Introduction
Films are a powerful medium that bring storytelling to life, and what better story to tell than a love story. Love and romance have been popular genres in media since people began telling stories, and are still an extremely popular genre today. Gender roles within romantic movies are often very obviously segregated. Women are often the helpless submissive character, and men are usually the strong and capable character. There are several examples of this kind of relationship dynamic. The most obvious examples are Disney princess movies where there’s a strong male lead who saves or falls in love with the beautiful, helpless princess. It’s a story as old as time. But have these relationship dynamics changed over time? What do modern …show more content…
Powers , David J. Rothman & Stanley Rothman’s article, Transformation of Gender Roles in Hollywood Movies: 1946-1990, the authors explore the changes of gender roles in film. In their article they first looked at a sample of the top grossing 146 films between 1946-1965. In this 44 year sample they found that even though female characters appear in all of the films, they have very distinctive roles. The authors discuss that in these movies “women characters typically seek to divert male attention away from the pursuit of careers, adventure, wealth, or even war or a life of crime, and to channel more energy into domesticity.” (264) They also discuss that these woman are all physically attractive, young, and are all driven by the ideals of love. The women are mostly focused on changing a man in some way in order to either make them more fatherly, or to make them a better husband. On the other hand, their study found that men are much less frequently motivated by romance. …show more content…
I want to know if distinctions between gender roles, relating to couple dynamics in heterosexual relationships, are present in romantic movies from the past ten years. (2006-2016) My best guess is that, like Johnson’s previous research, Men will be the ones to “take the lead” when it comes to romantic gestures, and relationship initiation. I think that women will resist the men at first, then eventually let the men take initiative over the relationship. I also think that the Women will be more likely to start fights. This hypothesis stems out of Stephen P. Powers , David J. Rothman & Stanley Rothman’s article. In their article they discussed a woman role to change a man. I believe that in my sample this role of women may cause tension within the
Films are a powerful medium that bring storytelling to life, and what better story to tell than a love story. Love and romance have been popular genres in media since people began telling stories, and are still an extremely popular genre today. Gender roles within romantic movies are often very obviously segregated. Women are often the helpless submissive character, and men are usually the strong and capable character. There are several examples of this kind of relationship dynamic. The most obvious examples are Disney princess movies where there’s a strong male lead who saves or falls in love with the beautiful, helpless princess. It’s a story as old as time. But have these relationship dynamics changed over time? What do modern …show more content…
Powers , David J. Rothman & Stanley Rothman’s article, Transformation of Gender Roles in Hollywood Movies: 1946-1990, the authors explore the changes of gender roles in film. In their article they first looked at a sample of the top grossing 146 films between 1946-1965. In this 44 year sample they found that even though female characters appear in all of the films, they have very distinctive roles. The authors discuss that in these movies “women characters typically seek to divert male attention away from the pursuit of careers, adventure, wealth, or even war or a life of crime, and to channel more energy into domesticity.” (264) They also discuss that these woman are all physically attractive, young, and are all driven by the ideals of love. The women are mostly focused on changing a man in some way in order to either make them more fatherly, or to make them a better husband. On the other hand, their study found that men are much less frequently motivated by romance. …show more content…
I want to know if distinctions between gender roles, relating to couple dynamics in heterosexual relationships, are present in romantic movies from the past ten years. (2006-2016) My best guess is that, like Johnson’s previous research, Men will be the ones to “take the lead” when it comes to romantic gestures, and relationship initiation. I think that women will resist the men at first, then eventually let the men take initiative over the relationship. I also think that the Women will be more likely to start fights. This hypothesis stems out of Stephen P. Powers , David J. Rothman & Stanley Rothman’s article. In their article they discussed a woman role to change a man. I believe that in my sample this role of women may cause tension within the