The Evolution of Female Characters
By Katie Hampton
Gender stereotypes have been around for as long as I can remember. The thing about stereotypes is that they are easy and sometimes they can be accurate, which make people more susceptible to thinking that all stereotypes are true. Classic stereotypes for female characters include, but are not limited to: the damsel in distress, psycho ex-girlfriend, gold digger, and so on. In and of itself, this does not seem harmful, at times it can even be funny to watch. It begins to be a problem, when these stereotypes are getting hammered into children's head so they start to believe that these beliefs over a certain category of people are true.
I believe the media has come a long way at promoting strong female characters to audiences. We as a society still have plenty left to improve, but women are becoming more prominent in the media as heroes, villains, and complex characters, instead of used as arbitrary side components to the plot. If we keep in this direction, I do have high hopes for the future.
By Katie Hampton
Gender stereotypes have been around for as long as I can remember. The thing about stereotypes is that they are easy and sometimes they can be accurate, which make people more susceptible to thinking that all stereotypes are true. Classic stereotypes for female characters include, but are not limited to: the damsel in distress, psycho ex-girlfriend, gold digger, and so on. In and of itself, this does not seem harmful, at times it can even be funny to watch. It begins to be a problem, when these stereotypes are getting hammered into children's head so they start to believe that these beliefs over a certain category of people are true.
I believe the media has come a long way at promoting strong female characters to audiences. We as a society still have plenty left to improve, but women are becoming more prominent in the media as heroes, villains, and complex characters, instead of used as arbitrary side components to the plot. If we keep in this direction, I do have high hopes for the future.
The damsel in distress stereotype was drilled into my head as a child. It took me a long time to recognize that all of my movies involved a male protagonist with a female side character.
ReplyDeleteI agree but I've learned it not good to base someone off of a stereotype.
ReplyDeleteIt takes someone to watch a movie that was made about 10 years ago and compare it to the movies we watch today to realize how bad female stereotypes were. It blows by mind that they got away with it as long as they did.
ReplyDelete