Ever
since films such as Nosferatu, women
have been in cinema. Nosferatu was one of the first films to show a woman as a
partial main character, and one who became integral to the plot. According to
an article from Penn State's
blog on vampire movies, "early film
men were usually the heroes while the woman were damsels in distress. Nosferatu
creates a female character that knows that she could be the one that saves the
people from her town when she reads that a vampire can be killed by a good
hearted and virtuous woman, which Ellen is" (Cramer, 1). Even today, women
appear in many different kinds of roles taking on different characters.
Scarlett Johansen has appeared in The
Avengers, as well as Anne Hathaway playing a woman who ends up being a
prostitute in the movie Les Miserables. Though
the roles might be different, they both have a impression on the people who
watch the films as a representation of women and their place in the world. Some
of the roles that women have been given in films over the years have been
controversial. Many feminist groups take offense to some of the portrayals of
women in film,because it seems to show women in a negative or sexist light.
Although these characters may have been written in a certain way to progress
the story, the representation of women is shown to every man, woman, and child
who watches the film and shapes the way they think about women as a whole.
The
portrayal of women in these films needs to change so that people don't have a
bad impression of women from these films. A child might see a movie and believe
that to be a woman you have to fall in love with a handsome man and marry him.
Men might believe that women are there to serve them because of some of the
submissive stay-at-home women figures that they see in films. Media affects our
impression of many things that we can not or have not experienced yet in life,
and especially during early life These circumstantial situations portrayed by
the media could cause some negative impressions to be formed. Films need to change to reflect
this idea and the problems that it may cause. Filmmakers need to keep their
mind on how the characters in their films might have an impact on the audience.
The portrayal of women obviously has a very negative view and something needs
to be done.
Women's portrayal in
films recently has been very negative. The roles that the women are made out to
be in these characters can range from being bad to just being a bad message.
Sometimes, women are barely recognized in the film at all. In an article in the
International Trade Herald, they talk about the different roles women have in
films. One of the things they had to say about women's roles was that "the
first decade of the 21st century can be viewed as a singularly male-dominated
era in American cinema." (Scott, pg.1) Obviously this is still a problem
within recent years. One recent film that may had some problems with the female
characters in it was Django Unchained.
The only female characters were either slaves or submissive, serving women.The
main female character is just a simple damsel in distress. The women in the
film are pushed the side to make room for the macho men and the action that
they can cause. However, this leaves the women completely out of the action and
does not leave a very good impression of how women are supposed to act, or is
even really a good representation of how real women act. On top of that, the
magazine Death and Taxes raised the point that the film does not even have the
excuse of the time period to have written these characters that way. According
to the article, " During slavery, many women struggled to define and to
defend themselves in circumstances that sought to strip them of their humanity.
Women found ways to maintain a sense of family and a belief in the
possibilities of future that they could only imagine. These women do not appear
in “Django Unchained” (Abrams, 1). Even in college films, the ideas and roles
of women aren't necessarily reflective of actual women. There is a good example
of this in the student film made by a classmate of mine. In the film, called Love Is Over, the main character is
male. He is stuck in a room, after being kidnapped, with his girlfriend. During
the time the film takes place, all that the girl does is scream and try and ask
for help. Although this was obviously to have the girl be a love interest as
well as a damsel in distress, this is not a good representation of women. The
character is not strong, and if it weren't for the type of story, the character
would seem completely useless and possibly even annoying. The representation of
women in the film, as well as Hollywood films, is
overall negative and affecting how people think of women.
For
the perception of women to change in films, filmmakers must make an effort to
write more independent and strong female characters. The character of Black
Widow in The Avengers is a woman
amongst many super powered men. However, she still manages to hold her own
against the enemies of the film and doesn't need men to look out for her. The
director Joss Whedon also directed the television show Buffy The Vampire
Slayer, which changed some of the gender roles and showed women in more heroic
roles than normally shown. In The Avengers, Whedon obviously made a conscious
effort to have her be more of a developed character than a the usual sidekick
or damsel in distress. By making this decision, Joss Whedon was able to show anyone
watching the film that women can defend themselves and don't always have to be
saved. A writer for The New Agenda even went as far as to say that the film was
a feminist film. When talking about the strong female role of Black Widow,
Karrin Vasby Anderson said " She goes toe to toe with the bad guys,
keeping pace with her male counterparts, fueled only by girl power" (Anderson,
1). It's obvious that this character is something that is very different for
movies, especially action movies such as this. Whedon also shows that the women
don't always have to be a side character. Black Widow is definitely a sidekick,
but the film follows her for a good portion of time and gives her some scenes
alone. This easy solution makes much of a difference to the people who watched
the film, including young girls. Young girls who watched the film now have a
good role model for a strong, independent woman who is also a superhero in her
own right. This gives young women a pretty good person to look up to on the
screen and overall creates a different character than most people see in films
today.
Along
with this, there are also different ways of writing characters to make them
stronger. Though the female character in a film may not be an independent
heroine, there are still things that filmmakers can consider. They don't always
need to make the women look like they need to be saved. One of the biggest
problems that feminists seem to have with the portrayal of women in films is
that they need to be saved by a strong man. There are very few independent
women throughout film, and the few there are still might fall into the
stereotype of being saved by a man in some way throughout the film they appear
in. One example is Anne Hathaway's character in Les Miserables. Fontaine is a worker at the beginning of the film.
She is mostly strong for herself, and she stands up against the shift manager
in the film. Afterwards, she gets fired and has to fend for herself as well as
try to get money for her child. She ends up falling into prostitution to get
more money. She seems to be a strong character who takes care of herself
throughout the film, but then she gets saved by the main character, a man named
Jean Valjean. The character who seems to be strong and independent still falls
into the cliche of being saved by a male character. According to an article
from the site policymic.com, " in Les Mis, the women are depicted
as minor characters, only there to move the struggle forward for the main
characters, the men." (Tavaras, 1). To fix this, the filmmaker could have
taken this idea and had her stand up for herself some more, and Valjean just
could have supported her. Women don't always have to be saved, but the
filmmakers don't have to completely make it so that they are independent
either. They just need to make it a realistic interpretation of a woman and try
not to represent women in a negative light.
Another
solution to this problem is that arts programs in schools could teach kids at
an earlier age how to deal with these topics. When you are a young kid, you
don't exactly understand much of the world, and what you do know you seem to
gather from the movies you watch. If there were programs at schools to teach
kids how to react to certain kinds of representations of women in films, then this
could help with making kids understand what filmmakers do and also help them
not take everything in movies as pure fact. This program could consist of
watching movies and discussing as a class what is right or wrong about the
characters and if they could happen in real life. This could also give the
students a chance to figure out what kind of people they want to be, and know
that they don't have to base themselves off of characters in a movie when that
movie might not represent them or a group they belong in very well. This would
also have another benefit that future filmmakers might have better ideas about
what to do and how to represent women in their films in the future.
Future
filmmakers also usually end up getting their training from a university of some
sort. There could also be more education, on a college level to people who make
these films. There can be more courses on women and women's history throughout
cinema to help promote women's roles in cinema and show that women might not
always be the role that you find them. Professors in college classes can also
concentrate on enforcing the importance of writing female characters as they
would actually act in real life. Teaching these things and setting rules for
the films that people make will make the filmmakers have more of an active mind
on the issue and will make them think more about the roles they write or film
in the future. These classes should also offer a history on women in cinema to
show what great things women have done in film, to maybe convince some people
that it is a good idea to have women in their films be strong. This would also
be a great opportunity to offer a class for upcoming filmmakers to learn about
portrayals of women and how the media as well as the consumer views these representations.
This class could show the differences in characters over the years in film and
which ones had the greatest impact. One of the films that could be used as a
good example is Silence of The Lambs.
The main character is a strong woman who is able to hold her own mentally with
a criminally insane cannibal named Hannibal.
This was a different example of a woman character at the time, and definitely
was a very well-written strong character. She was very much the hero throughout
most of the movie. According to an article from the feminist magazine Camera
Obscura, The main character, Clarice " risks being victimized and
psychologically raped by Lecter, she does not fully assume the role of
victim-hero until she enters Bill's lair, and even then she does so only
briefly." (Schopp, 2). This is obviously something that was not seen much
before this movie.
Some
people might view this problem in a different light. Some people believe that
films are a story, and that even though the character might not be realistic,
the characters themselves are just a vessel for the story to move through.
Therefore, the characters themselves are not representative of anyone in the
world, and they do not even necessarily represent the ideas or stereotypes of
the people who may be put in the same situation as the movie. However, this is
not necessarily true. One film that clearly has some problems with the
portrayal of a female character in it is Dead
Calm. In the film, there is a lot of odd sexual mix-ups, and even a part where
the woman seduces a man just to knock him out. Some of this seems to imply that
a woman can only get something through sex, and that sex is a woman's only
weapon. Along with that, there seems to be a hint that the female character
might have desires other than her husband. Another article in the Camera
Obscura states that, "What Dead Calm depicts is the force of Rae's
divided drives projected out into a world in which events repeatedly entrap her
between the competing demands of two loves" (Schwartz, 4). What this
entails is that this woman on the screen, although she is played by an actress
and not actually a person making decisions, makes the audience believe, through
the power of the movie, that this is what a woman would do in this situation.
Indeed, it shows that she has chosen a love triangle of some sort of her own
volition. This sends a message to women, as well as men, that women are more
likely to cheat, or want to pursue a relationship with another man. Although
this might not be true, the film makes it clear to the audience that it is a
possibility. Just because the film writes the character this way, it makes the
audience believe that perhaps this is a way a woman such as Rae would react in
this situation. The film is basing the character's motivations on reality, at
least partially, which makes an impression on the people viewing of how the
events would actually play out. Overall, the ideas shown in this movie are
actually a terrible representation of women. Women aren't all wanting to have a
relationship with a man other than their husband, and neither do they use sex
as a weapon. This film might show some women who watch it that to get what they
want they need to use sex as a weapon. This is, of course, not a good lesson
for women, young or old. Of course, this also helps reinforce the stereotype
that women are sexual beings. Some men might see this film and believe that
women should be seen as sexual objects, since Rae in the film obviously wanted
to be thought of that way. Whether the filmmakers meant to or not, they made a
film that shows many bad sides of women, and some might say that this does not
represent any women at all. Many women in this situation would not do these
sorts of these, like use sex as a weapon. The actions of the character are not
a good representation, and are therefore still a problem even if the character
is just written a certain way to move the story along.
Filmmakers
need to be more conscientious about what
kind of things they put in their movies. They need to be aware that they are
representing women in the films they make. As well, there needs to be more
awareness in the world that the people shown on screen don't necessarily
represent the gender they are showing. Overall, for the negative impression of
women to change, there needs to be change with how people see movies as well as
how they make them. People need a better understanding of what characters mean.
This needs to be taught in different ways all throughout life. There are many
different ways of doing this, and although it might not seem like a big enough
issue to warrant this, it definitely is. There needs to be things done to make
the representation of these women characters much better. People will always
take ideas about certain groups that they don't know a lot about from films.
This needs to be fixed so that people will have more accurate views on groups,
especially women, since they have notoriously been seen in certain negative
lights over the years.
If
these solutions are put into action, we can expect to see a lot of change over
the years. As more kids grow up knowing what movies tell us isn't necessarily
truthful to how women actually are, they will not take it as a representation
of women. Also, they will not end up thinking a certain way just because a
character in the movie thought that way. Also, the filmmakers would be a little
more focused on making sure that the female characters they write are accurate,
or at least react similarly to an actual woman. Hopefully this will lead to
more women getting jobs in the industry, as it would become a more important
issue to make sure that women are represented well in films. As time goes on,
the kids who learned about how women actually are and how women are shown in
films might go on to make films. Films will just become more and more accurate
to the depiction of women, and the film industry as a whole will hopefully
become more inclusive and diverse. This will lead to women breaking new
barriers in everyday life as well, as people will not judge women based on what
they have seen in movies. This would be a very great thing in the world if
these solutions were put forth.
In
conclusion, there are many things wrong with film's portrayal of women today.
This has been around for some time, but it's obviously starting to change. If
this change progresses, along with more teaching about representations of women
in schools as well as to filmmakers, the world will become a better place.
Works
Cited
Abrams, Brian. "Historian
Criticizes Depiction of Women In 'Django Unchained'" Death and Taxes. January 24, 2013. Web. February 25, 2013.
Anderson, Karrin. "Why 'The
Avengers' Is A Feminist Film" The
New Agenda .May 9, 2012: Web. February 25, 2013.
Love
Is Over. By Dominque Williams. 6 Shot Productions. 2013.
Nosferatu. Vampire Cinema. PSU
Education blog, 2012.
Schopp, Andrew. "The Practice
and Politics of 'Freeing the Look': Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs." Camera Obscura Sep.
22, 2003: 125-152. Print.
Scott, A.O. " Princess? Witch? Sidekick? Object? Star?; Women's roles on film
mirror their times, and these times
are confused" International Trade Herald December 8, 2011. Print.
Schwartz, Nina. "Itsy-Bitsy
Spiders and Other Pieces Of the Real in Dead Calm." Camera Obscura Mar. 26 2002: 149-180. Print.
Tavaras, Tye. "Les Miserables
Movie: Should Feminists Be Angry About It?" Policymic. Web. February
26, 2013.
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