A Damsel... without Dialogue

Captain Marvel (2019)

One phrase that is probably one of my pet peeves is when someone says something along the lines of “It’s just a movie” or “It’s not real, stop making a big deal about it”. This is usually in the context of movies or TV shows when a fan complains that something is not socially accurate or done wrong. Whitewashing a character, for example, or an animated female character being drawn with unrealistic sexualized proportions. Even though most of the stories and characters on the big screen are fictional, entertainment media greatly influences the real world. One of the biggest examples is how women are portrayed in movies. The way female characters have been represented in film reflect on how society views women in the real world with their purpose and power.

“There have been far fewer opportunities for females and other groups to play different characters. Instead, the woman has often been the girlfriend or the wife of the lead character. This was sending a message to everyone in society that women had less value" (Davis, as cited in Lee, 2018, pg. 2). What Geena Davis said rings true for many movies you have already watched. For example, let’s take my favorite movie, Ocean's Eleven (2001). As a woman, I absolutely love this movie for every aspect, both technical and entertainment wise. However, it is not the best movie for female representation. Out of the whole 13 person main cast, there is only one woman. Tess, played by Julia Roberts, is the role of the love interest. Albeit she speaks her mind and stands her ground, Tess is passive and quiet, and is really only there to drive the plot for the two male leads. This is an example of how female characters are thrown to the side and deemed “unimportant” or “not powerful”. This subconsciously influences the audience, who then reflect those opinions on real women.

Now on the opposite side of the spectrum, there are movies today that are pushing female empowerment and contain female lead roles. A good example is the 2019 film Captain Marvel (2019). After 11 years, Captain Marvel is the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first ever female lead movie, and it received plenty of backlash. Some complaints were opinions on how the story was poorly written or questioning the acting skills of the actress for Captain Marvel, Brie Larson. However, a lot of these complaints were tied in with Captain Marvel’s personality on screen. Captain Marvel, or Carol Danvers, is a stubborn character who takes risks and has a problem with taking directions from anyone else. She is driven and powerful, both in personality and superpowers, which sounds like a lot of male superheroes. However, many people (mostly men) complained about these characteristics for Carol Danvers and described her as dry, annoying, and thought she did not smile as much as she should have. Whether the writing or acting was good or not, this phenomenon shows that female characters having bolder traits and characteristics that are usually seen in male characters bring out the misogynistic feelings that female characters in past films have created and influenced upon so many people/men.

A large reason for why there is misrepresentation of women in film is the misogyny in the workplace. For decades, and still today, men dominate the film industry. Most writers, directors, and producers on films are men, and because of this, the way women are depicted is how men see women, not how women actually are. This is why the female roles in movies are always to the side and usually revolve around a man. Have you noticed how many 3-4 person ensemble casts always consist of 2-3 men and 1-2 women? Harry Potter, The Breakfast Club, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Inception, and don’t get me started on the superhero genre. Men are simply seen as the default. The male ego drives them to focus more on themselves and not view women as equals, casting them less and deeming female characters more unimportant. A study in 2013 conducted that in top grossing domestic films, women only comprised less than one third of speaking parts and 15% had female protagonists (Murphy, 2015). These days, more and more women are joining the film industry and rising to the top. In the 2021 Academy Awards, the second woman and first woman of color ever won the oscar for best directing (Chloe Zhao), and her film, starring a woman, won best picture (Nomadland). Sadly, there is still sexism in the workplace.

“Although representations of women in film have improved in recent years, this growth has been mitigated by the fact that there has only been a 3% increase in female employment in the 250 top-grossing films since 1998” (Lauzen, 2018b, as cited in Kunsey, 2018, pg. 28). A lot of men see women as setbacks in the film industry and think that if a woman directs or works on the movie, it will be less successful (Kunsey, 2018). This feeds into the stereotype that women cannot be as good as men simply because they are women and are secondary. A great example to compare the writing of men and women in film is the Bechdel test.

The Bechdel Test has the criteria in which for the film in question to pass, there must be 1) two named women that 2) talk to each other 3) about a topic other than a man (Kunsey, 2018). There are very few films that pass this test, the ones that do usually have a female protagonist and/or are written by women. One example of a film passing the Bechdel Test is The Hunger Games (2012). The main character, Katniss Everdeen, talks to many female characters throughout the film, including her mother and sister. Yes, there is a romance plot in the story, however, the main plot is not about a romantic interest, so Katniss has plenty of other topics to talk about. Since the author of the original story is a woman and the main protagonist is female, it is not surprising that this film passes the Bechdel Test.

There have been more and more films released in the past decade that pass the Bechdel test, but some still fail to. This raises the question: is a movie bad if it does not pass the Bechdel Test? This question can have an opinionated answer, but my answer is, no. A fine example of a great film that does not pass the Bechdel Test is Deadpool 2 (2018). In this film, there are three women in the entire cast and the most interaction they get is two being in the same room. However, the female representation is still pretty good for most standards. The main female character, Domino, is a superhero that joins the team of men. Although she does seem to have a pretty revealing top for someone who has to jump and move around a lot while fighting (and this can be defended by Deadpool being a parody film in a way), her character writing is not that of a cliche female side character. Domino is witty, independent, and treated equally with the rest of the team. No men hit on her and she is not boiled down to just looking sexy for the male gaze. The second female character is the male lead's love interest, who was treated more as such in the previous movie, and was barely in this movie. Even though she is the love interest, she is written to be independent and true to herself instead of being a damsel in distress. The third female character is a minor character, an old woman who does give advice but is mostly there for comedic purposes. She again is not boiled down to just “the woman”. So this film not passing the Bechdel test does earn some criticism, but some could say the way the female characters were written makes up for it.

The Bechdel Test’s main goal is to equalize male and female characters in films or shows that fall victim to the misrepresentation in women, as well as to make a point on how poorly female characters are handled in so many films/shows. Gates McFadden, who was an actor on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, talks about her experience of being fired from the show. “They felt that they had too many women. My agent said that I was the third most popular character on the show at the time. I felt pretty confident. I understand why Denise wanted to leave. They did not use her. Our characters never had one scene together. I never had a scene with just Troi. The women did not count enough to have scenes together, which has changed now” (Barrett, 2018). For so many years, women have been seen as extra and not as people, but as “extra rep for the women to be happy”. They are only seen as their gender and not as people who have a purpose in life.

There are two ways the representation of women can be fixed. Men should be educated on the effect this takes on women and learn to see female representation from a woman's perspective. Secondly, and more importantly, more women should have the opportunity to enter the film industry and have an equal placement as men do. Because women are being pushed down and underestimated in the film industry, there are less opportunities for women to create well represented female characters in film. Furthermore, because there are not a lot of well represented female characters in film, it subconsciously pushes misogyny onto society, which causes men to view women as lesser therefore not giving them equal opportunity in the workplace. It is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. A survey was conducted of 43,000 women in nine countries. “Over half of respondents (58%) related that female role models inspired them to be more ambitious or assertive with one-in-nine (one-in-four in Brazil) indicating that positive female role models had given them the courage to leave an abusive relationship” (Lee, 2018). If there is more female representation in film, women and girls can be inspired to be more self confident and feel empowered. So, when someone tells you that movies are not real and do not affect real life, they are wrong. Film has a great impact on the real world and society. Film impacts people’s lives, whether you notice it or not.

Sources

Murphy, Jocelyn Nichole, "The role of women in

film: Supporting the men -- An analysis of how culture influences the changing discourse on gender representations in film" (2015). Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses. 2. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jouruht/2

Lee, Bruce Y. “How Media Portrayal Affects Women, And What Geena Davis Is Doing About It.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17 Mar. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2018/03/13/how-media-portrayal-affects-women-and-what-geena-davis-is-doing-about-it/#3fd5fa2c2962. 

Barret, Dan. “‘They Felt That They Had Too Many Women’ - Star Trek Actress Gates McFadden Recalls Being Fired from the Show.” Guide, 2 Oct. 2018, www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2018/10/02/they-felt-they-had-too-many-women-star-trek-actress-gates-mcfadden-recalls-being. 

Kunsey, Ian. Representations of Women in Popular Film: A Study of Gender Inequality in 2018. 2018, www.elon.edu/u/academics/communications/journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/2019/12/03-Kunsey.pdf.