Throughout history, people have defined the role, look, and behavior of women. Archaeological evidence suggests that among the nomadic steppe-people in Western Europe, warrior women wore pants, rode horses, and fought alongside their male counterparts. A freedom and fate only granted as long as it served their nomadic lifestyle. Once they settled near the Black Sea, women’s roles and dress changed along with the beliefs and laws to ensure compliance (Steinmetz 1). In fact, many laws have been generated to help define women and the role they play in society: 1769, Women Lose Autonomy in Marriage; 1777, Voting Rights Abolished; 1866, Rights of Voters and Citizens are Defined as Being Male; 1873, Women Barred From Practicing Law; 1924, New York Waitresses Must Work Day shifts, 1932, A Law to Force Women Out of Government jobs, and 2014, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby to deny women access to birth control pills by refusing to offer contraceptive coverage (Wolfe 1). Religion, law, and beliefs about gender help people fit into the culture around them. Popular culture helps reinforce these stereotypes and attitudes toward women by depicting them in roles viewers expect to see. Women are seen as objects of pleasure and that appeal, gets cashed in on everyday by men, women, and business. Popular culture through the use of multimedia continues to represent and stereotype women by presenting them in traditional roles, unrealistic or sexualized imagery, and provocative clothing or costume. This may not be what women want to hear but it is what sells in a modern day pop culture driven by instant gratification and money. A system reinforced by pop culture may not want to change but there is evidence it should.
Storytelling through media influences all types of people regardless or race, gender, or age in developed countries. According to Furnham and Bitar, the average person in the United States watched television an average of 31 hours a week and about 27 hours a week in Britain (1). Women in film and television are typically seen as mothers, housewives, nurses, teachers, or prostitutes. Many genres including Westerns depicted women in long dresses relegated to inside of a home rather than a career of profession like their male counterparts. Research shows that mass media continue to promote traditional gender roles where men are powerful and dominant and women are submissive and weak (Parrot and Parrot 4). Leave It to Beaver still resonates as the gold standard in what an idyllic American family should look. When women do appear in media, they embody the “thin ideal” body shape and appear in traditional gender roles, including nurse, homemaker, or another “pink collar” role like assistant or secretary (Parrot and Parrot 4). These roles and images are important because it is the reality most people want to believe in or value based on their beliefs. The majority of culture is heterosexual and roles and images reflect those norms. Roles are defined and reinforced through culture so each gender knows the expectations on them. Roles help people figure out how they fit in or are supposed to behave like. Today’s roles have not strayed too far from fairy tale princesses, witches, supportive wife, gorgeous woman turns the goofy unattractive male’s life around, or the cold career seeker. Fairy tales are predictable in many female characterizations. The repeated Cinderella storyline of girl in trouble finding her prince and living happily ever after. Modern versions include Ever After, Ella Enchanted, Into the Woods, and the wildly popular Shrek. In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts plays a prostitute and lands her millionaire. The serious cold career seeker is another popular modern day role. Career woman only softens when she finds love and marries a man (Walsh 2). No Reservations with Catherine Zeta-Jones as the head chef Kate at a New York restaurant is a great example. The modern man is not out hunting for food or fighting off enemies. Pop culture helps illuminate the male role, his strength, and power. Women are the nurturers, mothers, and lovers. These roles help keep most girls fantasy of being rescued and living happily ever after with her prince alive. What woman would not like to marry prince charming with loads of money so she never has to work?
When we think of women, images appear of those we have seen in our homes, schools, church, public, magazines, television, and movies. Social scientists attribute the importance of studying images and stereotypes of women in media because femininity and masculinity are not biological but rather, cultural constructs (Davtyan-Gevorgyan 2). “Femininity is culturally and socially constructed by the family, education, the public, and to a larger extent, the media” (Davtyan-Gevorgyan 2). Historically, men have dominated media and created images of women “they wished to see in reality” (Davtyan-Gevorgyan 2). Jacqueline Lambiase wrote the gender is performative based on traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, which leads to heterosexuality based on rigid cultural expectations (59). Sexuality and celebrity sexuality is a mainstay of Hollywood to promote movies, sell products, and to entice viewers to identify with celebrity images (58). As home computers came into homes so did the access to the World Wide Web and the infinite stream of female images. In 2001, twelve percent of Web pages were devoted to pornography or sexual content” (61). “Between March 1999 and January 2001, “sex” was found to be the most used search term based on more than 42 million search pages” (61). The Web is not the only contributor. Let’s face it, sex sells and clothing, costume, and posture matter. Sixty-five percent of top men’s magazines, 21% of network promotional, and 8% of commercials use a female or male celebrity in sexual dress (Lambiase 61).
Costume, dress, makeup, camera angle or any other subtle way media uses to imply sexual content or arouse the notion of sexual overtones for a male gaze and the male dollar. The many years of Wonder Woman illustrate this. Wonder Woman was first created in 1940 and was wearing the star spangled outfit that featured a sleeveless top just covering her breasts, a mid-thigh skirt, and red mid-calf high heeled boots. In 1950 Wonder Woman became more athletic in her spandex shorts but still had bare chest and high heels. A brief experiment in the 50’s happened when Wonder Woman went with sandals and short shorts to show more leg. The 1960’s brought on a white short upper thigh dress. The hair, make-up, and lips are featured. The 1990’s brought back spandex shorts, and small topcoat revealing all but the black bra. Wonder Woman is often posed in an awkward or unrealistic stance. Much of this is not reality but the male viewer needs to know the image is someone he can accept or be with and women can accept her because she is strong but she is still feminine, pretty, and attractive. In some ways, women in America may feel like wonder woman as they try to juggle home, work, and children. Our culture relies on sexuality and celebrity for meaning and identity (Lambiase 60).
“Meaning is created when a viewer interprets a photograph or graphical icon within a particular culture of social context” (Lambiase 60). Many women in pop culture use their own sexuality to promote their image. Britney Spears, Shakira, and Ashanti all have nude or partially nude images on their official web sites (Lambiase 65). Images of a sexual nature or sexual innuendo target an important response, pleasure. It is hard to resist buying the product, watching the movie, or surfing the web when all the eye candy is hitting hard on the pleasure response. Sex breaks through so people will pay attention. Movies and television are for pleasure, so the images should bring pleasure and likeability factor. Advertisers need a way to keep viewers engaged long enough to see their products.
At what cost is society paying for the stereotypical image and role of women? There is concern that repeated viewing of female characters in disadvantaged, underrepresented or misrepresented roles has real-life consequences for girls and women (Lauzen and Dozier 485). These portrayals are important because a young female viewer can look upon her favorite actress as a source of hair design, occupational aspiration, clothing style, and more (Elasmar, Hasegawa, & Brain 20). “Researchers found that female characters are more likely to be identified by their marital status, while male characters are more likely identified by their occupational status” (Lauzen and Dozier 488). In a world where women make up over half the population and a vast majority go to work everyday, these portrayals harm or limit women. It tells girls and women their work is not important or valued as much as her marital status. The repeated exposure to women seen in inferior positions tells an audience girls and women are not capable of a particular job or skill. Violence is another way girls and women are harmed. Movies, music, and music videos play an important role in the repeated messaging and imagery. These are a popular medium for younger viewers and reinforce the American cultural images of traditional and patriarchal representations of gender, sexuality, and relationships (Kalof 378). According to Kalof, research documented a variety of music videos, R-rated films, crime dramas, and Western films that “portray sexual violence as having positive consequences increased men’s acceptance of interpersonal violence against women and tended to increase their acceptance of rape myths” (379). Women portrayed in sexually subordinate roles in Rap music videos increased the girls’ acceptance of teen dating violence (379). None of this helps females feel entirely safe in their environment or help men refute the notion that all men want one thing.
The bottom line in the movie industry is money and the numbers do not lie. The bias in Hollywood would point to the belief that only strong male lead movies can make money. A 2015 article in Variety by Thelma Adams says otherwise. Women lead movies made well over their cost to produce. Pitch Perfect 2 and Cinderella combined to make over $800 million. Fifty Shades of Grey directed and starred by females has grossed $570 million while only costing $30 million to make. The Hunger Games trilogy starring Jennifer Lawrence has grossed $2.2 billion not counting “Mocking Jay” part 2. The 2017 action film Wonder Woman directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot as Diana of Themysira surpassed $700 million worldwide and had not yet opened in Japan with a production cost of only $149 million. “The film surpassed $346.1 million domestically in 31 days and out-earned films like Spider-man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Zootopia according to Forbes” (Calfas 1).
A sociology 101 professor at Eastern assigned a pop culture book written by David Grazian who wrote, “the stuff of popular culture-movies, music, television shows, video games, graphic novels, magazines-are products sold by multinational corporations in the interest of making billions of dollars” (121). With the amount of money spent on production the bottom line is always in view. Predictable storylines and messages drive the output in the risk aversion landscape (Grazian 126). Original storylines and artists have a more difficult time surviving in what has become a cookie-cutter approach to multimedia. If the recent success of Wonder Woman, Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, Pitch Perfect and others are any indication of what people want, pop culture may have to get in step with what the book industry already knows. “Women are among the most avid readers with the household purchase power behind them” (Adams 2). The success of movies directed and starred by females has shown to be a positive and supported product from the traditional Hollywood gender bias. One of the ways change is going to happen is when more female directors like Patty Jenkins find success and more opportunities. Evidence suggests that there is a positive and significant relationship between the number of female executives and the number of female characters (Lauzen and Dozier 484). A study of 1997-1998 of prime-time television found similar results with female executives and female characters. “Women in powerful behind the scenes roles (executive producer, creator, writer) and the frequency with which female characters used powerful language behaviors such as first and last substantive word in conversations” (Lauzen and Dozier 487) increased. It appears the behind-the-scenes women assert a “civilizing quality” (487) to the nature of conversation on screen. In other words, according to Lauzen and Dozier, “programs written by women appeared to highlight or intensify their realities while subduing what might be considered a more masculine reality” (488). Women lead movies and television play an important role in helping pop culture change the view of how gender and stereotypes are perpetuated to a much broader world. With more successful movies like Wonder Woman 2017, someday the notion of woman as submissive victim can be a thing of the past.
Works Cited
Adams, Thelma. “Female-Driven Movies Make Money, So Why Aren’t More Being Made?” Variety October 6, 2015. http://www.variety.com/2015/film/news/female-driven-movies-box-office-women-1201610849/Accessed 4 June 2018.
Calfas, Jennifer. “Wonder Woman Just Keeps Making Money.” Time July 3, 2017. www.time.com/money/4843774/wonder-woman-box-office-worldwide/ Accessed 4 June 2018.
Davtyan-Gevorgyan, Anna. “Women and Mass Media”. Heinrich Boll Stiftung April 2016. www.feminism-boell.org/en/2016/04/08/women-and-mass-media Accessed 27 May 2018.
Elasmar, Michael, Hasegawa, Kazumi, & Brain, Mary. “The portrayal of women in U.S. prime time television.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Winter 1999, pp. 20-34.
Furnham, Adrian and Bitar, Nadine. “The stereotyped portrayal of men and women in British television advertisements.” Sex Roles, vol. 29, No.3/4, 1993, pp. 297-310. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed 27 May 2018.
Grazian, David. Mix It Up: Pop Culture, Mass Media, and Society. New York, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., Copy Right 2017, Page 121.
Kalof, Linda. “The effects of gender and music video imagery on sexual attitudes,” The Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 139, no.3, 1999, pp. 378-385. http://www.ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/docview/199794687?accountid=7305. Accessed 27 May 2018.
Lambiase, Jacqueline. “Codes of Online Sexuality: Celebrity, Gender and Marketing On The Web.” Sexuality & Culture, Summer 2003, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 57-78. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Lauzen, Martha M. and Dozier, David M. “Evening the Score in Prime Time: The Relationship Between Behind-the-Scenes Women and On-Screen Portrayals in the 2002-2003 Season.” Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, September 2004; vol. 48 no. 3, pp. 484-500. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Miller, Merrill. “Game of Gender Roles: Popular Culture and Women”. The Humanist.com, 15 June 2015, http://www.arts_entertainment/culture/game-of-gender-roles-popular-culture-and-women. Accesses 27 May 2018.
Parrott, Scott and Parrott, Caroline T. “U.S. Television’s ‘Mean World’ for White Women: The Portrayal of Gender and Race on Fictional Crime Dramas.” Sex Roles [serial online], 20 July 2015, vol. 73 nos. 1-2, pp. 70-82. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Steinmetz, Katy. “From Horse People to Hillary Clinton: A History of Women Wearing Pants”. Time, 14 June 2016. Accessed 27 May 2018.
Walsh, Katie. “Commentary: Some stereotyped women’s film roles we’d like to do away with”. Los Angeles Times, 16 March 2018. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-women-stereotyped-roles-20180316-story.html. Accessed 27 May 2018.
Wolfe, Lahle. “U.S. Laws That Have Negatively Impacted Opportunities for Women.” TheBalanceCareers.com. 23 December 2017. www.thebalancecareers.com/us-laws-negatively-impact-women-3515759. Accessed 27 May 2018.
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