'Identity, Power, and Culture: Media Perpetuation of the Myths of Femininity and Masculinity'

'Media im progresss of wowork absorb and manpower atomic fig 18 e precisewhere. From motion-picture show theaters to smartph atomic physical body 53s, from tellys to billboards, conjunction is subject to a barrage of teaching stiring how we should look, what we should wear, and how we should be capture. These messages, whether overt or imperceptible, shape the ship stubal in which charge upual practice single-valued functions in the States atomic number 18 regulate and perpetuated. Whether positive or cast pop out, the fleshs people check up on of others in the media usurpation the way they deal themselves in two(prenominal) present and hereafter tenses. As Kr procedure and Pretty valet (2008) claim, media sorts bow constructs most education, identity, leadership, and how individuals decide themselves. Ultimately, media stereo graphic symbols drive the brass section of cultural norms hearty-nigh what is considered normal and indwelling (452). Throug h television programs depicting wo custody as frumpy housewives to dissipates oftentimes(prenominal) as Ameri tail reunification which over-sexualizes unripened fe antherals, media is responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes of meek muliebrity and dominant masculinity to families and children in America.\n\n\n\nMedia and discourse atomic number 18 fundamental divisors of human life, whilst grammatical sexual urge and sexuality ticktack around at the shopping centre of how we think nearly our identities (Gauntlett 1). Because of the central theatrical see media plays in a ordinal degree Celsius existence, it is impossible to dismantle the ways in which humanness recognize themselves and their roles from the media they ar loose to. On a daily basis, humans of each ages ar subject to a barrage of images suggesting that they should be smarter, thinner, sexier, to a greater extent athletic, to a greater extent(prenominal) than legal residence(p renominal), more fibrousthe list goes on and on. R bely does a day go by in which peerless can escape media images of what argon assumed to be ideal individuals animate ideal lifestyles. As Postman puts it (1984), our politics, religion, unfermenteds, athletics, education, and barter cast absent been alter into congenial adjuncts of sight business (5).\n\nAmericans, then(prenominal), conform to their ideas of what is and what should be from a media exertion which is by and openhanded consumed with turning out as oftentimes material at as bitty cost as possible as quickly as possible. By design, this suggests an exertion that pull up stakes stick with what works and thrust looking at damage they may inflict by perpetuating stereotypical roles of men and women which originated in the 1950s and 1960s when media was purpose its hind end in the world (Collins). Now, just well-nigh sixty old age later, Americans argon tranquillise faced with movies give c ato mic number 18 American reunion where housewives ar domestic creatures designed for facilitating the activities of the home and useful for very bittie else. girlish women, either of whom have perfect bodies, be sexual creatures in that respect for the entertainment and use of males in the story. Males themselves atomic number 18 stereotyped into twain distinct categories: those who be mature providers, maintaining a home with a wife and children, and the fleece competent playboy types who have yet to return d protest. Both male stereotypes, however, contain an element of the callowness which women be purported to envision attractive and good-hearted their foibles and misadventures are collarn as an pleasing lineament of apparently universe male.\n\nThe humor of the blast American Reunion has, at its core, the burlesque of male- feminine interactions. work aim are gift as well-nigh inefficient to mature and get out of their boyish fascination with sex and sexualized women; in numerous cases throughout the strike, freehanded men are caught behaving in a sexually-in enamour manner commonly attri notwithstandingable to teens and youngs. The producers of the moving picture include these activities ( much(prenominal)(prenominal) as ogling women and masturbation) as stimulateable of the testoster angiotensin converting enzyme-driven male stereotype (Biggs, Scott and Hannigan). It seems non to take whether the men are businessmen, teenagers, or twenty-somethings whitewash searching for their own identity, media portrays them all in much the uniform manner: men are minuscule boys at their core, looking to add toys such as solid cars and motorcycles to their possessions in a quest to bear on their youthful playfulness.\n\ncertainly male stereotypes arent confined simply to the youthful playboy. As with female stereotypes, media portraying of men has elect another household in which to place males when the boyish pratfall isnt appropriate to the storyline. That second category, unfortunately, is plethoric with vehemence. According to Marilyn Gardner (1999), some level of violence appears invirtually all the movies virtually public among adolescent boys (Gardner 14). take down in sports, the violence wittiness is strengthen by commentators who glorify hits and kills in male-dominated sporting howeverts referred to as battles. Athletes who make it off the field hurt after a sporting encounter are the heroes of the feeble as much as the man who made the taking touchdown or basket. Males are taught by media refining that they can all be buffoons or warriors, but that fine lies between for those who aim to be neither.\n\n other stereotype honourd by photograph and media is that of the man as provider. Whereas mature women are visualized as blasé homemakers, men in their thirties and mid-forties are more often shown in roles of power and high-prestige positions. Men are shown as those who successfully rise the corporate die hard while their wives guide to the domestic and auxiliary roles which play little to no role in the males emanation to power. Males in contract are promising to be shown as executives, politicians, and celebrities while women in the same age group are teachers, homemakers, or clerks, thitherby reinforcing the dominant male-supportive female stereotypes (Gardner 14). Children exposed to this type of stereotype see the message as being one of superiority: males are able to extend to at higher(prenominal) levels than females, so women should thereby recognize their inferior role in the schema of parliamentary procedure.\n\nThe contrast of internal copy of women in the media has persisted through some decades, over which cross of time the role of females in rescript has expanded and changed in a striking panache. Currently, for every one female visualized in film, there are al or so 2.1 male characters to counterbalance her presence (Collins 292). The deprivation of rime, when coupled with the disparage stereotypes often elect for female characters, provides the subliminal message to parliamentary procedure that women are undeniable less than men and appear and dissolve only when cheery for males. According to metalworker and Choueiti (2011), gender hegemony is still alive and well in the movie business. Only 29.2% of all speaking characters are female crossways 122 G, PG, and PG13 films theatrically-released between 2006 and 2009 (5). These statistics suggest that the prevalent national has father alter to the lack of representation of women and simply accept it as a reflection of the flock of society. Even worse, the keep manufacture of media with skew representation poses the insecurity that the need for gender equality in media may be a dead letter for most. Considering the low numbers of women represent in film, the tendency for common media to impose tralatitious stereotypes on those characters is all the more disturbing.\n\nEven with the low number of women in popular film and media, it seems as though it is more a take of how they are portrayed in the media more than whether they are portrayed (Collins 293). In fact, because of the prevalence of overly-sexualized stereotypes in film, should the industry increase the characterization of women in movies it stands to causa that more of the same would be shown and indeed the situation for women would father even more dismal. It seems women in at onces media are forced into a role of submission or into no role at all.\n\nMedia also serves to reinforce the idea that individuals who mountt piece the stereotypical ideals portrayed in the movies can seek to render themselves through instrument shown in the movies and that such transformations are preferable to an existence wherein one doesnt beseem the traditional mold. In many films, including American Reunion, the message is overstep: if you wa nt to puzzle a new you, to transform your identity, to become successful, you need to center on on image, style, and mood (Kellner 245). Ironically, it is the media industry itself which determines what is fashion and style thereby engaging in a measure type of cerebrate whereby individuals, particularly women, sire themselves with little in the way of options when selecting an image or deciding on in the flesh(predicate) style. That which they see portrayed in the media will be that which is satisfactory in society and available in stores, and should they choose not to conform, they will construe their options limited.\n\nMedia creation of image is not exclusively female; some(prenominal) men and women are subject to the image and style argument. The metrosexual causal agent of the early twenty-first century was supply in large part by media act of toned, tanned, and bare-chested men with nary a hit of system hair visible. Manicured pass and groomed brows are shown o n both men and women in movies and on television, and teeth-whitening is prevalent with both genders. The mash to conform in terms of clay type, athleticism, and style is most certainly not gender specific.\n\nWomen are under-represented and women are sexualized, are so intelligibly documented across such a variety of media and settings that it is clear time for the nigh stage of search (Collins 296). The question becomes not whether or not media reinforces negative stereotypes but what to do about it. If women are to be accurately portrayed in film and television media, it would force a gear in the stereotypes utilise for male characters in male-dominated story lines. If the number of women portrayed in such media were to be brought to relation with the tangible percentage of women in society, it would also force a re-examination of how media portray women in submissive or overtly-sexualized manners. As to how to accomplish parity and realistic portrayal of both genders in media, the solution does not seem impartial or even partially clear. What is imperative, though, is that the general populous be made aware(p) that what they are visual perception in the media does not represent what is contend out in life around them. Perhaps then future generations of film makers and movie-goers would be able to move apart from stereotypes and toward a more fair representation of men and women in the media.'