Skip to main content

Women in Media: 3 Questions & A Quote

Last night I saw The Avengers. This is not a review, although I enjoyed it and think it was the first superhero movie I have seen in theatre. Superhero movies are a genre that is distinctly lacking in my life.

Anyway. Prior to the viewing, I was chatting with two lovely ladies who had already seen the flick, and of course, we discussed the women on the big screen (Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cobie Smulders). Karen brought up a very interesting series of questions that she asks about movies and their portrayal of female characters. They are:


  1. Is there more than one female character?
  2. Do the female characters talk to each other?
  3. Do they discuss anything other than other male characters?


Huh. Insightful questions.

Reminds me of a conversation with Wendy back when I watched my first Bond movie, and I wondered if we really have come all that far in the world of feminism and portrayal of women in film.

The answer, I believe, is yes and no. I know there are a lot of complex factors (women want to see romance played out on the big screen, etc etc), but I always appreciate the chance to think critically about the media I feed myself.

Related: this blog post from author Rachel Held Evans, someone I've recently discovered and come to admire.


But the way I see it, TIME gave us a something of a gift. By stripping that cover of all pretense, it revealed in plain language the lie behind so much of the media’s messages for women: If you aren’t a sexy, put-together, powerful, super-mom, who breastfeeds her kids until they’re four while baking apple pies, making crayon art, and investing in a successful career,  then you’re a failure. You will always fall short. You will never be enough. Such an idea is so absurd, it should elicit laughter, not groans.  It’s like millionized lashes and fortified fruit science—too stupid to take seriously!
And yet a small part of us believes it.


For the record, the female characters do not talk to each other in Avengers. And each one exists primarily in relation to a more/equally dominant male character.

Comments

  1. Anonymous6:00 PM

    Ah but they do talk to each other in Iron Man II, where in fact, the Black Widow temporarily works for Pepper.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:50 PM

    Also, notice the difference in how Scarlett Johansson is portrayed in this movie poster compared with the men. Nice assets...

    http://bestmoviesevernews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/The-Avengers-2012-Movie-Poster-21.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christina - this is interesting. And they talk about things other than men? And this is in the movie, or in the comic book series?


    JT - I KNOW, right!? I felt like there were so many shots of her butt. And Cobie's. Even in black plastic, they find a way to add some sexineiss.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1:13 PM

    It's central to the plot.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...