The Objectification Of Women In Cinema
The woman 's body is constantly judged, scrutinized, and examined as an object or a piece of meat. The specific issues of sexualization and objectification are part of a fairly recent debate, but has the representation of the female body on the big screen changed since the golden age of cinema? We often hear about "sex symbolism" when we describe women like Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe or, to take more contemporary examples, Cameron Diaz, Kate Upton, or Megan Fox. What do they have in common, other than the fact that their bodies have been at the center of their careers? New feminist movements are challenging the objectification of women’s bodies in the traditional Hollywood filmmaking.
In the 1930s, the golden age of cinema industry saw a revolution
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The feminist movement has allowed women to question these representations. Sexualized and objectified, this is not new, but neither has it ceased to be. Even today, female characters in superhero films are in the minority, but their roles are rarely the main ones. Of course, more and more effort is being made to change this, we are looking for strong, independent women such as Beatrix in Kill Bill or a clearer example in Alien where Ripley, embodied by Sigourney Weaver, became in charge of a spaceship and orders men to fight with her against a pack of monsters. Ripley’s character has not shown any sign of sexual appeal during the trilogy at any moment. Catherin Constable stated that “In Alien, Ripley is first and foremost a science officer, a fully integrated member of the crew of the Nostromo. She is fleetingly feminized when she undresses in the escape pod, a glimpse of sexual difference at odds with the impersonal egalitarian structure of the rest of the film” (184). Small steps are initiated in order to make a change in women’s picture on the big screen and will return their humanity, their personality to those bodies that have been dissociated from people.
To conclude, women, or rather their bodies, are objectified in the service of the main character, often male. If this problem is not new, it is far from being eradicated. More recent debates have challenged this bad habit of Hollywood. Things will not change overnight, but it 's still interesting to see the evolution of film and women on the big screen - today we see more women directors and more and more serious roles and fewer roles of "support" to a
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