women in movies

Ms. O'Connell's presentation portrays a shift in the role of women in TV shows. They used to be mere background characters without significant roles, but along with the second wave of feminism between 1960-1970, females began having more and more of their own voice. 

While there has been an unquestionable increase in female lead roles in movies, disparity and inequality still exists in the movie industry. Only 33.1% of all speaking or named characters were girls. Women are often hypersexualized in the Hollywood movie industry, and are typecast as bratty sisters, dutiful daughters, and sexpots. I personally believe the issue of Hollywood typecasting goes beyond women, and perpetuates many stereotypes rooted in racism and sexism. Yesterday I watched a movie called “The Half of it”— a Netflix film— with a lead character played by an asian girl. Of course, she is typecast as the smart, unpopular girl who does her highschool classmates’ homework assignments. She is made fun of for being flat chested and for dressing not feminine enough. Hollywood tends to portray an ideal American standard of beauty for girls that is broadcast to the whole world, but in reality can only be achieved by a small subset of caucasians. As a student studying in the US who grew up with American TV and assimilated to many aspects of American culture from a young age, I personally found it difficult to define and demonstrate my own unique identity given many people’s traditional view of Chinese students. I believe television is one of the primary media for shaping people’s views of different groups of people, and Hollywood has significant power to shape the minds of young viewers. 

As Ms. O’Connell said in presentation, the role of women has changed drastically over the course of the 20th century, but I believe there is still a long way to go. Movie production companies need to increase representation of all people in all roles and be conscious not to perpetrate issues of sexism, racism, and hypersexuality.