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

　

Bibliography:

Hay Code Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
The National Womens History Museum, https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/film/14.html
The New York Film Academy: Gender Inequality if Film, https://www.nyfa.edu/film-school-blog/gender-inequality-in-film/
Martha Lauzen, PhD, It's a Man's (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Represenations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2013,  http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2013_It's_a_Man's_World_Report.pdfSoraya Chemaly, 20 Facts Everyone Should Know about Gender Bias in Movies, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/20-mustknow-facts-about-g_b_5869564.html