Sexism in Popular Culture - Dissertation Example

Sexism in Popular Culture Introduction Consider the character of Natalie Portman in “No Strings Attached”, Mila Kunis in “Friends with Benefits”, Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally”, Kate Hudson in “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days”, Renee Zellweger in “Jerry Maguire” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary”, Sandra Bullock in “While You Were Sleeping” and “Two Weeks Notice”. All of these above mentioned movies do not have a lot of elements in common except for the fact that have lead female characters that have been portrayed as confused, perplexed, hopeless romantic, defenceless, craving support and loving dependence, emotionally vulnerable, immature, easily persuaded and lured into doing things and others. Important here to note is there is a significant portion of the movies in Hollywood and instances in the popular culture, where one can easily find female characters, whether lead or supporting, with similar traits, whether it be film, television, theatre, drama, advertising, comic books, literature, video games, cartoons and others (Stéphanie & Brabon, 2009, p. 225). The rise of feminism and the debate about the identity of women has forced many filmmakers directors and producers in the media to move away from the traditional emotionally unstable and weak concept of women and portray women in a more realistic and empowering way. This created a demand of “strong female characters” and over the past couple of decades, many strong female characters have emerged to fill this gap. However, many feminist critics and even other experts have challenged and criticised the idea and depiction of strong female characters. This paper is an attempt to explore and analyse the depiction of women in film and video games, while simultaneously exploring the concept of “strong female characters”, its ideological grounding and the criticism. Female Representation in Media For much of the 20th century, especially, during the first half of the 20th century, most of the movies in Hollywood portrayed women as damsel in distress. Every now and then, these female characters would get themselves into trouble and rather than trying to help themselves, they would wait for the Hero to come save them. Towards the end, the Hero would come and save them to live a life happily ever after. However, towards the mid 20th century, the rise of feminism created discontent amongst female viewers and stakeholders of Hollywood that this portrayal of women as “needy” and “weak” creatures in sexist. In order to address the same, writers came up with female characters that would be trapped by the villain only after putting up a strong fight (Hollows & Moseley, 2006, p. 58). These women, to a certain degree, had skills normally possessed by men. They could drive sport cars, use guns, had physical strength, was comfortable with her body and could outdrink any man. Even when she could put a fight, these “strong female characters”, in the end of the movie, would get themselves into trouble and that also in the sexiest way possible. Surprisingly enough, even when she could put a fight to resist the pressures of villain, she would never get a black eye or get physically injured probably because they same would decrease her appeal. The point here is that all the “strength” added to the female character was just an attempt to make her a better and more attractive prize for the hero at the end. (Meyers, 2008, p. 172 (Gillis, et al., 2007, p. 413). The problem with the commonly used phrase “strong female characters” or “strong females or women” is that it is ironic, paradoxical and contradictory within itself. Female characters are viewed as strong only when they are able to exhibit dominance, assertiveness, tendency for violence, boldness, rudeness and impudence that is characterised with male characters (Haase, 2004, p. 340). The point here is that in order to become “strong female characters”, women have to give up the essence of their feminism and adopt the characteristics of male characteristics. Therefore, in reality, these characters are not strong, but they becoming more masculine and to a certain extent, entertaining and pleasurable to men (Carter & Steiner, 2004, p. 77). Men viewers have always appreciated seeing sexually proactive women on the screen. Therefore, strong female characters are not only less feminine in their essence, but at the same time, they are a mere entertainment and pleasuring object for the men. Moreover, if these actions make women strong, then it would imply that when women act normally, such as when they seek for help, cry, take care for children, dress modestly, help others, remain calm and composed, then they are viewed as weak women (Hollows & Moseley, 2006, p. 58). Mulvey (1975) puts forward an important concept of the male gaze. At the core, it refers to the fact that film and media does not show as they ought to be, but it portrays them from the male point of view, thus, demeaning and objectifying them. This is because they envision or think of their audience as heterosexual men and towards the end of the day, the men in the movie emerge as the dominant characters within the film (Stéphanie & Brabon, 2009, p. 22). More importantly, Mulvey argues that the same has led us to a place where the female gaze has become the equivalent of the male gaze. In other words, now female viewers of film and television prefer to view themselves from the eyes and perspective of the males within the society. Therefore, the film and the media are nothing more than a tool use by men to fulfill or at least experience their fantasies about women and their bodies. In fact, at some level, many critics have argued that the mainstream films and the media have dehumanised women through various ways of fragmentation, objectifying the women’s body, multiple women chasing one man and women portrayed as animals (Haase, 2004, p. 340). First, fragmentation refers to excessive attention focused on one part of any women’s body. Consider the example of the portrayal of Angelina Jolie in the movie Beowulf, where throughout the movie, either are breasts, eyes and other parts of the body are exclusively focused and shown for the male audiences to enjoy (Hollows & Moseley, 2006, p. 58). The same happened in the movie Swordfish where young men flocked to see Halle Barry topless. It was the scene where Halle’s character was reading a book in her backyard topless, however, the way the camera and the effects reduced Halle Barry to her breasts and avoided her face, personality or existence as a person was a great example of fragmentation in the media (Gillis, et al., 2007, p. 93). Second, objectifying the women’s body, as the names suggests, refers to reducing women to their appearance, looks and sexual actions and disregarding the intellectual, emotional and other aspects of women. In other words, it refers to treating women as objects that can be used for pleasure without any emotional attachment or appreciation (Carter & Steiner, 2004, p. 77). The fact is that due to this continuous objectifying of women in the media, they now feel comfortable with the objectification and they have even begun objectifying themselves. Levy (2005) refers to this phenomenon as “Raunch culture”. In this sort of culture, women engage in several exhibitions of their sexuality, and when some feminist see the same as a symbol of their liberation and expressions of their individual sexuality, Levy and many other feminists see the same as an instrument to provide pleasure to male observers. Levy refers to these women as “lipstick feminists”, who believe that through putting on excessive makeup, dressing in sexually proactive manner and participating in the objectifying of women and in turn objectifying men as well, they can liberate themselves and become “strong females”. Therefore, at many occasions, when the term “strong females” is used, it is for those females that have accepted the ideas of lipstick feminists and Raunch culture females and portray themselves in the same manner (Gillis, et al., 2007, p. 93). One of the recent examples of the male gaze in popular culture is critically acclaimed drama series by Aaron Sodkin titled “The Newsroom”. The story is about a new anchor, Will McAvoy, who has found a niche market by not asking tough questions to anyone. However, his life is turned upside down when he has to work with a new group of colleagues that want to do a show based on facts and truth, giving people the news that they need to make decisions regarding their political choices and not the news or gossip that they want to hear. Mackenzie McHale, the executive producer of the show, is the engine behind the show, which makes her the most powerful, determined and authoritative character on the set. Despite the same, Aaron Sodkin’s The Newsroom presents a classic example of the make gaze where all the female characters including McHale have been portrayed as confused, emotionally unstable, incompetent, erratic and insecure women, adding to the already held perception of women by the men in the society. Therefore, even when the women appear to be in charge, the question is whether Sodkin is trying to empower the character or patronise the character (Stéphanie & Brabon, 2009, p. 225). Female Representation in Gaming Unfortunately, there are games like The Legend of Zelda and Mario, where the female characters were not originally playable, portrayed the female characters in a marginalised way as being damsel in distress. Both of these female characters are beautiful, highly attractive and cute according to the traditional beauty standards, but they are useless in the sense that they cannot do anything to rescue themselves from the evil forces within their stories and have to show their dependence over the male characters to come and rescue them (Hollows & Moseley, 2006, p. 98). Many critics and feminists have criticised the portrayal of women in these games since they have marginalised women as mere eye candy and while male players spend their time on the game, their male egos of dominance and assertiveness are satisfied, and when women play this game, they are reassured that they cannot survive this world without the support of a male (Silverman, 1988, p. 110). Even when female characters are given a more active status in the game, most games in the past only sufficed at giving female characters a sidekick or supporting role. Ada Yong of Residential Evil and Mona Sax of Max Payne are the most prominent examples. Although, both of these characters did get more active roles within the later versions of the game, they were originally intended to support the main male protagonist (Levy, 2005, p. 88). Even in the popular game GTA Vice City, the male protagonist, amongst many other tasks, is faced with certain tasks where he has to uncover the infidelity of women, watch them dancing in a strip club, protect them from thieves and thugs and help them to get from one place to another. Even when there were no missions or tasks related to women, you find them roaming around the streets of the city, mostly in sexy lingerie. The point here is that most video games targeted at men are just another attempt for men to objectify women (Meyers, 2008, p. 172). There are many other games where even though, women appear as serving as the major characters, but their unrealistic portrayal sets the platform for male gamers to treat those characters as their fantasy sex mates and appreciate the game merely for the sex appeal of the characters (Stéphanie & Brabon, 2009, p. 225). Furthermore, in many video games, the armour of the male characters, as they move up to levels or collect the credits or equivalent elements required for upgrading, their armour becomes more heavier, strong and more intimidating (Brownmiller, 1985, p. 155). On the other hand, as the female characters move upwards towards the level of upgrading their armour, their armour becomes more revealing and see-through. Towards the end of the day, it appears that the goal of the entire exercise was to provide the gamer with a visual representation of a hot girl with metal lingerie (Genz, 2009, p. 92; Silverman, 1988, p. 110). In fact, in many other video games, women do not need to upgrade their armour for wearing sexually proactive dresses. Their characters, right from the very beginning are dressed and presented in such a manner that they become a part of the male fantasy. In fact, many graphic experts have been using jiggle physics, where they portray large breasted female characters in such a way that their breasts are bouncing and moving randomly, even when there is no sense behind the same, so that the men can take pleasure in sexual objectification of women (Carter & Steiner, 2004, p. 77). There are many critics and experts that agree that Tomb Raider was a departure from the traditional role of females within video games as sidekicks, eye candy or playing damsel in distress role (Brownmiller, 1985, p. 155; Reichert, 2003, p. 419). It provided the world with a female lead who was working without any direct male support. It was refreshing for female players, and many feminists all over the world appreciated the creation of a female character that the writers intended to look “hot and sexy” to the players, not because of erotic dresses, excessive breast size, curvy body or sexy outfit, but based on their intelligence, achievement and capability (Reid, 2009, p. 160). Therefore, even when Lara Croft did become a sex symbol for the women around the world, the same was not met with backlash because, as mentioned earlier, people were not admiring her based on her performance and ability and not her physical outlook and outfits (Gillis, et al., 2007, p. 93). However, rather unfortunately, the Tomb Raider game went off in a different direction in order to appeal to a broader segment of the market including males. The latest idea for the rebooting of Tomb Raider is to create a scenario where Lara Croft is facing the threat of rape by a group of island scavengers who would kill her afterwards. The creative team believed that they needed to provide the male players of the show with some sense of dominance and the chance to protect Lara, thus, satisfying their male egos (Meyers, 2008, p. 172). Lancaster (2004), on the other hand, criticises the portrayal of Lara Croft as an attempt to make male dominance acceptable but through female curves. Many believe that she is independent but the mere use of the world “independent” suggests that she is independent primarily because she does not conform to the female stereotypes and is closer to feminine masculinity since she is doing something which is a male profession. Metriod: Other M, released in the year 2010 was another step in the wrong direction regarding the portrayal of women in video games. The popular Japanese video games faced serious backlash from critics when the main character of the video games, the bounty hunter Samus Aran became too much dependent on the male character and for her permission to use her weapons and decide her targets (Carter & Steiner, 2004, p. 77). The entire idea was that the creators of the show wanted to explore a storyline where Samus’s old feeling towards her commander Adam are resurfacing and when he touches her, she feels the urge to impress Adam and catch her attention. During the first few battles, Samus decides not to use any missiles or bombs just because Adam had earlier instructed his soldiers, and not Samus, who is a bounty hunter, not to use any heavy weapons (Reid, 2009, p. 171). Her submissive behaviour towards her superior and her anxiety attacks in the game disillusioned some of the core players of the game that preferred the same because of the presence of a strong female character that did not depend on a male character to support her (Gillis, et al., 2007, p. 93). However, even with characters such as Lara Croft and others that have been accepted by critics and feminists as “strong female characters”, the core problem is still the same. The only thing that makes them “strong” or earns them the same title from the masses is their ability to take up roles and tasks that are usually performed by male characters within these games (Stéphanie & Brabon, 2009, p. 225). Therefore, it can be inferred that any female character who is ready to engage in violence, destruction, use guns, show martial arts, engage in quick movements, create bloodshed, perform tasks of a detective and others would be classified as “strong” because that female character is making an attempt at becoming more masculine (Reichert, 2003, p. 419). As discussed earlier in the paper as well, that if the same is true than the term or phrase, “strong female characters” is a paradoxical in nature since a female can only be strong when she gives up her feminine traits, or at least what are classified as feminine traits, and take up a masculine role. Therefore, she does not remain a true female anymore (Schroeder, 2002, p. 37). Conclusion Over the past few decades, there has been much discussion and mention of “strong female characters” in the media and the broader popular culture. However, there is the need for critics, feminists and other experts to debate about the concept of strong females and compare and contrast its literal meaning with its practical meaning and the identification and characterization of females on television (Reid, 2009, p. 160). Women are referred to be playing “strong characters” only when they play the character of FBI agents, investigators, lawyers, doctors, politician, criminals and others. It is imperative for scholars, experts and academicians of the subject to define the dynamics of what constitutes “strong” and “weak” female characters, and whether or not the ability of being “strong” would come from within the female character or for that purpose, it will have to give up its female characteristics and adopt certain male characteristics (Meyers, 2008, p. 172). Furthermore, stakeholders should also sit down and revisit this notion prevalent in the society that in order to female characters to be worth identifying with, they should give up the “girlie” stuff and try to take up more masculine traits. Female characters can only be strengthened when they can have some depth in their characters and their identity is solely dependent on the male characters. Nevertheless, in this male dominant society, out video games and film makers allow females to get “strong” only to the point where they do not challenge the authority of the male protagonist and when that happens, the “strong female character” is required to take up a more submissive role so that they male gaze could come into play. References Brownmiller, S. 1985. Femininity. Chicago: Ballantine Books. Carter, C., & Steiner, L. 2004. Critical readings: media and gender. New York: Open University Press. Genz, S. 2009. Postfemininities in popular culture. San Francisco: Palgrave Macmillan. 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