Representation Essay

The Hunger Games-Jennifer Lawrence

The Hunger Games is a televised Competition in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to fight to the death. The protagonist and leading role is played by the well known Jennifer Lawrence. When she was picturing the character she wanted to present, she said she wanted to be a leader and a warrior. She played the role of Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss Everdeen 

Her name comes from a plant with edible tubers called Sagittaria, from Sagittarius the Archer, whose name means “He that throws arrows in Latin”. Katniss was the opposite of the typical stereotypical woman displayed in films as objects and possessions of men. Katniss is very independent and learn to do so from an early age as her family was from “District 12”,  a coal-mining district that is the poorest and least populated district in the dystopian fictional autocratic nation of Panem; therefore they were very poor.

Jennifer Lawrence told the media she had enough of sexism saying “Women aren’t at a deficit because we have vaginas”. (Source:The Independent). She added how people doubted her acting and then took on the leader role in the movie. Jennifer mentioned how people can relate to male heroes but can’t relate to female heroes which bring me on to the next movie.

WonderWoman

Wonder Woman made her debut in All-Star Comics at the end of 1941 and on the cover of a new comic book, Sensation Comics, at the beginning of 1942, drawn by an artist named Harry G. Peter. The idea was to give women a chance to be “under the lights” but once again women were not happy. Wonder Woman has the features of the stereotypical sexy woman. Slim waist, long and thin legs, blue eyes, a decent chest and long brown hair. To top that of, she is wearing a short skirt and a red corset. Wonder Woman had the highest ever budget for a film starring a woman which makes many women angry. The budget was around 120 to 150 million dollars which is pocket change compared to the budgets of other films made in Hollywood like Will Smith films ect.

 

A Good Woman-Scarlett Johannsen

This film is set in 1930 in New York City. The film is about the femme fatale Mrs. Erlynne that finds out she is no longer welcomed by either the high-ranking men she has seduced or the society wives she has betrayed. The film represents the women in the film as it was back in the early 90s. The were shown as tools to men as in house wives and seductive blonds. The best examples are James Bond movies.

James Bond-Comparison between 90s and Present

There has been a lot of changes on representation of women in the early James Bond films and now. The most obvious being a change in society. Women are now accepted as being something more that just producing babies and being there to be slept with. In the early films, the women were all tall blond women looking sexy and enchanting. Their part in the film would be to make out with James Bond and fulfill his sexual desires. The ideolodgy was that the man would lead and the woman would follow. They are known as the “Bond Girls”. The ethnicity of the women was also clear. Around 73% of the time the Bond Girl was caucasian. The rest was a mix of black, hispanic, asian and others which also came a thing later on with the way that society had changed. From the 2000s, the Bond Girls had more of a meaningful role. They could now be the main antagonist or play an important role. Even at present state, the girls are still objectified in the films but because since the beginning of the Bond films the girls were always so lean and sexy, it would be odd to have an overweight girl as the next bond girl. It just wouldn’t fit the image.

 

Hollywood

The debate about Hollywood is ongoing. People say that Hollywood has changed when it comes to how females are shown. They are not portrayed as before some people argue and some people go on to say that Hollywood has not changed on single bit. Pretty harsh but not totally incorrect. In the past few years, Hollywood has been trying to become more female-friendly through initiatives that look to hire more women in front of the camera and behind the scenes. But, Hollywood still has a serious woman problem. The newly released 2018 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a yearly study that looks at the representation of gender, race/ethnicity, LGBT, and disability in popular films, found that when it comes to women’s roles little has changed in the last ten years. In fact, last year, women had fewer speaking roles in movies than they did a decade ago, according to the study. While the fact that women are still underrepresented in movies isn’t surprising, it’s still disappointing to know how slow progress towards gender equality has been in Hollywood. Only time will tell if thing will change. We just have to see.