A recent research carried out by experts of the United Kingdom and the United Stated reveals that stereotypes of women at the cinema and television are dispelling the female population from consuming audiovisual products.
6 march 2017
Women are typecast in dumb, attractive and, sometimes, mean roles. This is a more or less frequent profile of a female character which appears in both big and small screen and has now aroused the rejection of a large portion of the female population because they do not feel recognised in those stereotypes that the cinema and the television are selling us. It has been recently revealed by a research made in the United Kingdom and the United Stated by Geena David Institute on Gender in Media , which spotlights the urgent necessity of reinventing and building other genre stereotypes which does not undermine society.
The report results are revealing.The 70% of female American and the 73% of female British feel exhausted of being pigeonholed in dumb and attractive roles, as is the case of the film Mean girls (2004). This teenage comedy, which had quite fame, built the story without taking into account the sorority, this means, solidarity between women; instead it based on the rivalry between them - most of the time between pretty and dumb girls - who compete to stand out - basically in beauty - so they can lure a man.
The harmful stereotypes played ad nauseam in the media has led, according to the report of Geena David Institute on Gender in Media, the 85% of women to feel that series and films depict female characters unfairly and beyond reality. That is why, 66% of women confessed to having stopped consuming certain audiovisual products due to the reflected representations.
Accordingly, 8 out of the every 10 women expressed their desire that cinema and series enhance female characters in their vital achievements or professionals instead of beauty or style, something that continues to happen on many occasions.
Most of women feel that the series and films portray female characters with harmful and unfairly stereotypes to society
Salary gap
Conclusions of the same research showed that the 71% of women pointed out that if there were more women in leadership positions at the big screen, it would be easier for the female population to access these positions in the real world. In this vein, almost 90% of them demanded equal pay for Hollywood actresses, a claim that has slowly been sticking to the media agenda.
Some of the most prestigious national and international actresses, like Paula Echevarría at the Feroz Awards or Patricia Arquette at the Oscar 2015, seized the impact of the big cinema festivals to express this claims and take a step forward in the struggle against inequality.
