Growing up as a female in the nineties had its ups and downs. Being a female who was interested in typically ‘masculine’ activities was ten times harder.
Ignoring the fact that I didn’t really play with barbies so much as pretend I was batman or a power ranger most of the time, I grew up with the standard belief that women in television were only good as a plot device to make the male lead look like the hero when rescuing the damsel in distress.
My view of the world was flipped on its head with the introduction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Finally a show that gave women the upper hand in a fictional world. What was even better than seeing a girl kicking ass and taking names? The lore of the Slayer is that this hero is only ever a woman and they’ve been keeping the world safe from demons and the like for centuries.
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Those kinds of characters gave me hope that growing up I could be anything and do anything I put my mind to. Buffy opened the door to female empowerment for a lot of people my age, I have been lucky to fall in love with shows later on in life that follow on from that sentiment.
In a world where feminism is widely discussed on every source of media, many feel that having a woman who can do everything is all we should be asking for, but that’s simply not true. We as a generation need to be exposed to women who can not only take back the power they had lost in their lives and do something real with it, but also to potentially take power from a man who let his power go to his head.
Back to my point about this not being an attack on male characters; Again, I’m not saying that men are inferior in any way, shape or form. One thing that gives female characters substance is having a support group consisting of both males and
There is a dichotomy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: sinner or saint. Several characters are able to bridge this: Spike and Buffy being two of the notable examples, playing both roles throughout the series. However, the female vampires of the series consistently fall into the latter category of sinner, and not only that, but a sexually deviant or hyper sexualized sinner. There are no recurring female vampires in the show that do not become categorized in this extreme way. Willow is only a vampire in two different episodes (“The Wish” and “Dӧppelgangland”), yet the transformation that she undertakes is startling.
Marlina (2015) discussed about patterning the quests of the heroes in question using Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. The author tries to demonstrate that the chosen female heroes for this research: Psyche, Artemis and Katniss, qualify as male heroes. According to traditional beliefs, differences between male and female behavior are genetically or biologically determined. However, recent research has discovered that these differences are actually based on the gender concept or socially constructed. Miller (2012) mentioned that gender is ‘the changeable roles, activities, behaviors, and personality features that a society views’ and is an ideal standard for men and women.
Media Studies 120 Mr. C. Ball Shrek: Critical Lenses & Intertextuality assignments Feminist Ideology What are the stereotypical roles in the world today for men and women? Do we look back at TV shows and films and receive messages about “how it is supposed to be?” What do we think when we see strong, assertive women?
For instance, in a study done by Dr. Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson, they concluded that men are additionally derided, rejected, and even abused in media in addition to being unintelligent, and that these same actions would never be done in the media with female characters in our culture (Abernethy 351). This is a prime example of gender inequality in our TV media nowadays, which shows the lack of television programs with intelligent men and women combined nowadays. This also shows that if a show featured an unintelligent woman and an intelligent man (its vice versa for many shows nowadays), it would be either be heavily criticized by feminist groups or receive no positive support in modern America culture. Astonishingly, even many men would be not in favor for that idea of a show, since it would ridicule a woman the same way the media ridicules men on modern television programs. This is irritating to many men because the modern media allows programs that depict men negatively to air on a regular basis, resulting in gender inequality in the media.
The women, unfortunately, are portrayed as secondary characters who
Men, just as in advertising, are also much more likely to be an attorney, an executive or have a higher education than women. The representation of gender in movies shapes imaginations and stereotypes and they teach young girls and boys about the way society sees them: the ‘roles’ they should fulfill, their worth, the way they should
We should treat all as their own, everyone learns and has different life practices. But first we must break the common theme placed in programs designed for children; male characters should not always be superior, both genders should be represented equally and in the same
This was formed from years of social views and gender representations in film. Women were often thought of as people who had small roles to play in life and a desire to there working class of men. The males were given heroic and superior roles, usually seen saving the day or doing what it took to support a family as seen in The Searchers where the men had to protect the family in search for their loved ones after the Indians raided the family’s home. In the movie cowboys vs aliens we also had a similar situation where the males had to leave home in search for their enemy. Males are still seen in this way in featured films and females still desired over men with their feminine aspects.
For every positive female role model, two negative ones can be found” (Lavin 97). Women in comics portray a sexualized representation of the female body, with a strong focus on women as sexual objects rather than women. The trend of objecticifty women in comics has continued since the first superheroine Wonder Woman was first introduced in comics because it is profitable and it is
The men in the novel always feel superior to the women and so, they obtain the more powerful roles while the women are assumed to abide by and admire them. They are perceived as strong and brave. The women are weak and inept. For example, Peter was always taken as the leader, the one who is trusted to lead the others. Edmund embodied the ultimate male trait – aggressiveness – which he uses to menace his siblings.
From the table 7, 10 out of 19 movies show that males are the dominant and powerful characters. There are few female characters featured in those movies are playing the minor roles and no female as the main characters in those movies. The male characters have high frequency of appearance in the film compared to the female characters. Men called more prevailing than the women which is capable to fight with evil roles.
Grey's Anatomy is a drama filled medical series created by Shonda Rhimes. Meredith Grey, the main character, started as an intern in Seattle, at Seattle Grace hospital, along with her other soon-to-be colleagues. They struggle to make the cut of internship, and try to maintain a steady friendship along the way. With the pressure of the residents and attending doctors ahead of them, they have much to look up to.
In most fighting video games, strong heroic characters are frequently made to satisfy gamers’ taste. I used to remember during my childhood. When I played Mortal Kombat, I would choose a male character than a female character in Tekken, because the guy looks more intimidating and bigger compared to the female fighters. Games like Mortal Kombat, Street fighter, Injustice have a male stigma and correlation to the same traditional male stereotypes. (intersections pg 85-98)In the popular video game, Overwatch, there’s a tank hero character named Zarya, who is a female character with masculine qualities.
The Powerful Puff Girls The original series of The Powerpuff Girls was one of my favorite shows to watch as a child, where three little girls who have superpowers go around their city and fight anyone who poses danger. The show is a representation of how strong girls can be, how they have the ability to kick ass and save the world. While the show exhibits girls as brave and daring, it still conforms to the usual gendered and heteronormative society we live in where girls think boys are irresistible and where boys will be boys and girls just have to deal with it. Some of the characters give representation to different ideals, such as androgyny and being a single father, but it 's not always positive.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a popular WB television series that premiered on March 10th, 1997 and had its series finale on May 20th, 2003. Currently the story continues to live on in the realm of comic books, but for the sake of this paper we will only be looking at the first three seasons of the television series. The show is about a teenage girl who is known as the “chosen one”, meaning her destiny is to kill vampires and keep the world, and especially the fictional town of Sunnydale California, safe. Throughout this paper I will be arguing that Buffy does not follow most of the conventional rules of cinema that are laid out in Laura Mulvey’s work Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, she is a character that would be able to stand on her