Star Wars Gender Roles

Zootopia is a disney movie that focuses on empowering females to go for their dreams. Judy Hoops is female squirrel,who wants to become the first female cop of her kind in her community. Everyone doubts her including her parents. They feel that her dreams are too dangerous of a job for a girl, and that she is better off growing carrots for their family business. As she tries to accomplish her dreams she faces difficulties that are meant to discourage her, but fail to stop her. In the end she becomes a cop and reached great heights while finding love.

Throughout history the portrayal of gender roles have been maintained by a specific standard, specifically where the man is the main figure, and the woman is the submissive figure that is being acted upon. However, lately, specifically the last ten or so years, many movies have shifted this ideology. These movies in modern times show increasingly more women in positions of power, as well as in marriages where there is an equal amount of power between both the husband and wife. There are also more movies showcasing non-traditional relationships, such as, domestic partnerships and LGBTQ+ relationships. One movie in particular that showcases a shift in the status quo, in terms of the masculinity and femininity expected from individuals especially that of a relationships, is Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? Before delving into why this movie goes against the status quo an a multitude of levels, I must first give some background to the movie.

Disney as a brand has reinforced the binary view of gender. The gender binary view is “the belief that there are only two sexes based off of the biological aspect of gender, which in turn generates stereotypes and expectations based off of this binary” (Palczewski & DeFrancisco, 2014, 13). The Disney Princess films reinforce the binary view towards gender by upholding gendered expectations. This line started out as a marketing campaign for young girls to identify with the characters and purchase the associated products, but an unanticipated byproduct of this marketing strategy created a consumer market called “girlhood” (England, Descartes &Collier-Meek, 2011, p.556). Disney’s girlhood is arguably one of the biggest influences on young girls

Females, of all ages, are always being told that they cannot do something, for instance, they are being told that they are unable to do what the boys do. Unfortunately, females are allowing males to be the dominant gender and are accepting the roles that society has set in place for them. From birth, it is evident that the color for girls is pink and blue for boys. A nursey for a baby girl will be filled with stuffed animals, baby dolls, and everything in pink. Parents start the gender roles and society worsens them. Therefore, gender roles will never stop if Americans continue to pursue them. Fortunately, two extremely popular companies are attempting to put a stop to gender roles. Cover Girl, “#GirlsCan: Women Empowerment,” created by Cover Girl (2014) and Disney, “Dream Big, Princess |Be A Champion” created by Disney (2016) are reaching out to females and encouraging them to be themselves, through their campaigns. In building confidence for females of all ages, Cover Girl and Disney are showing viewers that they can do anything that males can, by

Ridley Scott’s 1982 ‘Blade Runner’ is a mysterious film set in futuristic LA in the year 2019. Technology is incredibly advanced and capable of creating robots called ‘replicants’, which are almost identical to humans. Replicants are stronger than humans, have limited emotions and a life span of only four years. It has been argued that the way Blade Runner portrays the female characters is sexist and outdated, especially as seen in 2017. The unfavourable treatment of the lead female roles is continuous throughout the film, especially since they are all replicants and therefor artificial. The characters Zhora and Pris are both highly sexualised throughout the film, their deaths are also the most brutal and Rachael is seen as a woman who uses her sexual allure to her advantages.

Next, many gender and sexual stereotypes are perpetuated in media, through the ways of movies. In fact, the movie Legally Blonde fits under the category of stereotypes exceptionally well, since it shows many stereotypes of women in the society. For instance, there is one scene in the movie, where Warner, the handsome boy is playing football with his friends, and Elle, the dumb blonde sits on the sidelines to study and distract the guys playing as she wears nothing but a sparkly bikini top under a furry shawl on her upper half. This example evidently portrays the serotype of being a blonde dumb. Throughout the movie “Legally Blonde” Elle is shown as a material sorority girl, who is a duplicate copy of barbie in real life. When she gets into

The Bechdel rule tests film maker’s views on gender equality. “Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man,” explains bechdeltest.com. I do not think this is an accurate way to judge if a film as a whole is feminist and agree with Holly Derr when she says that we need to actually sit down and watch the film to decide whether it is feminist. Holly Derr states, “A film may have some feminist elements, some sexist elements, and some elements that are neither, because—and this is important—"feminism" is not simply the absence of "sexism." Movies who pass the Bechdel test such as Nerve and the Divergent Series:

What constitutes “masculinity?” Sadly, the term has been defined so harshly that it is having detrimental effects on our society. The definitions of gender roles bombard us everywhere, from books, to advertisements, to movies, there is seemingly no place one can hide from these absurd standards. Canadian sociologist Aaron H. Devor points out in his article “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender,” that gender norms are learned early on in life, burdening children with these restrictions (388). This is what makes movies which clearly reject and mock gender roles, such as The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, so refreshing. This film opens in a dream that SpongeBob is having about being the new manager at his city’s favorite

There’s a myth about Asian Americans, that generalizes us into one group. People create false images of us through stereotypes. These stereotypes have been manifested in books, movies, and literature, but they have repercussions for Asian Americans in society. We are often treated as foreigners, people leading us to believe that we don’t belong in American society, and that we have no purpose being here.

the desexualized mother, and so many more. When women in movies and television are limited

“ The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins and “ Divergent “ by Veronica Roth, both films show that these two women have a strong female image.

As feminism and gender equality are becoming more important to society, the way gender roles are depicted in literature and media are shifting to conform to society’s views. This usage of gender roles can be seen in two popular contemporary animated movies: Frozen and Spirited Away. Both of these films are geared for younger audiences and attempt to teach important life lessons, like friendship and growing up. Through closer examination of how each film portrays gender, however, Frozen appears to not be as egalitarian as many have come to believe. Comparing both films, Frozen is not very feminist as it continues to perpetuate traditional gender roles and fairytale tropes, such as love at first sight and damsels in distress, whereas Spirited

Historically, women in comics have portrayed a variety of roles ranging from a helpless woman that needs to be saved by a man to a powerful heroine that protects a man. Women originally played insignificant roles in comic books, they were depicted as dependent on men or as victims of crime who needed to be rescued by a “male” superhero. In the beginning of the comic book age, female character attributes represented the stereotypes that women were inferior or subordinate to men and they belonged in the home as a home maker or source of emotional support. As the role of women in society has evolved, so has the characterization of women in comics, graphic novels, and superhero movies; they are portrayed as strong and powerful.

In society, there are gender roles which put each sex in stereotypical figures. These roles affect the way how we speak, dress and act. In general, women expected to behave feminine such as being polite and fragile and on the other hand men are expected to be aggressive and stronger. All these roles are over exaggerated in Disney 's women and men figures.

Hawkins (2017) stated that the definition of beauty has been shaped by society 's standards instead of what people actually look like. It signifies that the society sets up expectations of how we define beauty by manipulating beliefs of people to recognize that body shape, skin color, race, ethnicity, or anglicized features are what makes a person distinguish their beauty instead of what people actually look like in reality. This makes people believe that the beauty that they see, especially in films, is something that they need to attain in order to be considered as attractive.