#9

We live in the Unites States of American and it is the year 2011. With his statement many would believe that we live in a very diverse and accepting culture. That our citizens enjoy lives full of freedom and are not insulted by racism and sexism anymore. That was old news people; we live in the twentieth century now! Well this belief is completely wrong! Please do not misunderstand me, our country has made huge strides in the field of liberty and erasing and form of discrimination, but it is still present in our society. Nowhere in our society is this issue more apparent than in our media, seen everywhere from the movies that we watch, television, the books we read, and music are all charged with discrimination against ethnicities and sex.

I want to focus on movies, because everyone goes to the movies and they have such an influence in our pop culture and society. Superbad, Shoot ‘Em Up, John Tucker Must Die, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Sweet Home Alabama, all of the Fast and the Furious. All of these movies are misogynistic, a touch racist, and have very stereotypical female characters. This discrimination against females is even seen in our family movies. Movies such as Madagascar, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Ice Age all have few female characters; there are always the sidekicks, never the main character. A study I found on News Week shows that there is one female character to every three male characters in family movies, and this is weird that most of these female characters are scantily clad and very pretty (think the Little Mermaid). A study from the University of Southern California analyzed 122 family films between 2006 and 2009 and found that only 29.2 percent of the characters were female. One in four of these female characters wore sexy or alluring clothing, and was also more likely to be pretty. One in five of the female characters had their bellies showing. One in four female characters were shown with a waist so small that “the authors concluded it left ‘little room for a womb or any other internal organs.’ Maybe we could carry them in our purses?” I was shocked when I read this study, and I looked back at all my beloved films from my childhood. Most of them had little to no female character or where inferior to the male character and had to be saved by them. My favorite movie when I was little was Snow White and it is the worst movie if you think about it. Snow White had to live with seven ugly, old men (don’t want to say this, but this would be a great idea for a porno) and in the end has to be kissed by another man to save her. How is this possible in our family films! Most of the movies listed above also have little to no characters that are African American, Asian, Mexican, or any other race out there. Some do have other races but the characters are usually very stereotypical. A perfect example is the Fast and the Furious movies, most of the characters that are non-white are criminals and hustlers.