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By Renee D
Movies are a very relevant form of media and entertainment, which means that it has the ability to represent our society. Poor representation of women is seen everywhere, including in schools, at work, and especially in the media. More specifically, there is a lack of female protagonists in movies as a result of sexism that affects how actresses are chosen.
PROBLEM #1
The first major problem is the lack of female main and side characters in productions. Statistics clearly show that there aren’t many female protagonists in well-known and popular movies. For example, in 2017, only 24% of the protagonists in the 10 highest-grossing films were women. An updated statistic shows that while the percentage of female protagonists rose in 2019, they dropped back down to 29% in 2020. You don’t need to be a professional to see that the difference between female and male characters is way larger than it should be.
You can pick any movie, TV show, or any type of media to see how the number of female characters greatly dwarfs the male characters. Let’s take the anime Fruits Basket.
The characters are all based on the zodiac animals, which is shown in this picture. There are a total of 13 characters in the zodiac, and 10 of them are male, 3 of them are female.
There are unlimited amounts of information and percentages that show how there are very few female protagonists and characters, and even if there are females in the background, barely any of them have significance, and even fewer of them have lines to say.
Why are there so few female characters in top movies in the first place? It’s because action and adventure movies are usually the highest-grossing films, and the genre and the gender of the protagonist are very much connected. The lack of female characters is based on the fact that sexist stereotypes influence the gender the main character is in different genres. Comedies and dramas usually have female protagonists, whereas action and horror have male main characters. This is probably because action and horror films are more male-dominated, and have a need for a stereotypical strong and brave hero as a protagonist. Teen dramas and comedy feature women more because they detail high school life, boy issues, and other “girly” problems. The sexist belief that women are the ones who need to be saved causes them to play the love interest or the motivation for the man to save the day. This goes along with overdone and sexist tropes, that women are always the maiden in need of saving, not the ones to be rescuing others. It’s not traditionally the other way around in many producers’ mindsets.
Another side effect of the low number of female protagonists is that there isn’t any variety in the female characters that are shown, which promotes a very inaccurate portrayal of women and how they should act. A statistic shows that 71% of female characters are White, only 17% are Black, and even fewer are Latina or Asian. There also is very little variety in their race, age, marital status, and occupation. This causes many women in America to not be represented in the media and also projects the false message that there is only one type of woman both on screen and in society. Due to the low number of female characters, the entertainment industry doesn’t give women the representation they deserve nor a break from sexist stereotypes.
PROBLEM #2
Secondly, the ways that actresses are chosen to play the part of characters on screen is very sexist, a factor of the poor representation we see. Actresses have to meet many requirements that the people looking through the auditions set, including requirements of age and beauty.
In choosing the right actress to play either a side character or love interest, and sometimes (but very rarely) the protagonist, age matters way too much. Hardly any female characters are more than 40 years old, compared to how nearly half of male characters are over 40. Women are usually portrayed in their 20s and 30s, causing the actresses who play them to be required to look or be younger. Females aren’t really allowed to age on screen because movie producers think that if they become older, the people watching the movie won’t find them appealing. Some older actors also only want to be seen on screen, or only can be seen on screen, with a younger woman. Who decided that?
The way it works in the entertainment industry is that if you’re an older actress and you aren’t considered a legend in the film industry, you’re most likely not going to be chosen to play a part. An actress’ looks compared to the beauty ideals of the time also play a huge part in whether or not they’ll get the role. This applies to everyone if you’re not famous. Due to this, you’ll only ever see women who the director has vetted to be “pretty enough” in the entertainment industry.
A significant woman who has experienced judgment from their directors and has challenged their chances to get the role based on their looks is Meryl Streep. In the modern-day, she is known as the “best actress of her generation,” and is a very prominent actress. However, she was also once denied a role because of her looks. She was called “ugly” in a different language that she happened to understand right in front of her face, and the director didn’t want her for the role because of how he judged her physical attributes. This interview of Meryl Streep proves the point that if a new actress doesn’t match society’s beauty standards, it is very unlikely that they’ll get the role. The way that the entertainment industry just rejects differences and doesn’t embrace the talent and uniqueness of everyone results in the underrepresentation of women.
NOW WHAT?
The lack of female characters from the sexist ways actresses are chosen contributed as a factor to the poor representation of women in the entertainment industry.
Today, this condition has improved greatly from many years ago, but we still have a long way to go. While the number of female protagonists and characters, in general, has dropped this year due to COVID, the good news is that there is slightly more representation in Hollywood. Actresses such as Jennifer Aniston have started to speak out against ageism and sexism in the entertainment industry, stating that a woman’s age shouldn’t determine how people know and describe them. A bill in California has also been passed recently stating that if actresses want their ages to be removed from websites, they can have it removed so they aren’t judged solely on their age. We have improved quickly, seeing visible changes since 2016, but with more awareness being spread about the poor representation of women and its factors, we will soon be able to represent women of every race, ethnicity, occupation, age, and their populations overall.
Works Cited
Jackson, Angelique. Study Shows Sharp Decline of Female Protagonists in 2020’s Top Grossing Films. News, Film, Variety, variety.com, Apr 13, 2021.
Lang, Brent. Hollywood Sexism Rules: Number of Female Protagonists Falls in 2017. News, Film, Variety, variety.com, Feb 22, 2018.
Meryl Streep ‘Not Pretty Enough’ To Be In King Kong. The Graham-Norton Show, Youtube, youtube.com, Jan 9, 2015.
Tang, Estelle. 6 Actresses Speak Out on Sexism and Ageism in Hollywood. ELLE, elle.com, Sep 30, 2016.