Essay: In the genre sci-fi, the way women are portrayed and represented has changed

A media genre is always changing, it is like a vessel or a vechile that is always moving forward to create pathways to new concepts. The way we look at media today, is completely different to how we looked at it in early films. A big change in the genre scifi is the way women are portrayed and represented. In early films women were purely there for eye candy of the men, and would mainly just stand aside the men in the film. However there has only been a slight change in the genre but it has infact made its improvements from early films to now.
In the film A Trip to The Moon directed by George Melies in 1902, a male only group transends to victory when completing there mission to the moon with no help of females. this shows the audience that only males can conquere things such as a trip to the moon and that females are only there for eye candy. The target audience for this fim is purely aimed at males because the use of male dominance and leadership attracts males into watching the film because they can relate and enjoy watching the overpowerment of men to women. Another film that shows male dominace is Forbidden Planet. In Forbidden Planet the main female character Alta, is the typical girly girl who cant do anything for herself and has to have a man there to save her and to lead her to victory. In one of the scenes she says “then why dont you kiss me like everybody else does”. This showed me that Alta is only in the film as a boy toy for the main male character and when she says “like everybody else does” it shows me that other men in Altas past life have used her for pleasure which makes her character weaker and less important when along side the dominant male character in the film.
There was a small change between early film and early seventies, eighties and nineties films. The film Alien directed by Ridley Scott, released in 1986 shows a change in gender equality by making the main female character Ellen Ripley, a strong independent women who has to fight on her own to save herself. This film was a huge step for feminism but in the film her co start Lambert was the typical damsel in distress who just screamed and hid and waited for the men to do the work for her. This change was big in the news as it was one of the first films of its kind. Another film where the main female character is a dominant figure is Terminator 2 wihch was released in 1992. The main character in this film Sarah is an idependent and strong single mother. Throughout the film she goes through a series of masculine stages. This is shown by her working by herself and protected herself, and her true masulinity shows through when she uses a wide range of weapons such as guns and rifles. However this doesnt last long, when her son and the terminator find her the dominance switches back to the terminator as he is the main male character in the film. This film was a huge breakthrough for women all over the world but they still had to use a male as a big macho man as one of the main heros in the film.
In recent releaded films (2000s) the change in media genre has been more noticeable. In the film Gravity realeased in 2013, the main female character Dr Ryan Stone has to take on space by herself when shes loses her workmates in outter space. Dr Ryan Stone who is played by Sandra Bullock spends more than half of the film on screen by herself in a range of different close ups that show her face with very little makeup on. This shows women watching this film that there is such thing as inner beauty and that you dont need to cover up your insecurities with makeup. At the end of the film when Stone desends back to earth, the shuttle she is in lands in the middle of a body of water. She is forced to strip down out of her space suit in order to survive. Her female role was still sexualised in a way that made it stilll interesting for male viewers to be hooked on the film. This was the only down side of feminism in this film. The film Ex Machina released in 2015 shows female dominace over male as the main character Ava is a female AI robot. Her co start Caleb’s job is to test the capabilities and conciousness of Ava as an AI. Partway through the film Caleb falls inlove with Ava because of her beautiful personality. The other main female character in this film is Kyoko who is a silent AI who is used as a sex and house slave to other male character Oscar.
The adaptation of having female dominace in main character roles in scifi films has made an outstanding change in scifi and people watching scifi all over the world. It is now accepted that gender roles have become equal in films earning the same income and profit as other films. The response to change in science fiction has show that the representation of women has changed over the years and has nearly met equal rights with male roles. A media genre is always changing and the changes made in the future are going to be might bigger for women rights and equality.