Final Essay: Gender Stereotypes in Entertainment

I sit down on the couch and turn on the television. I’ve got some free time to myself and feel in the mood to do some “channel-surfing.” As the stations change in a babble of broken words and phrases, I think of how there is hardly anything good on television anymore. All the “reality” shows and similar programming is, in my opinion, just about the worst TV has to offer. Finally, I stumble upon a station that has always been one of my favorites: Turner Classic Movies, (channel 127 for those who have digital cable.) By the time I found it, I was just catching the tail-end of the classic Civil War epic “Gone with the Wind.” As I sat there right alongside a broken-hearted Scarlet O’Hara (played by Vivian Leigh,) my heart started aching, too. This was not because Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) had just delivered his famous line, (“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,”) and left a sobbing O’Hara to fend for herself at the foot of the stairs, but due to the fact that, in my opinion, Hollywood’s portrayal of the woman as a weak, emotionally driven creature has become almost archetypal in the world of cinema and television. Of course, in more contemporary times, woman characters have slowly started to break away from the common stereotypes, but the fact that they are still prevalent and remain is indicative that not much has changed over the years. In this paper, I plan to discuss various gender and sexual stereotypes and how they are influenced by the Entertainment Industry.
Chris Barker in his enlightening and eye-opening analysis of pop culture, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, defines a stereotype as “…involving the reduction of persons to a set of exaggerated, usually negative character traits” (Barker 307). In my opinion, no one promotes these ideas better than that most famous (and infamous) Hollywood starlet that everybody knows and loves: Paris Hilton. To say she’s talented or glamorous in any way would be totally and utterly offensive, (to say the least disgraceful,) to those famous Hollywood leading-ladies of the past. Especially since the rise of feminism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as many women have tried so hard to steer away from the horrible stereotypes and ideas of the female sex in a mostly male-dominated society, Paris Hilton is a complete and total throwback to said stereotypes. Her wardrobe leaves a lot to be desired, (or not, for that matter,) and her intelligence is showing the rest of the world that women are inferior to men when it comes to using the mind (which, as we know, is not true.)
Simone de Beauvoir, in the introduction of her famous article Woman as Other, takes a quote from writer Dorothy Parker’s Modern Woman: The Lost Sex. Parker clearly states how she feels about the subject:
“’I cannot be just to books which treat of woman as woman… My idea is that all of us, men as well as women, should be regarded as human beings’” (Beauvoir 1-2).
Beauvoir then goes on to say that “every concrete human being is always a singular, separate individual” (Beauvoir 2). To an extent, I can agree with this, but on the other hand, the actions of one woman, who just so happens to be famous, can affect what people think of the gender as a whole. The same can be said for other Hollywood “celebrities” as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, among others.
In regards to women and television, they are still, (for the most part,) viewed as objects of desire by the predominantly male masses. Television, I find, is one of the places where this is most prevalent. Take commercial advertising, for instance. Since TV is easily accessible, it is easiest for certain brands and companies to promote their products. In commercials for designer items, they usually present somebody who is thin, big-breasted, and gazing sultrily into the camera. In my opinion, this is unhealthy, for it gives women the idea that they have to look a certain way or fit a specific standard to be considered beautiful or attractive. What these women need to realize is that this “need” to look a certain way is not reflective of the natural world, but a social and cultural construct. Barker states this quite clearly in his book:
“Early feminist studies made the assumption that representation was a direct expression of social reality and/or a potential and actual distortion of that reality… However, later studies regard all representations as cultural constructions and not as reflections of the real world” (Barker 307).
On contemporary television shows, women characters are slowly starting to finally break away from the average female stereotypes. For a number of years, there were a variety of different “stock types” of women characters portrayed on TV. Barker’s book lists a few examples as they appeared in Diana Meehan’s 1983 analysis of images of women on US television. Meehan broke down the “types” she saw into two different categories: good and bad. The good tend to be obedient, submissive, and sensitive, while the bad are independent and self-centered. The good are as follows:
-The Good Wife: domestic, attractive, home-centered; [think 1950s, common housewife; obedient, her place is in the kitchen, at home, etc. ]
-The Victim: passive, suffers violence or accidents; [typically the “damsel in distress”]
-The Matriarch: authority of family role, older, desexed; [think Queen Elizabeth I of England; pale face, not sexy, epitome of “desexed”] (Barker 307-308)
The bad, I must admit, are much more colorful:
-The Imp: rebellious, asexual, tomboy
-The Harpy: aggressive, single; [the harpy is an ancient Greek mythological monster with the body of a giant bird, but the head of a woman]
-The Bitch: sneak, cheat, manipulative; [in reference to a female dog]
-The Decoy: apparently helpless, actually strong
-The Siren: sexually lures men to a bad end; [a siren is a female water spirit in ancient Greek mythology that would lure sea-faring men to the depths with their beautiful singing voice]
-The Courtesan: inhabits saloons, cabarets, prostitution; [think Mae West, or Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!]
-The Witch: extra power, but subordinated to men (Barker 307-308)
It is important (as well as interesting) to note that there are more bad types than good. This is reflective of the male-dominated ideal that females are submissive and obedient and if they are not, then they must be wicked, scheming characters plotting man’s downfall.
Though there are many more stereotypes in the media of film and television pertaining to women, it is also crucial to note that men also fall victim. Particularly since the rise of feminism and the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, men, specifically in comedies, have been portrayed as dumb, sometimes stupid individuals who are lazy and rely on other people, (namely women,) to do their work for them. Also, men are often shown as physical beings while women are the emotional ones, (the stereotype being that men do not like to commit in a relationship is quite prevalent.) In a few rare cases, the roles are reversed; (a perfect example would be Samantha Jones in the hit TV series “Sex and the City.” In many situations, she takes control, which would normally be the job of the man. Also, she enjoys sex as much as any man would, and also is afraid to commit. For her, it’s just casual.)
To elaborate on the stereotype of men being the physical creatures as opposed to emotional, they are often portrayed as keeping more to them selves, restraining their feelings for no one else to see. A perfect example of this kind of ambiguity was captured in one of the 20th Century’s greatest plays: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. The play’s lead male character, Brick, is a reserved young man. His wife, Maggie, feels as if she’s being punished for they have not made love to each other. After a while, she finally decides to confront him:
“Margaret: Y’know what I feel like, Brick? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof!” (Williams 31).
To which Brick hastily responds:
“Brick: So jump off the roof, jump off it, cats can jump off roofs and land on their four feet uninjured!
Margaret: Oh, yes!
Brick: Do it! Fo’ God’s sake, do it…

Margaret: Do what?
Brick: Take a lover!” (Williams 31)
Despite his attempts, she says:
“Margaret: I can’t see a man but you! Even with my eyes closed, I just see you! Why don’t you get ugly, Brick, why don’t you please get fat or ugly or something so I could stand it?” (Williams 31).
Here, not only do we witness Brick’s stereotypic male nature, but we see the roles reverse. Here, it is Maggie, the woman, who is urging him to have sex with her. On the other hand, he refuses, even suggesting that she find a lover to satisfy her needs. This play, for its time, was quite revolutionary and contains some racy content. I just find it absolutely astounding that the “typical” male and female were not portrayed in this piece. Perhaps that is one aspect that critics found to be so mesmerizing.
Though entertainment in the United States has taken a small step away from all the negative stereotypes of women and men, it is obvious that they are still present. I am hoping that, in the near future, we as a society can learn to stray away from these ideas in the hopes of bringing us closer together as opposed to driving us apart.

Bibliography:
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd Ed. Sage Publications Inc. Thousand Oaks, CA. 2008.
Beauvoir, Simone de. Woman as Other. 1949.

Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 13th Printing. Signet Publishers: The New York American Library, Inc. 1955.