"I'm the guy that's gonna save you." (immediately killed)

Gaye Tuchman and his (or her? not really sure) Introduction: The Symbolic Annihilation of Women by the Mass Media outlines the media's influence over the minds of women throughout the ages. Two new concepts were brought forth in the article. They are reflection hypothesis and symbolic annihilation. Reflection hypothesis is the idea that mass media reflects "dominant social values", while symbolic annihilation is the fact that dominant ideas are taken in unknowingly by the consumers. Tuchman then goes on to systematically break down the programming that has been put into television, magazines, and newspapers in almost a very obvious way (women are given the lesser roles in television while displaying the "damsel in distress", women are taught to "catch that guy" in magazines like Cosmopolitan that put on a front of a strong womanhood, and newspapers exiling women to the "women pages" making the emphasis on clothes, gossip, and makeup). As a final thought, Tuchman asks a few questions that may help (or I felt that it helps) analyze what said media does to the viewers.
1. Do girls pay closer attention to female television characters than to male characters?
2. Do girls value the attributes of female characters or those of male characters?
3. Does television viewing have an impact on the attitudes of young children toward sex roles?
4. Do these attitudes continue as children maure?

Chapter 3 of Gauntlett's book displayed a great deal of the same ideals of women in our media. He focused more on the bare statistics and percentages of women and men in media. He did change it up by talking about men and women in film, which I felt held more weight than television (as Tuchman seemed to be weighing as the most important factor). Films, to me, hold much more of a "cool" concept than television. No one can downplay that. Think about the first time you saw James Bond or Indiana Jones punch a bad guy out. However, when it comes to concepts of gender, these two characters play different roles. Gauntlett discussed the character of Indiana Jones and why he is so attractive to us consumers. "The character of Indiana Jones....is the typical macho action-adventure hero on the one hand, but we see him being tender with women in each film, acting as a father to Short Round in the second picture, and responding as a son to his dad in the third." While he does all this, he also ends up winning and saving the girl in each film (SPOILER! minus the third which was quite surprising). Taking a character like Marion on the other hand is a strong woman (especially the scene where she out drinks that guy in her bar) who does display some stereotypes. Unfortunately, she is still the supporting character not the lead lessening her strong characteristics. James Bond is similar but also worlds apart from Indy. While each of his movies always introduces another "Bond Girl" Bond rarely changes his polygamous lifestyle as it is "business as usual." (Even though Bond is still the same, the Bond girls have at least changed a little Gauntlett mentioned) One thing that Gauntlett could not mention is the new Bond film Casino Royale where we actually see an emotionally raw Bond who (SPOILER!) tries to give up the mantle of 007 for the love of a woman. Sadly for women stereotypes it is the woman who betrays Bond and seemingly causes his cold polygamous attitude.

As both of the articles talked of the lack of positive female images and overabundance of male reinforcement in media I wanted to do one case in point.


Ok, so this movie is called Feast and yes it is a horror film. I find that this movie is probably on the best horror films in a while, not because it is really scary but for its characterization moments. What would happen is the character would come on the screen and would be still framed. Then their name, typical job, and funny remark would come up. On top of that, there would usually be their role in the film like Hero, Heroine, Honey Pie, Vet, etc which are all usually horror stereotypes. Ironically the guy who gets attacked at the beginning is called the "Hero" moments before his demise. In many ways this is meant to be funny and in the end (SPOILER) the woman who was the heroine dies and another better heroine takes here place.
Horror films are sort of a paradox in that, most of the time there are more heroines than heroes. Yet at the same time they always need the men to push them towards their goal.