Amanda Blohm

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Gender and Popular Films

Article Review #1

Smith, Stacy L., et al. "Assessing Gender-Related Portrayals in Top-Grossing G-Rated Films." Sex Roles 62.11-12 (2010): 774-86. ProQuest. Web. 4 Oct. 2014.

            In “Assessing Gender-Related Portrayals in Top-Grossing G-Rated Films”, Stacy Smith, et al discuss the portrayal of genders, specifically the gender binary, stereotypes in G-Rated films and how they affect children. Smith et al address the fact that in several studies the percentage of men represented in G-rated films is much higher than the percentage of women. Not only this, they discuss how these representations of men and women, through stereotypes and other traits, impact the developing child and their beliefs concerning gender and gender roles. The last line of the article may be in itself the main point, as they say “that viewing stereotypes may have serious consequences for children’s information processing of and schema development for gender” (784).

            The first argument they make has to do with the fact that the representation of men to women is skewed badly in the direction of men. To an older viewer, there is a high difference between the amount of men represented compared to women. However, for a child, their only influence in this sort of representation may be G-rated films and they have no idea that there may be anything wrong with the amount of women in a film versus the amount of men. Stacy smith et al go on to say, “Exposure to such distorted “reel” world images may be having detrimental effects on youth’s gender-role socialization” (774). After all, when it is the only images they are receiving, and when children are at such an age they are still developing ideas about the world around them, this becomes dangerous to how they view gender-roles. It should not be surprising then, that one study referred to reported after bringing a television into a Canadian town that “females had become significantly more gendered in terms of their relationships with peers and authority figures whereas males increased their stereotypical attitudes toward a variety of behaviors and occupations” (775). Exposure to media like this, especially since this sometimes is the only type parents are willing to show their children, “has suggested that stereotypical messages found on television can have a negative impact on young viewers’ developing beliefs about gender” (775). However, it is extremely difficult to consider only how G-rated films affect children as they are still likely to watch other rated films than the general audience. But Smith et al. pursues this, by looking into how women and men are represented.

            Generally speaking, in terms of the ratio of men to women in G-rated film, one could well assume that it is not an equal scale. Through their studies, Smith et al. have come to find that “the ratio of males to females was 2.75 to 1” (776). By approximation, this means that a child would see 2.75 men on screen that they would for one woman. To make matters worse, they behaviors of males and females are also poorly represented. It also emerges that, when the studies were taken, gender roles and stereotypes were heavily predominant in G-rated films. Beyond looking into the amount of gender representation and other traits, they also looked into whether or not there was a difference over the years, considering all the data they had complied for the sets of years. Though they did a fifteen-year span, it could come up that a “total of 71.8% of characters were male and 28.2% were female, independent of when a G-rated movie was distributed over the last 15 years” (783). But if we actually go in a span of separated years, the “distribution of gender by epoch was as follows: 1990–94=69.9% males (n=496), 30.1% females (n=214); 1995–99=74.2% males (n=815), 25.8% females (n=283); 2000–2004=70.6% males (n=674), 29.4% females (n=281)” (783). Unsurprisingly, the children of 1995-1999, those that are currently younger adults, would most definitely be experiencing the most unfair representation of gender. We are seeing better numbers in the recent years, but it is not all that good for a child’s development.

            Interestingly, despite the focus on how women are represented unfairly in G-rated films, they were not the only focus. As Smith et al. says, “Notably, almost a fifth of the working women in the sample held counterstereotypical jobs. On the other hand, only a small fraction of the working men (2.3%) held traditionally feminine occupations” (784), which suggests more about the gender inequality than we think of. Of course, a young boy seeing masculine men on the big screen who save the day and in general have the most representation, may seem like it is good but it does not sit well. Any child needs good, strong representation and films telling boys that they cannot be in a ‘feminine’ career or in general that they cannot look up to females creates more gender roles that are harmful. This “underrepresentation of females on screen can negatively impact both developing males and females. For girls, a lack of representation may affect their perceptions of importance or self-esteem. For boys, exposure may subtly perpetuate the status quo and reinforce a hegemonic view of girls and women” (783). Rather, it is not that men are unfairly represented in numbers, but that their stereotypes can be just as harmful as the female stereotypes. Moreover, they are as affected as young girls are when it comes to how they view women on screen. Both representations of men and women perpetuate gender roles through the child’s mind, whether they are female or male.

            This article focuses intently on the inequality of genders in popular G-rated films, which relates extremely closely to my topic of gender and popular films. Smith et al. talk about how representation and stereotypes affect not only society but how a child develops their perceptions of gender and gender-roles. I find this similar to Celia Ridgeway’s “How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World”, as they both do refer to the rate of which men and women differ in fields. However, Ridgeway definitely focuses more on describing the generalized gender inequality issue where Smith et al. talk specifically about gender inequality in films, but they do both address how it is influencing society to continue using this inequality. Much of this information I was aware of, not the exact statistics but knowing that there was most definitely an unfair representation of women when compared to men. I would have liked, however, to see even more breaking of gender roles and pointing out that girls and boys do not have to look up to characters that are their gender. A girl could look up and aspire to be like a male character, just as a boy could do the same with a female character.