A new study looking at 100 top-grossing movies from 2008 finds that women speak less and show more skin than men. Specifically, men had 67 percent of the speaking roles, while 26 percent of women compared to five percent of men wore sexy clothing (with the same ratio for appearing partially naked).
A vast majority of you said movie heroines can be sexy and strong, but it's one thing to be a well-rounded character who can kick ass and look good doing it, and it's another thing to be silent eye candy. Hailing from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the researchers also point out that women buy around half of the movie tickets sold in the US, so why do they represent such a small number of the speaking roles?
Even more disturbing is the analysis of teen girl sexualization in films. Young female characters, age 13 to 20, wore sexy clothing 40 percent of the time compared to 32 percent of women age 21 to 39 and appeared partially naked the same amount as older women. The younger women were also called attractive more than the 21 and up group.
The researchers say sexing up teen characters in movies is sending a negative message to young girls about their self-worth. But I'd go a step further and say what really concerns me about these numbers is that the movie industry is using female teen characters as sexual objects, contributing to the problem of young girls being the victims of sexual violence. If mainstream movies are constantly glamorizing sexy teen girls, it could be only a matter of time before these male fantasies are acted upon.
Do you think the movie industry's tendency to silence and sexualize women is having an effect on society's view of women and teen girls? Or is it just entertainment that shouldn't be taken so seriously?
By the numbers:
- Only 32.8 percent of the speaking parts were given to women.
- 13-to-20-year-old girls continue to be "hypersexualized in film," according to the study. A substantially higher percentage of young women are shown wearing revealing attire then are men. Young female characters, age 13 to 20, wore sexy clothing 40 percent of the time compared to 32 percent of women age 21 to 39 and appeared partially naked the same amount as older women. The younger women were also called attractive more than the 21 and up group
- 39.8 percent of females wore revealing attire in movies, compared to 6.7 percent of males. And females are shown partially naked 30.1 percent of the time, compared to 10.3 percent for males.
- only 8 percent of directors, 13.6 percent of writers and 19.1 percent of producers were female.
- when one or more female screenwriters are involved in penning a script, the percentage of female characters jumps by 14.3 percent.
Sources
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