Hero Vs Villain

The Fine Line Between Villain and Hero Within American’s Modern movies, two different teenage females often appear in the same movie. One of them challenges patriarchal gender schema, which is America’s belief that males are the only ones who should possess masculine traits, and the other female does not (Devor 506). From the given information, who is the hero and who is the villain? Does the interpretive audience get to choose or are the movie directors, who portrayed these girls differently, the final deciders? Often overlooked; both of these types of females have masculine tendencies; however, instead of being represented equally, one of the girls portrays a negative persona while the other girl is the lovable character. Dr. Aaron H. Devor, …show more content…
Comparable to her villainous counterpart, The Shy Girl also possesses a universal and overgeneralized description, but instead of possessing traits similar to The Bitch’s behaviors that jeopardize men’s authority and dominance, The Shy Girl tests her expected gender schema as she is one of… “The kids who cannot be the beautiful ones… these are the heroes of the teen movies… The female outsider… Physically awkward… Her clothes, which ignore mall fashion… but even when she lashes out she can’t hide her craving for acceptance” (Denby 368-369). The Shy Girl lacks beauty and the desire to conform to American society’s fashion standards, while demonstrating the masculine trait of assertiveness throughout the movie. The Shy Girl’s submissiveness is the fundamental difference between her and The Bitch: Dr. Devor implies men do not want a woman who challenges their masculinity, predominantly their authority. Even though some feminine and masculine traits can overlap genders, some gender schema, including dominance/submissiveness are not unsuitable for the other gender as “Members of both genders are believed to share many of the same human characteristics, although in different relative proportions; both males and females are popularly thought to be able to do many of the same things, but most activities are divided into suitable and unsuitable categories for each gender class” (Devor 506). Although The Shy Girl challenges society’s gender schemas, she does not publicly illustrate an unsuitable trait for her gender, such as dominance. Unlike The Bitch, The Shy Girl’s masculine traits do not hold a threat against the authority of men. Due to her submissiveness to the patriarchal gender schema, she receives some form of reward towards the conclusion of the movie. The director purposely