Sydney Thiessa Post #3

In the documentary Miss Representation, I found that the statistic "only 16% of protagonists in film are women" to be the most interesting to me. As a film enthusiast and a person who wants to pursue a career in film, I found this upsetting. Film is mostly a representation of society and how life is portrayed in the real world. Since realistically, society is male-dominated, it makes sense, but is disappointing, that film would be male-dominated as well. In that 16% of female protagonists, most of them are not strong and independent women, but are motivated by relationships and love and are displayed as weak. This is common in romantic comedies where the central focus is a love-related challenge, like She's Out of My League, in which the female protagonist only existed as a character to change the male protagonist's life and bring him out of his funk with her love. But even when they are strong and independent, they are the "fighting fuck toy" archetype, as mentioned in the documentary. This is common action films that are primarily for male audiences. These female protagonists only exist for male titilation, because males find it arousing for a woman to shoot guns and beat people up, like in The Avengers, in which the only female protagonist was attractive with a curvy body and long hair and was stronger than many of the other male characters. A lot of films that have a more progressive representation of women are independent and foreign films which don't get a lot of attention in American society, specifically Hollywood. I hope that with the influence of more female directors, like myself, film will become more meaningful instead of being mindless entertainment.