A study published in USA Today shows the gender messages being sent to audiences through film today: women are seen but not heard, preferably adorned in sexy or no clothing and the younger the better (Hellmich, 2011).
The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California analysed the 100 top-grossing movies of 2008 and came up with disturbing findings about the sexualisation of women and particularly teen girls in movies (Hellmich, 2011).
Here are some of the statistics about films revealed by the study:
- men had two-thirds of the speaking roles;
- 85 percent of film directors, writers and producers are male;
- female characters are more likely to dress provocatively or appear partially naked.
Most disturbingly however, was the sexualisation of teenage female characters who were 40 percent more likely to appear provocatively dressed than older female characters and 30 percent more likely to appear partially naked.
Heading the most successful films in 2008 were Twilight, the Dark Knight and Iron Man. This poster is from “Step Up 2 the Streets” which ranked 53.
Researcher, Stacy Smith believes that the data reflects an “overemphasis on beauty, thinness and sexualisation of women at younger and younger ages” (as cited in Hellmich, 2011).
In his article in the Sunday Age in 2010, John Bailey claimed that anxiety surrounding the sexualisation of teenagers bears “all the hallmarks of moral panic” and wrote that it was “ironic” that recent pop culture films such as Twilight do not depict teenagers actually engaging in sex (Bailey, 2010).
I believe that Bailey is missing the point here. Anxiety about the sexualisation of young people, particularly girls, is much more than a fear of potential sexual promiscuity. It is about the potential harm that can occur to girls’ social, academic and career development if they become obsessed about whether their appearance conforms with the unrealistic standards of beauty and sexiness dictated by films and other forms of popular culture (Curry & Choate, 2010).
References
Bailey, J. (2010, July 4). No sex please, we’re teenagers. The Sunday Age. Retrieved from http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/no-sex-please-were-teenagers-20100703-zv3v.html
Box Office Mojo. (2011, October 17). 2008 Domestic grosses #1-100 [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2008
Curry, J. & Choate, L. (2010). The oversexualisation of young adolescent girls: Implications for middle grades educators. Middle School Journal 42(1), 6-14. Retrieved from http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/760810993?accountid=13380
Hellmich, N. (2011, April 24). Film study: Men talk and women show skin. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2011-04-21-movies-men-women-roles-speaking-sexy.htm
Step up 2 the Streets. (2008). [Image]. Retrieved October 18, 2011 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1023481/
Long have the gender messages in film and TV been a subject of discussion Girls and women tend to be portrayed as the sexy ones, wear less clothing and have less speaking roles as demonstrated in the Blog – Silent and Sexy through the reference to The study in USA Today. This blog reveals very relevant statistics of the top 100 films of 2008 where it was shown that most often women and girls are portrayed in unrealistic and unequal gender roles. The discussion concludes with a very relevant reference to “the potential harm that can occur to girls’ social, academic and career development if they become obsessed about whether their appearance conforms with the unrealistic standards of beauty and sexines”.
ReplyDeleteThis view is supported by the American Psychological Association in The Executive Summary on the Sexualisation of Girls where it is discussed that the sexualisation of girls in the media is detrimental to cognitive and emotional development, mental and physical health and sexuality. The report also discusses a number of media resources which empower girls and young women. It discusses how with the appropriate media literacy skills girls (and boys) can resist the message that how girls look is what matters. The report also recommends that young people are also educated in advocacy skills. (American Psychological Association, 2011)
It is only through education that this ongoing gender messages in film and TV will be changed.
References
American Psychological Association. (2011). Sexualisation of Girls - Executive Summary. Retrieved October 20, 2011, from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx
Hellmich, N. (2011, April 24). Film study: Men talk and women show skin. USA Today.
Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2011-04-21-movies-men-women
roles-speaking-sexy.htm
By Sue
Astrid, your post raises some very interesting issues about the perceived levels of influence of different media forms. Much of the discussion surrounding the early sexualisation of children through access to inappropriate sexualised images seems to focus mainly on advertising, television and music videos. In fact, The Senate Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in Contemporary Media (Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts, 2008, p44) states that “the committee received very little evidence to suggest that film and DVDs are considered to be sources of inappropriate sexualisation of children”.
ReplyDeleteWhile they deem this to be largely due to the effectiveness of the classification code, they also state that parents have more power to limit access to films and DVDs, than other media forms.
Although this may be true, given the statistics you present, it is equally likely that we have become so used to seeing these representations that they have effectively become invisible, and it is this invisibility that makes them so powerful, as they are accepted without question. As Brooks states, identity is not something we are born with, but rather something we construct from the cultural representations we encounter (2008, p9).
While classification codes may help to determine the overt sexual content of films, we should be perhaps be more concerned about identifying what covert messages about gender and identity our children and young people are taking from films.
References
Brooks, K. ( 2008). Introduction : The Toxic 'Truth' About Our Tots, Tweens and Teens. In K. Brooks, Consuming innocence : popular culture and our children. St Lucia, Qld Aust: UQP. Pp1-10. Retrieved from Queensland University of Technology Course Materials Database.
Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts. (2008). Report of the Senate Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in Contemporary Media. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/eca_ctte/sexualisation_of_children/report/report.pdf