Stereotypes Plus the Real World

To say that we have changed is not necessarily the accurate term in regards to gender roles and their portrayal in the media. This is due to the fact that many films include the male hero and the one-dimensional female damsel in distress. This is noted prominently in action films such as the Mission Impossible series, and the James Bond series. Yes, in these films female characters have some form of say; they can aide in fighting the bad guys, shoot guns, drive fast cars, etc, but it is never as good as the male protagonist. Throughout the film, even if it is in the last scene before the credits role by there is some moment in which the Hero has sex with his rescued damsel. The damsel is always someone hot, and sexy barely wearing anything.

Likewise this can be given to the recent James Bond stepping out of the lovely blue Bahamian waters in his tight trunks; skin obviously wet and muscles well ripped we could say that he was equally objectified as his Bond Girls. The question I would pose to Mr. Bond is if anyone really remembers that? That was an old Bond movie, and the latest one has already been out for two years and that moment has basically been forgotten.  In 1962 Ursula Andress was the Bond Girl in a Bond movie of whose name many have since forgotten. What the world remembers her for was not for her talented acting, her political activism which resulted in her being expelled from her own native country of Switzerland, or anything really from the last ten years. What we remember is the fact that she stepped out of the Caribbean Sea onto the Jamaican beach in a white bikini. Therefore her name has been carried on through film history for being a sexual object.

But that was almost fifty years ago, do we really expect to see the same thing in cinema. Yes, plus more. We expect women to be hot, and beautiful, sexually objectified and at times dependent upon their male counterparts. However, we also expect women to be all of this and still be able to kick ass in an action film, such Mila Jovovich in the Resident Evil series, and Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld series. Both have proved that they have physical strength equal to and superior to that of their on screen male counter parts, have a sense of certainty and independence, are allowed as much emotional moments as men are allowed to portray as being capable of, in other words completely equally to men on screen. Except, they have to still be a sexually seductive being in some manner or else the film won’t sell and neither will their career.

Men are told to be Top Dog, act macho and show no fear in the face of evil just as James Bond had done throughout the years. Just as the many characters portrayed by Tom Cruise have done throughout his film history, as well as Jason Bourne, willing to run into explosions and jump off skyscrapers, kill anyone that gets in their way without a blink, without becoming emotional and with minimal remorse to simply indicate to the audience that they’re macho men but they’re not evil. What if they cried about who they killed that was just at the wrong place at the wrong time or showed fear in having to jump off a skyscraper and run into a ball of flames. Would they be girly-men or would they be real men? If women were not sexually objectified and men allowed showing emotions would that be the media’s acceptance of real people? Yes, and so the media has already started apologizing in recent cinema by allowing men to be emotional and women to wear more clothes, but it is not enough because when asked for examples of these films the answer is difficult to find.