Female Stereotypes

Female Stereotypes

To the left is a still taken from the film 'Taken'. It shows the daughter, Maggie, hiding under the bed on the phone presumably to her dad; a bodyguard for hire. It shows us some stereotypes of females. Cowering under the bed is something that stereotypically something that women are likely to do if they are in danger as they are said to not be able to defend themselves as they are 'weaker' then men. Also she is wearing a denim jacket with pink leaves. Pink is generally associated with females and their femininity, this is something generally not associated the male gender. This still also follows Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. Men are, according to Muley's theory, are more likely to avert their gaze to a woman in distress as they find it more appealing as they are more vulnerable.

In comparison, females cam also be represented as strong people with the will to carry out 'male jobs'. In this clip we see Salt kill 25+ men with 3 grenades and a Pistol. We, as a conformed audience, wouldn't expect to see a women kill all those men with so little but we would expect to see a man carry out such a task, i.e. John McClain. She challenges conventions by holding a weapon and killing people as women, stereotypically, don't kill people, but maybe the occasional fly. Following Mulvey's theory Salt goes against every rule that it states as men wouldn't generally look at a women who could kill them, they would be more likely to go after a woman like Maggie as she is more vulnerable.

 To the left is a picture of the women of Octopussy, from the 1989 James Bond film 'Octopussy'. these girls use they're bodies to entice men then strike to either knock out or kill their target. This breaks the conventions of women as you would not expect a women too violently attack you after giving of 'signals'. This partially follows Muley's theory of male gaze as men would follow the women with they're eyes only to be attacked, which could possibly have been the other way around.



More modern films now, women are being portrayed as the stronger character by being either: the hero of the story or being ultimately stronger than the men in the film. An example of this is the film 'Kick Ass' with the character Hit Girl, she is stronger and more skilled than the main protagonist (Kick Ass) and beats up and murders a lot of men.