Analysis of Male and Female Portrayals in American Films Between 1950-2012

ETCHED INTO HISTORY: ANALYSIS OF MALE AND FEMALE PORTRAYALS IN AMERICAN FILMS BETWEEN 1950-2012 A Thesis by Hulda Bocchino Bachelor of Arts, University of California-Santa Barbara, 2009 Submitted to the Department of Communication and the faculty of the Graduate School of Wichita State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 2014 ©Copyright 2014 by Hulda Bocchino All Rights Reserved ETCHED INTO HISTORY: ANALYSIS OF MALE AND FEMALE PORTRAYALS IN FILMS BETWEEN 1950-2012 The following faculty members have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content, and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in Communication. ------------------------------------------------------ Patricia Dooley, Committee Chair ------------------------------------------------------ Lisa Parcell, Committee Member ------------------------------------------------------ Glyn Rimmington, Committee Member iii DEDICATION Special thanks to my parents and my brother without whose help I would not be where I am today. I would also like to thank my closest friends for their constant support and encouragement. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor and committee chair, Patricia Dooley, for her support and encouragement during my transition to, and time at, Wichita State University. I would also like to thank my committee members, Lisa Parcell and Glyn Rimmington, for their support and suggestions. The three of you have been instrumental in not just completing my thesis but also in my general academic success at Wichita State University and my desire to continue with my academic studies. A very special thanks also goes out to my father, Stefán, for always providing me with a second pair of eyes in looking over every paper I have ever written during my time as both an undergraduate and graduate student. v ABSTRACT As the medium of film has become ubiquitous, it has become an influential vehicle for the transmission of gender-related values. Because gender portrayals in popular entertainment film play a role in the formation of social identity, and can affect human behavior, this thesis studies a group of popular American entertainment film’s portrayals of their male and female characters. The method used to study the films, which were selected from the years 1950-2012, utilizes qualitative content analysis. The findings suggest that the female characters within the films studied broke old gender stereotypes more consistently than did their male characters. That said, there was some progress in terms of how some of the later films portrayed their primary male characters. vi FOREWORD Many studies have been made on the portrayals of men and women in the media. Particular emphasis has been on female portrayals, as the assumption appears to be that the female gender is disadvantaged, comparatively. I do not disagree with that assertion. The vast majority of cultures around the world have a history of being patriarchal. Generally speaking, when those in power, regardless of who they are, are threatened with losing that power, they will utilize said power to subjugate those who are trying to gain more of it. As can be seen through my thesis research, woman-in-the-home is the most salient portrayal of women through the 19th century and into the 20th century. Even today, when the word equality is said to have been achieved, or close to it, a woman who does not conform to the happy homemaker model is regarded with suspicion. It appears to me that the only equality that has been achieved is that in some places women are allowed to be successful outside of the home so long as they are successful inside of the home. Love and family still trump professional success and are considered a valid goal, often at the expense of any other dreams or goals held previously. This assertion is based on the culture within America. I am not American though. I am born and raised in Iceland, where the idea of equality is considerably more real than anything that I have observed in America, in my experience. However, after being in America for 14 years, I feel qualified to see through the American prism of gender, though I do not pretend that it is not influenced by my European background. In fact, it is probably precisely due to my European background that I find it so peculiar that people seem to acquiesce so easily to the idea that things are just as they are and have always been without any need for a change when it comes to gender. vii As a female, I am certainly interested in studying female portrayals but I do not believe that males are free of stereotypes and expectations that are presented, and enforced, through mediums such as film, as women are. In fact, to get a more realistic look at gender portrayals, I feel that one must look at the interplay of both genders at the same time instead of one or the other and that is precisely what I will be doing here. To presume that one gender is unfairly subjugated is tantamount to also presuming that the other gender is free and clear to be true to who they are. The truth is that within each gender there exists a myriad of individual identities that manifest in diverse interests and belief systems, among other things. Film, unfortunately, seems to provide the audience with a unilateral look at a handful of traits that cannot even begin to equal the complexity of a human being of either gender. It is my hope that this thesis will lay the groundwork for a deeper look into the gender portrayals present in popular movies and to see what the past 60 years have shown. Have gender portrayals really evolved, remained stagnant, or has there at any point been a reversal back to traditional roles after a period of independence during these decades? It is important to know where gender portrayals in popular movies have been in order to even proffer a suggestion as to what can be done to better represent the many individuals that exist in society through the popular medium of film. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 A Condensed History of the American Film Industry 1 1.2 American Film and Social Identity 3 1.3 Gender Portrayals in American Film 6 1.4 Portrayals of Women in American Film 8 1.4.1 Social Roles: Career or Not? 9 1.4.2 Love and Sex 11 1.4.3 Archetypical Portrayals 12 1.4.4 Children’s Films 13 1.4.5 Family Films 14 1.4.6 Action and Slasher Films 15 1.5 Portrayals of Men in American Film 16 1.5.1 Masculinity in Society: Past and Present 16 1.5.2 Categorizing Men 17 2. METHODOLOGY 19 2.1 Period Studied 19 2.2 Film Selection 20 2.3 Film Character Selection 26 2.4 Analytic Procedures 27 3. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 29 3.1 The 1950s 29 3.1.1 The Ten Commandments 29 3.1.2 The Robe 37 3.1.3 The 1950s Films’ Establishment of a Gender-Portrayal Baseline 41 3.2 The 1960s 42 3.2.1 The Sound of Music 42 3.2.2 Mary Poppins 50 3.2.3 1960s: Female Central Characters Within Family-Centered Films 53 3.3 The 1970s 55 3.3.1 Star Wars 55 3.3.2 The Exorcist 57 3.3.3 1970s: Gender Ambivalence 59 3.4 The 1980s 61 3.4.1 E.T. 61 3.4.2 Back to the Future 62 3.4.3 1980s: Stepping Back 64 ix TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Chapter Page 3.5 The 1990s 66 3.5.1 Titanic 67 3.5.2 Forrest Gump 70 3.5.3 1990s: Neither Here nor There 71 3.6 The 2000s 72 3.6.1 Avatar 72 3.6.2 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 73 3.6.3 2000s: Moving Forward 73 3.7 The 2010s 83 3.7.1 Marvel’s The Avengers 83 3.7.2 Inception 83 3.7.3 2010s: Laying the Tracks for the Future 84 4. CONCLUSIONS 89 4.1 Discussion 93 4.2 Limitations 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY 98 x LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Films Selected for Analysis 21 2. Characters Selected for Analysis 27 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Because of the ubiquity of the American entertainment film industry, movies are often considered powerful cultivators of social identity and behavior. According to one group of scholars, “Extensive media exposure leads audience members to adopt media reality as their own, and these altered conceptions of reality can in turn influence behavior” (Rudy, Popova, & Linz, 2010, p. 708). Thus, it can be argued that studying a film’s gender-related portrayals of its most prominent female and male characters can help us understand how gender stereotypes are formed, maintained, and broken. In light of such arguments, this thesis studies uses qualitative analysis to study the portrayals of the primary female and male characters within a group of the most successful films from 1950 to 2012. This chapter provides a brief history of American film’s development into one of the country’s most influential mediums; a review of literature on film’s relationships to the formation of personal identity and stereotypes; and a description, as gleaned from research on gender, of how film typically portrays men and women. Only when film is studied with an eye toward understanding how they can both create and break gender-based stereotypes will we be able to understand the power that film holds in transmitting gender norms to society as a whole.

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