Action Girl

So much for Disney girls only being damsels in distress

There was a time when the vast majority of women in media who weren’t ugly, evil, or both, did nothing more than sit around, be pretty and let the hero save them from the dragon, riding of in the sunset with them. Or baking them a cake.  That time has since passed. While the damsel in distress is still used in some settings, and gender issues have not left media entirely, the last decades has seen a huge increase of female characters who are not scared of getting their hands dirty and kicking as much, or even more, ass as their male cast members.

These characters come in a wide variety of flavours, from cat-suit clad sexy spies to friendly moms who go mama bear-mode when their children are in danger, all share one trait, and that is their capability of dishing out some serious ass-whooping. This stock character actively defies the ‘women stay in the kitchen’ attitude that is associated with traditional female gender roles. However, the character itself is not without gender issues of its own, depending on the way it is handled. Some action girls are subject to objectification and are mostly in the show because their hot; after all, running around performing martial arts, sword fighting, gun slinging or spell casting can’t help but keeping you in shape. Additionally, there is sometimes a correlation between level of viciousness and badassery and moral standards. Dark action girls fighting on the villain’s side get more action, but it seems to imply that good girls can be part of some of the action, but shouldn’t overindulge. On the other hand, there’s the faux action girl, who is stated to be an action girl and to be on par with the guys, but somehow always ends up being kidnapped, curb-stomped or for whatever reason in need of saving or excluded from the actual fighting.

As illustrated with the above picture, Disney’s animated films have increasingly shown characters like this; early works such as Snow White and Cinderella showed rather passive heroines, as opposed to characters such as Mulan (who saves the whole of frickin’ China) and Esmeralda (remember those ten guards who failed rather miserably in capturing her? Also, she stood her own quite nicely against Phoebus) from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Some other examples:

Izumi Curtis, a bear-wrestling housewife 

from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Eowyn of The Lord of the Rings is no man, as the Witch King would do well to remember

Kung Fu Panda’s Tigress (nearly) putting the Dragon Warrior out of a job

Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender never misses out on any action. 

Bonus points for being a tiny girl. And blind.

Lucy Lui as the compelling dark action girl O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill

Van Hellsing’s Anna Valarious apparently only has the sword for show: 

Out of the ten significant brawls in the film, she’s won two 

The Sassy Black Woman

Black people –and women especially- are often believed to be more outspoken than Caucasians. It would prove interesting to stop and reflect on where this stereotype comes from. The origin of the sassy black woman can be traced back to the seventies where both the civil rights movement and the feminist movement greatly influenced the African American woman. Women were give new liberty and were encouraged to be more outspoken. Blaxploitation in films of the 70’s and 80’s consequently developed the stereotype into what it is today. Although the stereotype is generally respected and opinioned, it denies the individual persona of each African American female.

The main features of the sassy black woman include:

*Solid confidence

*Speaking her mind

*Extrovert character

*Sexually assertive

The stereotype can also include negative characteristics:

*Controlling

*Selfish

*Rude

*Emasculating

*Often a bit overweight

Some examples from popular culture:

Mo'nique (in practically every role)

Queen Latifah (also in the majority of her works)

Wanda Sykes' character Barb in The New Adventures of Old Christine

Effie White in Dreamgirls

Tyler Perry's character of Madea

The Noble Savage

This is a character who, despite being of a barbaric or savage tribe, is portrayed as highly moral and often a great deal more noble than members of the dominant race in the story. The stereotype was especially popular in the Romantic period around the early-to-mid 19^th century, when artists and authors sought to escape from the cold rationality of the Enlightenment, and thus idealized uncivilized races who, unlike the civilized Westerners, lived a simple existence in touch with nature.

While it is, at face-value, a ‘positive’ stock character that portrays members of a different race in a friendly light, this stereotype still has some unfortunate implications. The biggest problem with it is that it ‘others’ the ‘savage’, meaning that the savage character is portrayed as distinctly different as the main characters, creating an ‘us vs. them’ situation. Furthermore, such a generalized portrayal oversimplifies the foreign culture.

Due to the recent rise in recognition of the importance of racial sensitivity, this stock character is becoming more rare in popular media. There is one exception to this, and that is the science fiction genre. Here, humans may encounter aliens who fit the noble savage stereotype, as happened in James Cameron’s Avatar. Other examples include Disney’s Pocahontas or the Lakota in Dances With Wolves.

The Arab

What features come to your mind when looking at this picture?

Arabs have long been stereotyped in the media. A clear example of the aggressive Arab can be seen in the children’s film Aladdin. The film starts with a visual of the desert and a song that includes the lyrics:

“Where they cut off your ear

If they don't like your face

It's barbaric, but hey, it's home"

When princess Jasmine gives a single apple to a hungry child without paying, the Arabian owner intends to cut her hand off. Throughout the film Arabs are depicted as mean, unreasonable people.

Hollywood has made it a habit to portray Arabs in a negative light. Movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Executive Decision also dehumanize Arabs by killing them off cold-bloodily.

Initially it looked like Rules of Engagement were to counter this dehumanizing of Arab people by showing their pain and suffering. The movie included a sad little Arab girl who has lost her leg, provoking empathy on the audience’s part. But later on, the same little girl is shown to be a killer. The massacre of Arabs at the conclusion of the movie implies that the death of even young children is justified.

Arab women are also very narrowly portrayed in media. Either they are exotic belly dancers or veiled women in the background.

When direct encounters with the Arab world are missing, it is inevitable we use the media as the main source of information. Therefore, upon hearing words like “arab” or “muslim” most westerners associate them with negative implications such as terrorism. This stereotype instills a negative prejudice against the Middle Eastern world and labels a group of individuals as a result of false representations.

Madonna/Whore Characters

Olivia Newton-John presenting the 2-in-1 version!

Since we’ll probably end up discussing a wide range of female stereotypes on this blog, today I’ll introduce a basic concept of the representation of women in media: the ‘good girl’ vs. the ‘bad girl’, or the Madonna/whore juxtaposition.  It refers to a (false) dichotomy in portraying females. The good girl, or Madonna, is kind, caring, moral, and confirms to the traditional gender roles of western society. Egregious representations of the good girl have a preference for white frilly clothes. The bad girls, on the other hand, are more liberal and morally ambiguous, if not evil, and defy the aforementioned gender roles.

The most defining difference between the two is, however, their sexuality. Good girls are innocent, virginal and either naive  sexually repressed or not interested in sex, while bad girls are sexually active and seductive. Sadly enough, this pronounced sexuality immediately condemns a girl as immoral, and while she may be a short-term love interest, the Hero will always prefer the good girl when it comes to marriage. In the harshest sense, bad girls become throw-aways not worthy of a decent relationship. On the other hand, the good girl is placed on a pedestal and not expected to move from there, leaving both types rather unhappy.

While textbook examples of these types are becoming more rare in media, many stereotypes for female characters still rely on these archetypes. For example, femme fatales rely on their looks and skills of seduction to get what they want, and what they want is generally less-than-moral, while traditionally passive and pretty damsels in distress are always worth saving.  

Some examples of ‘good girl’ characters would be Sandy Olssen from Grease, depicted above (up until the end of the story, that is), Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride, and a fair amount of Disney princesses. Special mention goes to Snow White, Aurora and Cinderella. Both Selina Kyle and her alter ego Catwoman from the Batman franchise provide classic ‘bad girl’ examples, as are Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers and Kim Possible’s Shego.

The movie Black Swan provides and interesting example, where the sexually repressed Nina must come into touch with her inner bad girl if she is to compete with the sexy Lily for the lead ballerina role.

The Dumb Blonde

The stereotypical dumb blonde has been used extensively in television and movies. Next to her hair color, the stereotype has two main aspects: the girl is pretty and she lacks intelligence. Annette Kuhn, the writer of The Women's Companion to International Film, defines the dumb blonde as "a blonde with an overt and natural sexuality and a profound manifestation of ignorance". This can be seen as making up for foolishness by being physically attractive.

Married… with Children featured Kelly Bundy: the attractive, promiscuous teenage daughter. Throughout the series she is portrayed as dumb. In one episode she gets a job as a weather girl (obtained just by being beautiful). She is fired on her first day because she can’t read.

The Simple Life is a reality television show that ran from 2003 to 2007 and evolved around Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. In every episode, the two notably rich girls go out to experience life as “ordinary” people by working in low-paying jobs. The main appeal of the show was seeing how the pair struggled to do the simplest things.

The movie Mean Girls is about Cady Heron’s experience with high school cliques and friendship between competitive girls.  The Plastics are a group of very popular girls that place high importance on clothes, boys, make-up and hair. Karen Smith is the stereotypical dumb blonde of this group (right in the picture). She is pretty, blonde, and extremely stupid. When another character asks Karen what her talent is, she responds by saying: “”I can put my whole fist in my mouth”. She also believes she can forecast the weather by feeling her breasts.

Jessica Simpson is well-known for wondering aloud whether a can of Chicken of the Sea was chicken or fish. Besides her music career, she appeared brainless on her reality show Newlyweds.

It has been argued that the dumb blonde persona puts women at an advantage in the showbiz. Howard Stern was quoted stating of Simpson: "I don't care if she's dumb. That only makes her hotter". Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears are also seen as examples of the stereotype and have been rich and famous for a long time. So why this appeal for the dumb blonde?

Psychologist Brian Bates argues that blonde hair represents youth. As we have lighter hair and skin when we’re younger, we unconsciously associate blonde hair with being vulnerable, naïve, less intelligent, and less capable. This is perceived as appealing because men are attracted to young, fertile women. Actresses and singers choose to portray this stereotype (even if they are not actually dumb) because their livelihood depends on being found appealing. 

Flamboyant Gay

Imagine you have this character, that happens to be gay. Now you’re going to need to communicate this to the audience, but with the majority of people, not to say, media watchdogs, considering man-on-man romantic action rather icky, and simply telling the audience would be too simple, you’ll have to come up with some other cues to make things obvious.

So you give him perfectly styled hair, baby-smooth skin, a passion for fashion with a special place in his heart for scarfs, a series of effeminate personality traits and a predisposition to using the word ‘fabulous!’. Can’t make his sexuality any less clear than that, right?

This stereotype is very common in many forms of media. Characters such as Jack McFarland from Will and Grace, Kurt Hummel from Glee, and, as depicted above, Marc St. James from Ugly Betty all follow this characterization. It has been around for quite a while, probably having originated from the flamboyant mannerism of Oscar Wilde. Ever since, it has been a frequent source of humour, such as in Monty Python’s sketch Biggles Dictates a Letter.  

Though there are, in fact, some homosexuals who are similar to this caricature, the majority is not. However, this prominent representation of homosexuals causes some people to classify all gays as fabulously queer, causing a lot of discomfort for homosexuals who do not wish to be associated with such an image.

Additionally, these overly effeminate characters are often solely a source of comic relief, and are hardly ever taken seriously. This spreads the idea that homosexuals are shallow, unintelligent and petty, concerning themselves only with trivial matters, which leads further negative preconceptions about homosexuality.