For as long as I can remember, I have been a die-hard movie fan. From the theater, to an outdoor cinema in the park, to my couch at home, there has always been a level of excitement to watching movies that I can’t describe. Lately, however, getting lost inside the world of film has been hard for me due to our modern film industry’s obsession with portraying females as shallow, simple and man-obsessed people.
In 2012, only 11 percent of clearly identifiable movie protagonists were women, according to a survey by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen. Of the 11 percent of movies with female leads, most involved a plot that revolved around the woman finding or falling in love with a man. So even though the woman was the protagonist, the plot was still about getting the guy.
The plots of the other 89 percent of movies made in 2012 revolved around a man. When half of our population is comprised of females, it is astonishing that they make up so few of the characters in our movie industry.
I believe this is because of two main factors. The first being that the production staff of movies, i.e. directors, producers and screenplay writers, are made up of mostly men, who have an easier time portraying men as complex human beings and creating characters out of them. Women directors are rarely considered by producers to direct films involving male leads, even though no one thinks twice about a man directing a movie involving female leads. This is despite the success of many female directors who have directed movies involving male leads, such as Kathryn Bigelow, winner of the Academy Award for Best Director for “The Hurt Locker.”
The other factor in the make up of these characters is the advertisers. Since it is harder to get men to watch TV and movies, advertisers target them, especially men ages 18 to 30. It is a commonly accepted rule in media, although never actually proven, that promoters can get a woman to watch movies about women or men, but can’t get a man to watch a movie about women. Because of this idea, advertisers and sponsors are more likely to support a film that revolves around the lives of men.
For example, despite being a widely popular book among teens, the screenplay for the movie “Twilight” was rejected by several production companies before being accepted by Summit Entertainment, according to Catherine Hardwicke, the film’s director, in an interview. According to Hardwicke, production companies believed it wouldn’t be very popular because it featured a female lead. Despite this, “Twilight” brought in over $190 million in box office revenue in the United States alone, proving the stigma that films featuring a female lead won’t be popular to be completely false. Another movie proving this stigma wrong was “The Hunger Games.”
The fact that most of the 11 percent of female protagonists in movies are not portrayed as complex people is very disturbing. Most women I know are more concerned about their careers and aspirations than they are with what they are going to wear on a date, and how they can get the guy to fall in love with them. This terrible portrayal of women is greatly setting us back. Audiences are taught to see women as vanity-obsessed and unintelligent, and they are not taken as seriously in the real world because of it. Women are seen as secondary characters in life, unimportant to the main plot and not complex or interesting enough to be as successful as men.
Not only is the portrayal of women as simple and male-obsessed human beings untrue, it is also vastly boring and overrated. I am sick of going to movies that fall into the genre of my gender, or “chick flicks,” involving the same exact plots starring the stereotypical woman whose life revolves around falling in love with a man who will in turn complete her as a person and make her happy. I want to see more movies like “Alice and Wonderland,” “The Hunger Games” and “Julie & Julia” being made—movies starring strong female leads with real motivations and complex personalities. The stigma that these movies don’t bring in as much revenue as movies revolving around men is a myth that needs to be challenged.
How do you feel about the film industry’s depiction of women in movies? Please send feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
