give you an idea, here are some fun facts I’ve gathered through multiple resources about women’s role in the film industry. According to the New York Film Academy on their report on Gender Inequality in film, about 10.7% of the top 500 films between 2007-2012 feature a balanced cast where half the characters are female. In the same report, 30.8% of speaking characters are women and 28.8% of women wore sexually revealing clothing as opposed to 7% of men. And the report shows that women purchase half of the movie tickets sold in the US. So what does that tell you? Well, women make up half of the movie-goers, yet they don’t make up half the movie-characters. Those that are on-screen, are sexualized by wearing revealing clothing or partially naked. (NYFA: Gender Inequality in Film)
According to the report It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World written by Martha M Lauzen, Ph.D, "female characters were younger than their male counterparts and were more likely than males to have an identifiable marital status. Further, female characters were less like than males to have clearly identifiable goals or be portrayed as leaders of any kind." Based on this report, older women are almost non-existent, that all females portrayed in 2013 films are young non-leaders with a distinct marital status and don’t really have many goals. Is this how women are in the real world? Secondly, is it really that important to highlight a woman’s marital status? What does it honestly have to do with a woman’s goals and ability to lead? Absolutely nothing. Yet because it is highlighted and goals and leadership are not that puts an emphasis on what it means to be a woman. Young watching these kinds of movies are going to think that they cannot be leaders and their main goal in life is to get married. Although that is not a bad thing, I think it’s more important to emphasize independence because women today are independent. Our gender role is evolving towards that independence.
It is also important to talk about cartoon characters that cater to young children. At such young tender ages, they soak up anything and everything. According to an article by Soraya Chemaly, 20 Facts Everyone Should Know About Gender Bias in Movies, it is "problematic" the way gender is represented in the movies. That "female characters are more than twice as likely to be wearing sexy and sexualizing clothes." And that "Female characters are more than twice as likely to be skinny." When seeing this on tv, young kids assume this is what everyone is supposed to look like, skinny in sexy clothing.
With that being said, I just want to say that not all films and film characters are bashing women’s progressive gender role. Below are a few examples of inspiring female characters. Those that break the social norm of feminine gender role.
So I encourage all young filmmakers, writers, directors, producers, and actors to challenge society and portray us women for who we really are. We are complex, smart, independent, equal human beings that can do anything anyone else can do and sometimes better! I want to keep this dialogue going so that my daughters will not be so restricted and pressured by these gender roles society puts on us. We need more directors like Lena Dunham who are real and isn’t afraid to talk about real issues women face day-to-day. I would like to end my essay with a quote from Geena Davis.
"The fact is - Women are seriously under-represented across nearly all sectors of the glove. Not just on-screen, but for the most part we're simply not aware of the extent. And media images exert a powerful influence in creating and perpetuating our unconscious biases. However, media images can also have very positive impact on our perceptions. In the time it takes to make a movie, we can change what the future looks like. There are woefully few women CEOs in the world. But there can be lots of them in films. How do we encourage a lot more girls to pursue science, technology, and engineering careers? By casting droves of women in stem, politics, law and other professions in movies today" - Geena Davis
