The sexualization of women in modern cinema has been a highly debated topic, especially with the rise of third-wave feminist theories. Today, in order to align with the demands of its left-wing viewers, Hollywood tries to delve into the narrative of diversity. However, despite the attempts, most female characters are white, straight, attractive, thin, and partially nude. Over the last decade, the most popular Hollywood movies have shown more than 40% of young women dressed in seductive clothing, 35% of them being nude, and 61% of them being thin.1 This type of representation of women in Hollywood has an immediate effect on the audience: while female viewers may think that they should look up to par with the shown characters, men may think that the ideal women are only those who show off their beauty.
Objectification is the most prominent ideological effect of Hollywood’s desire to depict women as erotic spectacles, and examples of this can be found in the majority of modern movies. Importantly, the objectification of women as sexual objects can be found even in instances where female characters play the leading role of a strong-willed and independent character. To illustrate this point, such movies as The Hunger Games (2012) and Wonder Woman (2017) will be further analysed.
In The Hunger Games, the initial depiction of Katniss Everdeen as a protagonist is that of an opinionated and stubborn young woman that provides for her mother and younger sister. She is bold enough to stand against the system of Hunger Games and offers herself as a candidate for the role of a tribute to shelter her sibling from the horror and the unfairness of the government. As Katniss’s character progresses from a starving teenager to Mockingjay, the elements of female sexualisation and control become more and more evident.
For instance, the girl’s coach, Haymitch, who should prepare her for the participation in the games, instructs Katniss to be more likable and play for the cameras that follow her in order to capture the attention of the audience. The most outstanding thing is that the audience who watches the games is more likely to support those tributes who act in the most obeying way. Importantly, Katniss’s life in the Games depends on her audience because they will have the ability to send her help in situations when she needs it.
In the sexualisation of Katniss, it is imperative to mention that she is also instructed to pretend to be in love with her male counterpart from her district, Peeta. This points to the idea that a woman’s sole purpose in life is to find a partner and create a relationship that will last. Despite Katniss’s principles not aligning with this idea, she is forced to comply in order to survive, and the initial forced and played love grows into a meaningful connection.
If to speak from a personal perspective on the movie, I feel that the entire plot aspect of Katniss and Peeta being together is unnecessary and does not add any value to the story. Despite the movie adapting the book, it could have been more interesting if Hollywood chose a new approach to building a strong female character and avoided clichés that have already been done before.
While the above-mentioned points about the depiction of Katniss in The Hunger Games are important, the most interesting part regarding the girl’s objectification is associated with her appearance. To prepare for the Games, Katniss gets a personal fashion designer whose role is to make the girl as attractive as possible. Costumes are given immense attention in the world of Hunger Games because they make characters likable by the audience.
In the scene where Katniss’s wedding dress catches fire and changes from fluffy white into dark blue and sleek represents the girl’s control over her sexuality. As she becomes the symbol of rebellion against the government, Katniss uses her sexual appeal and strength to fulfil her role as the Mockingjay.
Critically, The Hunger Games received opposing opinions. On the one hand, the character of Katniss was put on a pedestal as a representation of a strong and independent woman who can care not only for herself but also for others. She is seen as rejecting the traditional feminine role and taking action to protest and rebel against the government.2 Her self-sacrifice is considered the strongest point of Katniss as a character, which is considered an ultimately male trait.
However, most of the positive criticism in support of the movie fails to address the issue of strong female characters not being the reality. Katniss is objectified and shaped into an image of a woman who is beautiful, smart, opinionated, and so on for making up a feminist story. The trend of depicting women as violent but extremely beautiful has been gaining momentum in Hollywood, with the level of violence a woman exhibits being attributed to her erotic appeal. Therefore, the misogyny of the film industry did not avoid The Hunger Games with its influence, thus failing to shape a strong-willed female character whose femininity would not be objectified.
Ever since the release of Wonder Woman in 2017, critics have not stopped to discuss whether the protagonist was sexualised by Hollywood or not. What makes the movie stand out from the rest of the superhero franchises is that it was directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, who was adamant about the importance of showing female characters in the same light as males are shown. Despite the director’s intentions to show a strong and beautiful woman saving the world, the movie received mixed opinions from critics.
James Cameron, a famous Hollywood director, was bold in his commentary on Wonder Woman, saying that the film’s central character was objectified and the movie as a whole was a step backward3. He said, “all of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided […]. She is an objectified icon, and it is just male Hollywood doing the same old thing!”4 In responding to criticism, Patty Jenkins stated that Cameron did not understand the purpose behind Wonder Woman and that “a woman can and should be everything just like male lead characters should be. There is no right and wrong kind of a powerful woman.”5 Thus, to examine whether the heated debate about the character of a Wonder Woman holds any ground, it will be explored further.
Wonder Woman has always been a feminist symbol as she combined the fantasy of power with sexual fantasies, which is why she has brought an appeal to a large spectrum of viewers. Initially, when the character was created by William Marston, she was meant to embody sexual provocativeness, be educational, and interesting to both men and women. Marston was in a polyamorous relationship with two bisexual women and understood the possible appeal Wonder Woman would have on the lesbian audience. Also, the author wanted Wonder Woman to be sexually empowering and not objectified6.
Since the character of Wonder Woman has a history of sexual appeal, the line between the objectification of her in the movie and her erotic qualities being empowering is hard to identify. In the film, fuelled by feminist intentions of elevating the role of strong women, the superhero is literally a half-goddess, which means that she is not a real woman after all. Despite her being extremely powerful, upon her arrival in the human world, her instinct is to obey a male character that does not show any particular signs of strength. He is stunned by her beauty and acts in the same way in which any man would act when he meets an attractive woman. The goddess, in return, uses men’s appreciation for her beauty to her advantage but fails to shield herself from the stereotypical female wish to be desired.
Similarly to the issue of violent women that have raised in The Hunger Games, Wonder Woman elevates violence as the answer to all problems that a female character encounters. The tension between the thrill of action, which is associated with combat, and objectification, which is associated with women, is reflected in a scene in which Wonder Woman throws a person across the room and a spectator says “I am both frightened and aroused.”7 Thus, the erotic spectacle of Wonder Woman as a character is supported by the abundance of battle scenes in the movie, which lacks commentary on the part of the heroine. While Wonder Woman is extremely beautiful and powerful, the filmmakers failed to show her witty and smart side, turning her into an action figure. In this issue lies the central problem associated with the movie: it showed a feminist character that is both strong and beautiful without paying much attention to her development as a person and as a woman.
Based on the analysis of female protagonists of The Hunger Games and Wonder Woman, several discussion points must be made. On the bright side, in the recent decade, Hollywood progressed in its depiction of strong characters not only as men. First, it is important to praise the film industry for the attempts to reshape the character of an action movie and present the audience with female leads that can fight just as well as men.
This is inspiring for women-viewers who are afraid to show their masculine side because of the fear of being misunderstood. Second, from the marketing perspective, movies are entertainment, and it has always been a safe choice to capture the audience by casting beautiful women in the roles of superheroes.
On the downside, there is still a long way to go when it comes to not constructing female characters as erotic spectacles. Extreme sexual attractiveness was written as a trait of both Wonder Woman and Katniss Everdeen, and they used this aspect to their advantage. What is problematic about this approach is that strong and beautiful women do not bring a sense of sympathy and support from the audience.
While the days of the damsel in distress trope are over, a violent female action character may redefine female heroines for worse. As mentioned by Katy Gilbatric in her analysis of women in cinema, “the majority of female action characters shown in American cinema are not empowering images, they do not draw on their femininity as a source of power, and they are not a king of “postwoman” operating outside the boundaries and gender restrictions.”8
In addition, even female actresses have addressed the issue of violent women in action films. For instance, Natalie Portman was quoted saying that “the fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a “feminist” story, the woman [fights] and wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathise with.”9
Overall, when avoiding the construction of female characters as erotic spectacles, Hollywood made a spectacle of overly violent and passionate women who use their sexuality as a weapon. While this approach to moviemaking is highly profitable in marketing terms and appeals to a wide demographic of viewers, it essentially uses the same method of objectification but in a different way. The examples of Wonder Woman and The Hunger Games show that the attempts to shape women as action figures end with the increased attention to their erotic nature and less regard to them as personalities. Turning women into fight machines are never the answer to showing that feminism in Hollywood exists because it is a single mother who can raise two children and work fifteen hours a day who is truly a powerful character.
Bibliography
Berlatsky, Noah. “James Cameron’s Comments on Wonder Woman Completely Ignore Her History of Sex Appeal.” The Verge, 2017. Web.
Berlatsky, Noah. “The Hunger Games World Is No Country for Glamorous Women.” The Guardian, 2015. Web.
Daly, Rhian. “James Cameron Says ‘Wonder Woman’ Objectified Its Star and Is ‘A Step Backwards’.” NME, 2017. Web.
“Is Katniss Everdeen Actually A Strong Female Character?” Huffington Post, 2014. Web.
Mumford, Gwilym. “Patty Jenkins Hits Back at James Cameron: ‘He Doesn’t Understand Wonder Woman’.” The Guardian, 2017. Web.
Smith, Stacy, Katherine Pieper, and March Choueiti. “The Future Is Female? Examining the Prevalence and Portrayal of Girls and Teens in Popular Movies.” Web.
Williams, Zoe. “Why Wonder Woman Is A Masterpiece of Subversive Feminism.” The Guardian, 2017. Web.
Footnotes
- Stacy Smith, Katherine Pieper and Marc Choueiti, “The Future Is Female? Examining the Prevalence and Portrayal of Girls and Teens in Popular Movies,”. Web.
- Noah Berlatsky, “The Hunger Games World Is No Country for Glamorous Women,” The Guardian. Web.
- Rhian Daly, “James Cameron Says ‘Wonder Woman’ Objectified Its Star and Is ‘A Step Backwards’,” NME. Web.
- Rhian Daly, “James Cameron Says ‘Wonder Woman’ Objectified Its Star and Is ‘A Step Backwards’.”
- Gwilym Mumford, “Patty Jenkins Hits Back at James Cameron: ‘He Doesn’t Understand Wonder Woman’,” The Guardian. Web.
- Noah Berlatsky, “James Cameron’s comments on Wonder Woman Completely Ignore Her History of Sex Appeal,” The Verge. Web.
- Zoe Williams, “Why Wonder Woman Is A Masterpiece of Subversive Feminism,” The Guardian. Web.
- “Is Katniss Everdeen Actually A Strong Female Character?” Huffington Post. Web.
- “Is Katniss Everdeen Actually A Strong Female Character?” Huffington Post.