While equality for women has certainly improved in recent years, women still face gross misrepresentation in film and television. Whether it be the small variety in physical appearance, or the occupation of the woman in the film or television show, women do not get the same variety that male actors do. This can be damaging to women’s self-esteem, especially young girls who are seeing images of skinny, blonde girls on their screens, making them believe this is how they must look, too. Male characters can be anything they want to be, and are usually focused on so much more than just their relationship with a woman, but female characters are forced to focus all their attention on the male character. This degrades female characters, making them into an object as opposed to a human being with a full personality. They are usually not the main focus, either; making them supporting characters that are either there to satisfy the male protagonist or to just help the male protagonist to achieve what he wants. Women are normally depicted in television and film as one perfect entity; young, beautiful, and skinny and who is only judged based on her appearance, not her leadership skills. This can be changed through campaigns and protests whose goals are to change the way that the media portrays women and educate people on these issues of inequality.

The lack of diversity in female characters and their roles in a show or film is damaging to the self-esteem of women. Most of the time, a female character is young, skinny, beautiful, and blonde. These traits give an unrealistic standard to all women, especially for young girls. Young girls are easily impressionable, therefore, when they see a certain image of a girl on their screen constantly, they start to believe that this is how they must look, too. This is especially prominent in television commercials. It is very rare to see commercials of women who are curvy or even overweight, and when they do show this, they appear to be unhappy in their bodies. This is visible in weight loss commercials that tell women they must be very thin to be attractive. You almost never see these kinds of commercials for men, since they are not expected to look a certain way like women are. As Blaine and McElroy point out in their article, “The study found that only a small number of the characters were given the heaviest rating (14%), and virtually all of these were male. Thin female characters were significantly more frequent than thin male characters” (352). This enforces the stigma that women cannot be a variety of body types; they must only fit the perfect body, which consists of being quite skinny and having an hourglass figure. Melissa McCarthy, a well-known and talented actress, is constantly ridiculed for her weight, or it is sometimes used as comic relief in her films. She is the “ubiquitous fat sidekick” (Chandler and Rice 8) in Bridesmaids, while the rest of the women are thin and seem comfortable in their bodies. The constant mocking and clumsiness of overweight female characters is a negative thing, and can damage the minds of young girls who have different body types and cannot change it, therefore they end up believing they are not good enough and must change to fit society’s standards. 

It is also common for a woman on a television show to be judged based only on her appearance. It is very rare to see a strong female character with solid leadership qualities; instead, a woman’s “worth is tied to her price as a commodity/object (sexy) rather than a subject (personality, feelings, agency)” (Costanza). When a young girl sees this, not only are they led to believe that they must look a certain way to truly be a woman, but that the only thing they should be concerned with is their sexuality and pleasing others based on their physical appearance. This is part of the reason so many women are not in leadership roles in real life, since they are continually told that these kinds of positions are to be reserved for men. This occurs in more than just older children’s programming and adult programming. In children’s television programming, it was discovered that only 20.3% of those employed are female, the rest being male. It was also discovered that women were more often in occupations that are known to pay less or be particularly “feminine”, like nursing, teaching, and jobs in administration like secretaries and clerks (Smith et al. 7). This can influence negative thoughts in young girls, making them think that they do not need to worry about a job as much as finding a man to please and possibly starting a family. Less girls will be inspired to make their own living, especially in occupations that television normally does not depict women in. Seeing a female character in an occupation in crime, construction, production, or other traditionally “masculine” occupations is so rare and prevents girls from keeping their options open for their future. Overall, these kinds of things discourage girls to portray a wide variety of careers, or even a career at all.

Female characters are almost always secondary, making their storyline not as important as the main male protagonist. This goes along with how female characters are usually judged only on appearance. They are almost always there to please the male character and to encourage him on whatever journey he may be going on. In the television show, Heroes, the character Claire Bennet is taken by the villain Sylar, who “peels her skull open like a hard-boiled egg”, to which she says, “Are you going to eat it?”, which blurs the lines between “sexualized intimacy and graphic interpersonal violence” (Stabile 86). She is being used as a sexual object to an abusive and evil male character, which adds to the horrible sexism of female characters being used only for a male character’s enjoyment, even supervillain characters. She was also shown in a way where she could not protect herself, therefore she needed a man to come save her. This furthered the male character’s development, but not her own. These female characters are almost always “passive, pretty, and dependent” (Richardson and Wearing 20), traits that a man expects out of a woman so she does not take his spotlight. Another example of a secondary female character who was controlled by sexualization was Black Widow in The Avengers films. While she appears to be strong since she is well trained in fighting and has a cold exterior, there are many issues with the character. Her appearance is one of the major complications, since she is always wearing an over-sexualizing cat suit and almost always looks made-up, even though she is constantly fighting enemies. But the real issue here is related to her importance to the plot of the films. She is almost always being used based on her sexuality, as Erin Isely points out, “scenes portraying Black Widow in pain or under pressure include her tied to a chair in a short black dress, or lying directly under Bruce Banner in a suggestive manner” (4). In the second film, she spends all of her time trying to calm the Hulk (Bruce Banner) and even makes a move on him. Since she seems to be only useful for the satisfaction of male characters, Black Widow unfortunately does not have a solid backstory and the creators of the films, Marvel, have been avoiding giving Black Widow her own film. Black Widow is also “grossly underrepresented in the movie’s action figures” (Stewart). This character is so underappreciated and is made out to be the least important hero of the films, discouraging young girls from the superhero genre itself and making it hard for them to find a strong female character to relate to.

These issues of over-sexualizing and putting female characters in secondary roles relates to the behind-the-scenes occupations including producers, directors, and writers. In television, when female producers are one of the main influencers for the show, this increases the “percentage of female characters and hiring (of) more female writers” (Lauzen and Dozier). This also means that since there are more women working behind the scenes, the female characters on-screen will have a more accurate portrayal and will more likely be a main character as opposed to secondary. They are capable of giving these characters more depth, since a lot of female characters are stuck with being concerned about their appearance and how they relate to the male characters of the story. Unfortunately, it is not common to find women in these positions, making it a frequent occurrence for male directors to give almost all of screen time to male characters. Steenland says on this, “In TV’s tales, men are more visible, more important, more varied and interesting. That’s because it is mainly men who are telling the stories – they comprise most of the producers, writers, directors and executives in Hollywood” (Qtd. in Lauzen and Dozier 4). Women are not given the chance to tell their own stories because of the dominating male presence in these creative behind-the-scenes roles, making the female representation on screen inaccurate and deceiving. It almost always means that women will be put second and their story will almost always be weak and usually relating to a man. Once again bringing up the many issues that Marvel has, they recently “released the list of directors contending for their 2017 Spider-Man reboot. Surprise: it was entirely male” (Stewart). This is one of the main reasons as to why all of Marvel’s female superheroes are horribly misrepresented and are usually put to the side as one of the least important characters to the story. If there were more female directors, writers, and producers, women and especially young girls would be seeing much more inspiring female characters that they can relate to and use as a source of inspiration for their futures.

The best way that these issues can be solved is through campaigns and protests. The Women’s March that occurred this year, 2017, has had a great impact on awareness of the sexism that women face in the workplace, including in television and film. The Women’s March has brought to light a multitude of issues that many people ignored before, or considered trivial. Most recently, there was the “Day Without a Woman”, which encouraged women to strike and skip going to work for the day. The importance of this particular strike was to teach others how important women are to society and how, even though they receive “lower wages and experience greater inequalities, vulnerability to discrimination, sexual harassment, and job insecurity” (Goldberg), women continue to contribute to society in such profound ways. Protests, since they consist of so many people, are a great way to bring attention to issues because there is no way of ignoring them. The Women’s March occurred in multiple cities, which helped to spread the message across the country, and even to other countries. A lot of news sources covered it, so it is a subject that cannot be disregarded. This is an effective way to get people to pay attention to the issues they have been ignoring when it comes to sexism and make them aware of the effects it can have on women as a whole. More specifically, the campaign Miss Representation, attempts to bring awareness specifically to the sexism we see in both television and film. This campaign has a film that they show in multiple places, including schools, to teach young kids about how the media attempts to sell “the idea that girls’ and women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Boys learn that their success is tied to dominance, power, and aggression” (The Representation Project). Not only are they attempting to bring awareness to the gender roles that girls deal with, but also the ones that boys must face at such an early age. What is appealing about this campaign is how it is subtler in its approach, which many prefer. Some believe that protests are more on the extreme side, while this campaign seeks to inform people through a film, and hopefully getting them to donate to their cause. Both methods are crucial for informing the masses of the many issues women face, especially in how they are portrayed in television and film. These causes can help to change the outlook that many people have, and hopefully diminish the sexism found in the media in the near future.

One of the biggest counterarguments for this is that a lot of people who argue these issues of inequality between men and women are upper class females. A young woman named Razia Yilmaz has had a lot of troubles finding a job while also taking care of her children. When she was asked if she was a feminist, she was not ready to say yes. She compared the women’s movement to “voting for a political party you know doesn’t care about you anyway” (Amara). She also goes on to point out that the majority of the feminists she sees in society are more worried about “how short Rihanna’s skirt is” (Amara). Many have complained that it is hard to consider oneself a feminist since so many who support this “equality” in the genders do not truly understand equality, especially when it comes to class. Another example that many have alluded to is Jennifer Lawrence’s letter about the wage gap. In the letter that she published, she asked why she does not get paid as much as her male costars. This angered some, since they believed she had no reason to call out these issues when she already makes millions of dollars and should not have anything to worry about. The fault in this argument, though, is that she even states herself in the letter, “I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need. (I told you it wasn’t relatable, don’t hate me)” (Lawrence). The main point of her argument is to bring awareness to the issue as a whole. She knows that as an actress, she gets paid a lot of money, but that is not the issue. The issue is that she does not get paid the same amount that her male costars do, who might even be considered less famous than her. Any woman should be allowed to speak her mind on these problems, regardless of her pay scale. If people could not argue against wrongdoings towards others they cannot necessarily relate to, then nothing would be accomplished. Just because someone is in a different class, race, gender, or any other group, does not mean they cannot support a cause.

The portrayals of women on television and in film have been so misrepresented that it has influenced negative thoughts in many women, especially young girls. Television and film is a large part of many people’s lives, and these inaccurate portrayals that girls see almost every day can be damaging to their self-esteem. Not only does it make them believe that their appearance is the most important thing in their lives, but that they must stick to the lower paying jobs and not attempt to reach beyond these stereotypes and find a solid career in the crime field, science field, or other fields that are known to be “masculine”. Women are capable of so much more than just their looks and can accomplish a lot in their lives, other than just satisfying a man and creating a family. If we bring more awareness to the masses, through more protests and campaigns, the outcome is sure to be significant and more people will be aware of the damage that these gender roles create which keep girls in a small box, incapable of expanding their minds and achieving great things.
