Women In Film!!!!

So the time has come! I have completed about nine and a half hours of blogging and this entry will wrap up my Civic Engagement Project for my Gender Women Studies class! I am really sad that it is over, but most of all, I am really glad I decided to do a blog. I really learned a lot, and I hope people actually read this and learn something! I think everything I talked about was fun and interesting, so I think maybe one day someone will read this and enjoy it!

 For my last blog I wanted to write about something that everyone loves and enjoys. I am going to talk about movies!!! I love going to the movies. Besides the fact that it cost sooo much money to go to the movies these days, going to the movies is something fun to do and everyone can enjoy a good movie every once in a while. I am going to talk about three movies that I thoroughly enjoy. This entry will be a lot like the commercials post. I will choose a movie that depicts women in a negative light, then borderline positive or negative light, then lastly a movie that depicts women in a positive light. Before I start looking more into each of these movies, I have to tell you that I love all of them! Each movie has a great story line, and they are also movies that are super popular around the world! Also, I think just about every movie can have bad and good representation of men and women. Just because I say that one movie gives women a bad reputation, doesn't mean that the whole film is that way. Each and probably every movie has good and bad representation of women, but I am just going to talk about certain characters in each film to support my observations and reasoning.

Without further due, let's talk about movies!!! The three movies I am going to be talking are Transformers, and 27 Dresses. I am a huge fan of all of these movies, and if you have not seen any of them...then go see them!!! You will not be disappointed! :)

SEX AND THE CITY

Character in Question: Samantha Jones Played By Kim Cattrall

Observation: Samantha Jones depicts women in a negative light.

(http://www.fanpop.com/spots/sex-and-the-city-the-movie/images/1478859/title/samantha-stills-photo)

I am pretty sure I do not need to go into details when it comes to explaining the movie Sex and the City. I think just about everyone has seen an episode and can just guess about what goes on in the movie. 

If you have not seen Sex and the City the movie, then I will explain a little bit about Samantha's role. Samantha has moved to Los Angeles to be with her model boyfriend. Whenever she can though, she jumps on a plane to go back to New York where she longs to be all the time. Samantha loves her boyfriend, but she looses herself because of him and she wants herself back. For instance, Samantha is a cheater. She has always been someone that loves sex and cheats. In this picture I have above, Samantha is shopping and keeping herself busy so she does not cheat on her boyfriend. Again, she loves her boyfriend and for once has not cheated on him, but being with him, she is not herself and decides to leave him to go back to New York. As you can see, Samantha's role is extremely sexual and she truly puts women under the bus. Not every woman is like this at all. Samantha is a strong lady who has her life put together, but since she is so sexual and wears revealing clothing and has a bad vocabulary, she sadly gives women a bad reputation.

TRANSFORMERS (2)

Character in Question: Mikaela Banes Played By Megan Fox

Observation: Mikaela Banes depicts women in both a positive and negative light.

(http://media.photobucket.com/image/megan+fox+transformers+2/aussieIDI-07/Motorbike/megan-fox-transformers2.jpg)

Transformers is one of my favorite movies of all time. I was dragged (not literally) to this movie by my boyfriend, and when the movie was over, I begged him to let me see it again! It is fabulous…go see it if you haven’t yet!!! This movie is about two groups of transformers from another planet called the Autobots and the Decepticons. These groups are fighting against one another, whereas the Autobots are fighting for the humans and their safety. Sam and Mikaela get thrown into this fight because one of Sam’s ancestors discovered a Decepticon in the past. (That’s a very summarized version of what happens.) Mikaela and Sam end up falling for each other and helping the Autobots fight off the Decepticons.

So, of course since this is a male action figure type of movie, they want a sexy woman in the film to spice up the plot. This would be Megan Fox who plays Mikaela. Mikaela is one gorgeous lady. I don’t think that she could look ugly if she tried, but in this movie she is seen as a hot, compelling, sexy young lady. I think the picture I posted above says it all. I mean…who sits on a motor cycle like that? NO ONE! Anyways, Mikaela is really seen as a sex object many times throughout Transformers and Transformers 2. I hate that the producers of these movies felt it was necessary to make Mikaela seem so sexual because I do not think she is sending off the right message to women watching the film. I mean, when I watched Transformers for the first time I remember saying that I wished that I had her body. Why should I want her body? I should be proud of my own body and proud of who I am. However, do you think that this movie would have been so successful if it weren’t for Megan Fox’s sex appeal? 

27 DRESSES

Character in Question: Jane Nichols Played By Katherine Heigl

Observation: Jane Nichols depicts women in a positive light.

 (http://dameria.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/27-dresses/)

In the movie 27 Dresses, Jane Nichols is a secretary and a volunteer wedding planner. She helps a ton of people with their wedding plans, but is too busy trying to plan other people’s weddings then trying to find the man of her dreams. Jane is the type of women that I want to be. She dresses very classy and professional, but extremely cute at the same time. Jane also has a great career and loves helping other people. The only thing bad about Jane is that she always says ‘yes.’ Luckily by the end of the movie she is able to stick up for herself, but it was hard for Jane to learn how to do this.

Throughout the movie, Jane has the typical good girl persona. She does what a great job at everything she does with work and the wedding planning. Jane also behaves appropriately and that’s why I think she really puts a good image on women. With the exception of one scene where Jane gets drunk and sleeps with a guy she later falls in love with, Jane never gets drunk, she always has self confidence and she always works hard at what she is doing. I really think Jane is a great role model for a movie character and shows the film industry that you do not have to have a slutty main character to make a fantastic movie.

In conclusion to my blog...

Women are portrayed many different ways in the media.

Sometimes women are portrayed positively.

Sometimes women are portrayed negatively.

I really, really hope you enjoyed reading my blog. I learned so much and I hope you learned a little bit too. I must admit that I thought the majority of all media portrayed women negatively, but I think overall, after all of my writing, that there may be slighty more positive then negative portrayal. I would not have been able to come up with this result if I had not looked into all different sorts of media. 


Well I guess this is goodbye. 
Thank you so much for reading and have a great holiday season!!!!