Gender Stereotypes
In The Hunger Games, Katniss, defies Hollywood gender stereotypes. Her strong personality allows her to not fit the mold of a typical gender role. Generally, female protagonist are valued for their appearances; Katniss is just the opposite she’s valued for her mind and character traits. In an analysis of gender stereotypes in films, Dr. Stacy L. Smith discovered that “More than two-thirds of the female protagonist are put in exhibition” (17). In other words female protagonist were more likely to be put on screen for a physical transformation or to just be evaluated by the other characters for their sexual appearance. For the most part she isn’t sexualized or evaluated by her looks, but she is evaluated for her personality, strength and incentive. All of which are derived from the mind, her actions and not her body. Her actions are what really matters which is more than what can be said in movies like Transformers. …show more content…
Males dominate while females stand back to look at the action. Katniss’ role as a female is reversed when she acts as a hero by taking on the role of not only her father but her mother. Her heroine actions included volunteering as tribute in place of her sister, putting food on the table by hunting, and bringing her mother back to reality. Katniss explains “All I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well” (27). As a classical hero she saved her sister and mother from starvation in the absence of her father. The hero in this story was not a male, but a female. In contrast, the franchise films’ Spider-Man, Peter Parker portrays the typical male hero. In this film we see Peter save the typical damsel in distress, Mary Jane. All in all the films included Mary Jane getting herself into trouble then being rescued by Peter, also known as spider-man. Gender roles are vastly different in The Hunger games due to the fact that a female is the
In The Hunger Games, Katniss, defies Hollywood gender stereotypes. Her strong personality allows her to not fit the mold of a typical gender role. Generally, female protagonist are valued for their appearances; Katniss is just the opposite she’s valued for her mind and character traits. In an analysis of gender stereotypes in films, Dr. Stacy L. Smith discovered that “More than two-thirds of the female protagonist are put in exhibition” (17). In other words female protagonist were more likely to be put on screen for a physical transformation or to just be evaluated by the other characters for their sexual appearance. For the most part she isn’t sexualized or evaluated by her looks, but she is evaluated for her personality, strength and incentive. All of which are derived from the mind, her actions and not her body. Her actions are what really matters which is more than what can be said in movies like Transformers. …show more content…
Males dominate while females stand back to look at the action. Katniss’ role as a female is reversed when she acts as a hero by taking on the role of not only her father but her mother. Her heroine actions included volunteering as tribute in place of her sister, putting food on the table by hunting, and bringing her mother back to reality. Katniss explains “All I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well” (27). As a classical hero she saved her sister and mother from starvation in the absence of her father. The hero in this story was not a male, but a female. In contrast, the franchise films’ Spider-Man, Peter Parker portrays the typical male hero. In this film we see Peter save the typical damsel in distress, Mary Jane. All in all the films included Mary Jane getting herself into trouble then being rescued by Peter, also known as spider-man. Gender roles are vastly different in The Hunger games due to the fact that a female is the