For decades, people around the world engage and consume Hollywood media products such as films on a daily basis. Films have the power to reach audiences far and wide and help convey ideas about cultural, social & political issues. These messages that films bring, contribute to our perception of the real world and in relation to this essay, our perception of women. Women have been instrumentally involved in some incredible moments in history such as Queen Elizabeth I, Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Emmeline Pankhurst and Queen Elizabeth II, all who have had a film or films made or dedicated to them at some point, but other than true stories, female characters that are created by Hollywood are often stereotyped and include ideologies that do not reflect the reality of women.
Since the women’s movement, their roles in cultural, social & political life has changed and progressed for the better, giving women an equal ground in all aspects of life. Whilst females have achieved these incredible milestones, how many of them have been interpreted into the media we consume daily such as film, television, radio & newspapers? It is these products that have the power to bring insightful and powerful stories to inform audiences. Because of its wide reach, we must recognize what messages these platforms are circulating about women, but the male dominance of the film industry like other industries around the world is still very evident even in the 21st century.
Now more than ever, women in Hollywood movies are subject to unattainable standards of brains, beauty and physique. Women must have it all on screen and off. As much of the entertainment industry is considered to be exactly that, entertainment, we can’t deny its power to promote these ideologies all over the world.
It’s difficult to discuss women in film without looking to theorist Laura Mulvey’s approach to feminist film theory. In her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ she criticizes the sexual objectification of women on screen through an active male gaze. Being objectified makes women exactly that, objects, which takes away their power and are there just to make the scene look ‘pretty’ just like a bunch of flowers the set designer would place to make the scene look attractive. How can a human being be just as objectified as a piece of set design? Which brings me to think the industry hasn’t majorly changed in the sense that women are chosen in films to make the film look pleasant to the audience.
Also in her essay, she argues that specifically Hollywood films use scopohilia, sexual pleasure through viewing to communicate the codes and conventions that make us feel safe when watching films. “Women are constantly looked at and displayed for the male spectator’s pleasure” (Mulvey, 1975) This is evidenced in many films where women are undermined by the close-ups of their figures, tight clothes or sexual features such as their lips, hips, legs etc.
During the classic Hollywood era, women fell into two stereotypical roles of housewife, mother or being sexually promiscuous, which brings me to talk about the male gaze theory. The male gaze theory is made up to three things. 1 – How men look at women, 2 – How women look at themselves and 3 – How women look at other women. Although I would argue that the Hollywood film industry during the traditional phases were controlled by men which means that it isn’t only how the men in the film are looking at the women, but how the camera looks at her which further impacts the voyeuristic act of the audience (Male or Female) as we engage in watching the film itself and how we are supposed to feel and react to the character.
Looking into traditional Hollywood narratives, one of the key ideas that Mulvey promotes in her essay is that within traditional storytelling, the female subject is always passive whereas the male is active. For example, in Disney fairytale movies or Marvel action hero movies, the princess waits to be rescued by the handsome, muscly hero (Usually the prince).
There have been major changes from the second wave feminist film theory from the 1960’s – 1980’s until now; and the development of female characters becoming the hero instead of ‘Damsel in Distress’ in the industry. This pattern isn’t just clear in Hollywood mainstream live action stories, but also in the animated stories. Comparing two Disney films, such as Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1989) and Disney’s Frozen (2013) the differences in the female characters and their goals seem all too obvious, get the prince and live happily ever after, but with further study on both films, we can definitely see the changes in female heroines in the space of 30 years.
Rodger Ebert, American Film Critic from the 1960’s until 2010, praised Ariel as a “fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny” but looking at it as bluntly as possible, Ariel literally gives up her voice for the chance to be with Eric, a man she has never met before. She acts like a typical love struck teenager, unhappy with her life in the sea, although then looking into the case study of Disney’s Frozen, not only was it the first Disney animated feature directed by a woman (Jenifer Lee) but the first woman to obtain over $1 billion at the box office. It isn’t hard to see why Frozen for a Disney princess film did so well, I would say that the narrative isn’t concerned with the traditional find a prince motive compared to Ariel’s storyline, but to do with sisterly love and the trials and tribulations that they come across. The men in Frozen only play small roles compared to the mainly male cast of Ariel’s father, Ruler of the sea, Sebastian, the king’s adviser, Prince Eric and also Ariel’s best friend flounder, the only other woman that comes across Ariel’s path is Ursula the villain, whereas in Frozen, the men have nothing to do with the fate of Anna or Elsa. The ending is also noteworthy that Lee changes the fate of the girls considering it doesn’t follow the traditional Disney outline to break the spell with ‘true loves first kiss’, whereas it becomes clear that Hans’ real intentions was to kill the sisters to take the throne for himself.
With The Little Mermaid, the story is based purely on Ariel getting that kiss before sunset and in Frozen, it is the sisterly love that breaks the spell. These films are most definitely seen as feminist as they both refuse to follow the traditional path in a sense but Anna and Elsa are not fixated on finding an appropriate male to fulfil the conventional ‘happy ever after’ ending which features in so many Disney princess films. This to me demonstrates how the change from The Little Mermaid to Frozen allows new ways for new female heroines to come forward especially with the target audience being so young.
From finding this almost too familiar in every film I have ever watched, I wanted to look into the costumes of one of the most successful franchises in the world, the James Bond films, looking at the 1970s, the 1990s and the most recent (2015), I looked into costume and how it has developed over 40 years. From these pictures below, it is clear to see that women have been covering their bodies up for the camera and adapted more of an ‘classy seductive’ look rather than the skimpy bikinis and show of unnecessary skin.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 3 Figure 4
Figure 5 Figure 6
Although it is a big change for females in films not having to show so much flesh to still be seen and heard in many films, men are always represented in detailed facial view whereas women are mainly shown as body parts alone. Some theorists such as Marcia Belsky, have also noticed the sexualizing of the female body where female sexiness has nothing to do with the product being advertised. I have taken examples from these film posters below.
Not only do these types of posters strip the women of their identities and forcibly subject to the male gaze, they also insidiously suggest that opinions, feelings and personalities of women don’t exist either. The two most shocking was how a children’s film, ‘Minions, 2015’ even adapted this style for their poster at a young target audience which subjects children to subliminal messages to the sexual connotations of a woman’s body and also how ‘Wonder Woman, 2017’, a film with a female lead role is also seen as just ‘a pair of lips’.
From what I can observe, 2017 turned out to be an extremely significant milestone for women in the film industry. For the first time since 1958 with ‘Auntie Mame’, films in 2017 with female actors as lead roles have topped Americas box office. The Last Jedi, Wonder Woman & Beauty and the Beast became the top three highest grossing movies of 2017. This could be seen as a fitting response to a year in which Hollywood was shaken by sexual harassment accusations against ‘powerful men’ in the film industry. This is a positive step forward, although it still isn’t enough for women in the industry. Each year, the Media Diversity & Social Change Initiative at USC, Annenberg, produces an extensive report on issues of overall representation in the film industry from gender, race and sexuality. According to the USC study, it was reported that in 2016, 20.7% of producers are women, 13.2% are writers, 4.2% are directors. It is clear to see that there is still a huge portion taken up by men.
Hollywood’s use of genre films has preserved such representation and through the set ways of films codes and conventions, these genre films tell familiar stories to large audiences. From looking into Genre Theory in class, it is clear to see that Hollywood preserve this formula because the audience attraction towards such films are high as well as the desire to make huge profits on such recognizable genres is in their best interests.
Focusing on genre, the percentage of female characters appearing in action or adventure films, animated movies and comedies were also evaluated by USC and their research found that the action/adventure genre were the least likely to feature women on screen in 2016 and comedies were the most likely at 40% compared to 20% back in 2007. Looking at these statistics, it is hard to see much of an improvement in the last 10 years as its only gone up by a relatively small 20%.
The representation of women in film has been a hot topic in recent years, including celebrities who have been very vocal on the matter such as Natalie Portman at the Golden Globes who made a brave but bold comment presenting best director where she said “Here are the all-male nominees”. Not a single female was nominated for her work despite high grossing female directors like Patty Jenkins for Wonder Woman in that year.
Women’s representation in film, is important because, if we are meant to see film as a reflection of narratives that matter to our population, then they should accurately represent modern day life and the modern day woman. Although we can see improvements, there is still a long way to go in Hollywood for women to be seen and heard just as much as males. In retrospect, to answer my question about how the representation of women has developed throughout the years in Hollywood cinema, the film industry is moving forward and is seen to be giving more women more chances to appear as main leading roles as well as giving them more freedom to express themselves rather than obeying traditional rules of how they are supposed to act, think, talk and dress, but from the research and statistics I have found, it is seen to be moving at a moderately slow pace.