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Gender portrayal in ficiton


Cilas

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I thought it would be interesting to discuss the portrayal of gender in media, such as literature, tv shows, movies etc.

That is obviously going to be very broad subject, so for starts I'm going to ask a few questions to get the ball rolling

1. Do you think that the depiction of gender in general has improved? Are there any issues which you would like addressed?

2. Are there any particular stereotypes that bother you?

For me, a trope I find interesting is the Real women never wear dresses

I think in laymens terms, the trope is essentially saying feminine =/= bad. Do I agree? Well, yes, but having said that, I personally don't think that there should be this notion of "femininity" to begin with because, honestly? I don't know what feminine means exactely (though I do realize that there is a traditional view of what is considered feminine)

So yes, if you have any opinion on that particular trope (or any other related to gender) feel free to discuss your opinion on it

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I don't like it that on TV women are always portrayed as sneaky evil b-tches who use their bodies to get ahead. It may be entertaining, but the problem with that is that young people get their ideas about life from watching TV, and imitate what they see on TV and often, without other guidance, will use TV as a reference for life in general. You see boys who shoot up the school and say they "saw it in a movie," and etc. So you see on TV every woman stealing every other woman's husband, so, as a consequence, every woman thinks that every other woman is "after their husband." Gender on TV has made our society a complete mess.

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Min Farshaw

A slight digression about the idea of someone just deciding to shoot up a school after 'seeing it in a movie,' somebody who sees something in a film and acts it out is already deeply troubled, and would have likely hurt others no matter what - the film just gave them inspiration for the form that violence would take. Films and TV can do an adequate job at desensitizing us to violence, but then, so can the world around us. It's not a pretty place. But dehumanising us? Making us lose all empathy? Did the Columbine shooters really just listen to rock music and watch The Matrix, and then suddenly decide 'You know what would be cool? Let's get some guns and blow our classmates away'?

Back in the early 90's, there was huge public outcry here in the UK when a toddler was viciously murdered by two 10 year old boys. Before long, cheap nasty horror films (particularly Child's Play 3) were being blamed, and people were holding huge bonfires to throw all their horror films onto. I want to understand why two 10 year olds would do such a horrific thing, but for the life of me I can't. Short of a real answer for what led them to do such a thing, we, as humans, need a quick and easy one. Blame the movies. Blame the music they listen to. Blame Marilyn Manson and South Park. Blame anything and everything, just so long as we don't have to confront the fact that we just don't know what happened to turn those two boys into killers, and that's what's so disturbing. Blaming the media is so much quicker and easier than looking at the society we live in and risking finding something ugly there. The media is more a reflection of the times we live in than the other way around.

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I remember reading about the toddler being killed, it was a long time ago, but who could forget that?

I feel strongly that young people imitate what they see. I even knew a guy once who loved to watch re-runs of the Honeymooners (how awful) and would actually say to me, "One of these days," and put his fist in my face, and this guy was in his 20's, too. This is the same person who also kept saying he "wanted to go to war" so he could "kill somebody." (He was in the army. I guess he got his wish, there was a war. Don't know if he got to kill anyone, though. I dropped this fool.) This is the result of a person who spent his childhood in front of a TV and never read any books: "I hope I get to kill someone!"

Anyway... back to gender portrayal on TV:

Men: "Feel lucky, punk?" Blam-blam-blam!

Women: "Oh. Ohhhh! Oh my God. Oh! Yes. YES!!! YES!!!!!!"

Somehow, I don't think TV portrays people as completely realistic. I read somewhere that the most common job on TV for a man is cop. The most common job for a woman on TV is hooker.

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oneofthesun

The depiction of men on TV these days is horrible. They are either sex-crazed animals or bumbling idiots a la Homer Simpson. We've got a whole generation of boys now who are growing up without any positive male role models... it should come as no surprise when they all turn out to be social assistance bums or girlfriend mooches.

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I have to say there is not that many good female role models either. They tend to manipulative or dumb and when they are smart or different, no one is interested in them.

Keep in mind that I don't watch TV, except on the occasions when it is with someone and I can't get out of it.

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The only recent positive female role model on TV that I can recall is Dana Scully from the X-Files, she is educated, professional, and does not sleep around to get ahead, or manipulate, or steal other people's husbands, or cry, etc. But then again I really do not watch much TV, since there is nothing on it but crap these days.

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KayleeSaeihr

Joss Whedon tends to subvert gender roles in his works... Sometimes.

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Hallucigenia
Joss Whedon tends to subvert gender roles in his works... Sometimes.

<3 Joss.

I can't recall many "sneaky evil bitches who use their bodies to get ahead" in the fiction that I've seen/read, but that's probably because I stay on the nerdier end of the spectrum, where it's safe.

Edit:

Here is a link: http://www.utne.com/Media/Joss-Whedon-on-W...Characters.aspx It is Joss Whedon explaining why he writes strong female characters (apparently he gets lots of reporters asking him this so he has had lots of time to come up with an answer). Anyone passingly familiar with Whedon and/or gender roles in media should give it a watch.

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Weak female characters always confuse me. Ex: fifties children's books.

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thecynicalromantic

Joss Whedon's pretty awesome.

I'm also a fan of HBO's TrueBlood (an adaptation of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels), and Battlestar Galactica (the new one).

So I tend to feel like the portrayals of women on TV aren't that bad... but that's only because I only find and watch the stuff that doesn't suck. I can patiently slog through the crappy portrayals of women in 19th century novels, but my modern stuff is going to be MODERN, god dammit.

The "femininity" thing is a tough cycle to break, sometimes. As far as I can tell, historically, women were seen as weak and less important than men, so then they got landed with all the weak/less important gender roles to fill. From then on, anything that was associated with "womanhood" became *automatically* seen as weak/less important/stupid/you don't do that if you have actual important priorities in life, even the stuff that wasn't useless. And then, humans being occasionally simple self-righteous creatures as they are, you get big groups of people who can get their heads around the simple concept that "Traditional Femininity" Is Not Totally Awesome, but cannot get their heads around the *marginally* more complex ideas of:

1. Not everything everyone does at all times has to be super important

2. Some things that were "women's work" during the last couple thousand years actually *are* important (look, SOMEBODY has to clean shit sometimes, otherwise everyone gets FILTHY AND SICK AND DIES, duh), just were severely devalued on the basis of being done by women

3. "Choice" does not mean being obligated to do the contrarian thing at all times. Choice actually means choice. Lack of choice is bad for humans and their happiness, so sometimes, whether or not something is a "right" or "good" thing to do really boils down to whether or not you're stewing in resentment over *having* to do it whether you like it or not, or actually deciding of your own free will that, hey, if I've got to get up in the morning and put clothing on anyway to avoid freezing my ass off and running afoul of public nudity laws, I might as well wear the pink sweater as the gray one if I freaking like it better.

Sure, there's definitely going to be a lot of resentment directed against the "traditional" notions of femininity, even the ones that are not inherently sucky and demeaning, for the same reasons that even though I live in a nice house I'd probably want to burn it down if I were under house arrest for any length of time. This is a perfectly acceptable sentiment, but it's also something to move *past* and not rationalize into something as ridiculous as a friggin dress code for feminism. Because, yeah, all movements about choice and freedom should have prescribed dress codes, that makes sense on all sorts of levels.

Also, I am firmly against holding women to higher standards than men. Women are already held to *vastly* higher standards than men in many areas. They are held to lower expectations in many areas as well, obviously, but overall, the areas in which women are held to lower standards tend to get held up as actually important, and then challenged by angry women who are like Excuse Me I Can Too Use A Computer, and of course for every ten women who *can* use a computer there's *one* who can't who will be held up as confirmation bias, whereas for every ten men who can use a computer there's one who can't who will be laughed at and called an anomalously incompetent human being. On the other hand, in the areas where men are held to degradingly low standards, they're either let off the hook with a "boys will be boys" attitude or outright celebrated (the acceptability of current dudebro/douchebro culture) and women are expected to put up with them anyway, or it outright becomes women's responsibility to avoid tempting, confusing, or expecting anything of the poor little mens and their primal man-brains.

It's time to stop harping on female characters for occasionally doing something mildly frilly or warmhearted, and start picking on the male characters for being obnoxious manly mens. Because there are lots and lots and lots of obnoxious manly mens characters to pick on.

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SorryNotSorry

I'm in a unique position to toss my $.02 into this fray, since I wrote one novel about a female main character and have begun writing my 2nd... both are my idea of attractive, but the stories focus on their psychological attributes more than their visual ones.

1. Do you think that the depiction of gender in general has improved? Are there any issues which you would like addressed?

2. Are there any particular stereotypes that bother you?

1. I think it changes with the times and with cultural contexts.

2. God yes!!! Not all of us men enjoy running around in neatly pressed 3-piece suits. For women: the busty bimbos in stiletto heels have got to go (if you have to ask why, you'll never know). Overall, however, my bigger gripe is with the media's unrealistic depictions of personal wealth rather than with gender... most people in movies are never short of cash.

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Yes, there is a lot of really idiotic male characters, even more so than idiotic women characters. I just wonder why I hear a lot of people say that young males don't have any good male role models on TV and acknowledge that there is not a lot of female role models that are good either, girls need role models as well.

I fine with books, movies, and TV shows that have idiotic characters, I am just extremely aware when there is a bias between genders.

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First: What TCR said. Also, I really, REALLY want to see more works of fiction, particularly movies and TV shows, that can actually (gasp!) pass the Bechdel test. It's not a hard test; to pass, all that it requires are two female characters engaged in a conversation that's not about men. And yet there are so few stories, particularly in those mediums, that manage to do that--usually because the cast generally have a badly skewed gender ratio. Women don't seem to be present in a lot of media except as obligatory love interests (because we can't let our precious male heroes be GAY, oh god no, so we've got to throw a chick in!).

Personally, I think that the stories a person tells reflects their internalized view of the world. For gender roles, when women aren't present, what does that say about the weight that writers give to women's voices?

On Real Women Never Wear Dresses: I think it's a dumb thing to get upset over. Is the character competent? Does she have a function and a personality that go beyond "obligatory love interest?" No? Fantastic. I think it's sad that my bar can be set so low, but there it is. And who the heck cares about what they wear, anyway? That should be secondary to their general ability to do their job (whatever that might be) and character as a fully-fleshed human being.

As far as shows with good gender roles go, I'd mention Criminal Minds, which seems to love to play with and subvert gender roles (and some other constructs in the genre of "cop dramas," such as not focusing on the victims and mythologizing criminals) as part of its MO. This is a big part of why I'm a giant fangirl of it.

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mad_scientist
Joss Whedon tends to subvert gender roles in his works... Sometimes.

The majority of Joss Whedon's "positive" female role models are very young and attractive sexy fighter types, but it's still better than the majority of the industry. (He wanted to make Wonder Woman very young. A teenage Wonder Woman?! A theme to one's heroines is one thing, but am I the only person thinking that this is almost brushing on creepy fetish territory?) Still, Buffy and pretty much every female character in Firefly are pretty awesome, considering the norm.

On Real Women Never Wear Dresses: I think it's a dumb thing to get upset over. Is the character competent? Does she have a function and a personality that go beyond "obligatory love interest?" No? Fantastic. I think it's sad that my bar can be set so low, but there it is. And who the heck cares about what they wear, anyway? That should be secondary to their general ability to do their job (whatever that might be) and character as a fully-fleshed human being.

I think the problem is that femininity and competence are assumed to be opposed. You can be girly, or you can be smart or good at your job. You can't be both, unless your job is to be girly, or it's done for deliberate shock value when they suddenly reveal that the princess is a brilliant mathematician. Realistically, one's femininity has nothing to do with one's competence in most fields.

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KayleeSaeihr
Joss Whedon tends to subvert gender roles in his works... Sometimes.

The majority of Joss Whedon's "positive" female role models are very young and attractive sexy fighter types, but it's still better than the majority of the industry. (He wanted to make Wonder Woman very young. A teenage Wonder Woman?! A theme to one's heroines is one thing, but am I the only person thinking that this is almost brushing on creepy fetish territory?) Still, Buffy and pretty much every female character in Firefly are pretty awesome, considering the norm.

On Real Women Never Wear Dresses: I think it's a dumb thing to get upset over. Is the character competent? Does she have a function and a personality that go beyond "obligatory love interest?" No? Fantastic. I think it's sad that my bar can be set so low, but there it is. And who the heck cares about what they wear, anyway? That should be secondary to their general ability to do their job (whatever that might be) and character as a fully-fleshed human being.

I think the problem is that femininity and competence are assumed to be opposed. You can be girly, or you can be smart or good at your job. You can't be both, unless your job is to be girly, or it's done for deliberate shock value when they suddenly reveal that the princess is a brilliant mathematician. Realistically, one's femininity has nothing to do with one's competence in most fields.

Joss asked Jewel Staite to put on a bit of weight to play Kaylee Frye ;)

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Joss Whedon tends to subvert gender roles in his works... Sometimes.

Mmm, I've been watching Buffy episodes of late. Man that show is amazing.

And while Buffy might be "young sexy girl that kicks butt" as is Joss's trademark, there're also the supporting characters that are also awesome and nonstereotypical, such as Willow who is just a normal geeky girl for the first few seasons (and later a super-powerful witch). And all of the main male characters in the show fit into unique categories too. Normally the tough, jerkfaced guys get beat up or killed.

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mad_scientist
Joss asked Jewel Staite to put on a bit of weight to play Kaylee Frye ;)

I love Kaylee!

Everyone loves Kaylee.

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KayleeSaeihr
Joss asked Jewel Staite to put on a bit of weight to play Kaylee Frye ;)

I love Kaylee!

Everyone loves Kaylee.

Yay :D

1138490637_kaylee.jpg

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