Final Product - Ariana Aguilar

A very common and regular activity that almost everybody is able to enjoy nowadays is watching movies whether it is in cinemas, netflix, T.V, or many other sources Nevertheless, an aspect that I find extremely interesting is the depiction of females in movies and the changes they have suffered throughout time What has the American cinema told its audiences about women's roles in society? That’s the question I’m aiming at answering. Hollywood, many times referred to as the home of the American film industry can be determined as a commercial industry of mass products transmitting certain ideologies and cultural symbols How women are portrayed in popular culture has a great political significance because of the importance mass media has over gender roles How we should behave and what is considered right or wrong is not only determined or influenced by our surroundings, our family, friends or peers, but also by this powerful entity referred to as Mass Media, which includes: literature radio, film, television, between others which also serves as a major source of information and learning about gender and occupation roles. Nevertheless, several studies have shown that these images that the media represent are not necessarily up to date nor reflect today’s society Indeed, a notorious gap can be easily determined between the positions women occupy and their representation in culture. For instance, a 51 percent of the 1970’s population was female and they constituted about a 40 percent of the labour force, yet, only 26 percent of the characters portrayed on television were female. What’s more, they represented only a certain number of occupations and were depicted as less competent and less authoritative. The Academy awards, are a set of 24 awards for artistic and technical merit in the American film industry, given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), to recognize excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership . These are highly watched and appreciated throughout the whole world. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that they have favored biographical films, films that portray the life of a non fictional or historically based figure/s over fictional films. Furthermore, a clear bias when talking about gender can be seen, where the numbers of these type of roles have been twice as large among the men. In addition, vital qualitative differences can also be determined. Male roles can be seen that carry a higher level of diversity, both from a historical and occupational point of view. For instance, they have portrayed military figures, such as George C. Scott as General Patton, a notorious and brilliant strategist from World War Two and political or historical figures such as Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons Creating a huge contrast, female roles have been characterised by show business personalities, between some like musical star Fanny Brice in Funny Girl; and Loretta Lynn, a country singer in A Coal Miner's Daughter. This great difference shown in biographical films depicting real-life situations may indicate that there have been no prominent female roles in areas such as literature, politics, the military, between others, for movies to recreate or imitate such events. In spite of that, one could argue that films have been unwilling or hesitant to use “real-life heroins” as a way of controlling the society and by confining women to certain tasks and roles such as showbusiness or domesticity, two traditionally female domains. Male screen roles can be considered as social types, while female roles as stereotypes. These two terms carry a big difference. While social types are norms shared shared between many that show how people are expected to behave, stereotypes are over generalised beliefs of particular particular behaviour ways. The use of these stereotypes from an ideology of dominance is to keep women in their place and recompense them for not challenging their status quo Notwithstanding, this view of the female gender was most popular and mostly seen up until the 70s where the female cinematic depiction started undergoing a big change and a new type of screen heroine emerged. The movie that is considered as the great twist in this beliefs is Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, released in the year 1975, since it was the first significant movie with a strong role for a woman, which is also considered to have attempted to put into question male dominance, both onscreen but also on real life. This groundbreaking film is about the struggles that a young widow has to face when attempting to start a new career as a singer, yet she finally falls under a dominance again when starting a new relationship. Nonetheless, this movie was followed by the creation of several others where women were protagonists and had a major role. However, what marked the big change in Hollywood’s treatment of women was when in 1977, four fifths of the Best Picture nominees of the Oscars´s were about women, following its predecessor. Films of these following years saw the birth of this new on screen professional and career oriented woman. The range of occupational roles allotted to women widened considerably, extending beyond the traditionally female professions of actresses or prostitutes. In recent years, women have played an inimaginable number of roles, ranging from cooks, to farmers, to writers, and many, many more. "The new screen woman has become concerned not only with her career, but also with asserting her worth as an individual, one whose status neither derives from nor depends on her familial roles” says Emmanuel Levy in his article “Stage, Sex, and Suffering: Images of women in american films”, published in the year 1990. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that in the year 2013, women conformed only fifteen percent of the protagonist roles and took part of less than one third of speaking parts in the top grossing domestic films. However, because of the current rage of female-led films or movies with vital female characters, such as the Hunger Games or Divergent may give the wrong impression of both genders being represented equally. Even though female representation in movies has changed drastically over the years and they are seeing greater representation in roles valued for their intelligence, their strength, and their independence there is still a long way to go and many more changes and transformations to face.