Women in Film

From the onset of the industry, film has used the female body as an object for visual, heterosexual male pleasure. Examples can be found from the 1920s star Clara Bow to Marilyn Monroe. Major female stars aren’t the only ones who are faced with objectification in film; the trend extends far beyond extreme fame and is intimately woven into mainstream film throughout the ages. It wasn’t until film theorist Laura Mulvey’s groundbreaking 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” that this phenomenon was explored in academic film theory. The essay analyzes “the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form”, and illuminates how the women portrayed in film exist only in relation to men and are significant only for their not being a man (Mulvey). Mulvey relates this concept to scopophilia, the Greek word for deriving pleasure from looking. Scopophilia and voyeurism are concepts that have been widely recognized as something that film hinges upon. Films have intentionally taken to a conscious exploration of this idea (for example, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s 1928 film Un chien andalou or Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window) but Mulvey goes beyond the general idea of film as visual pleasure, and claims that “[scopophilia] arises from pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” which, “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance […] has been split between active/male and passive/female […wherein] the male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly” (Mulvey). Hence the origin of the term male gaze, used to describe the woman as object for pleasurable viewing in the eyes of both the male protagonist and therefore, the audience.


The male gaze is still rampant in film today, particularly big-budget films. The New York Film Academy compiled an incredibly thorough infographic, Gender Inequality in Film, which offers a visual depiction of the disparities between female and male representations in film. According to the graphic, in the top 500 grossing films of 2007-2012, the number of female characters who wore sexually revealing clothing were over four times the number of male characters who did so, and almost three times as many female actors than male actors are shown partially naked. Not only are women’s bodies shown sexually at far higher rates than men, but compared to men, they are represented in films at much lower rates.



Furthermore, of the women that were represented, there were major gender divides in how they were represented as compared to their male counterparts.

· The majority of female characters were in their 20s (24%) and 30s (28%), decreasing significantly in their 40s (20%)

· The majority of male characters were in their 30s (27%) and 40s (30%)

· Of female characters, those in their 50s (9%) were represented significantly less than male characters in their fifties (17%)

· 61% of female characters had an identifiable job, compared to 78% of male characters

· 44% of female characters were shown in the workplace, compared to 64% of male characters

· 49% of female characters had identifiable goals, compared to 60% of male characters. With males having a greater tendency towards work and crime-related goals than women (48% vs. 34% and 7% vs. 2%, respectively), and women having a greater tendency towards goals relating to their personal lives (14% vs. 5%)

That’s a lot of numbers to pay attention to, but they are all very important when seeking to understand how gender disparities function in the film industry. These findings show that not only are women far underrepresented, they are also represented in a way that highly promotes the ideal of youth and furthers gender stereotypes.

The statistics aren’t any better behind the scenes. Dr. Lauzen’s report The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-The-Scenes Employment of Women in the Top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2015 show that of the top 250 grossing films of 2015:

· 91% had no female directors

· 82% had no female writers

· 52% had no female executive producers

· 32% had no female producers

· 74% had no female editors

· 94% had no female cinematographers


If that weren’t enough, 81% of all of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers were men (Lauzen). This is a huge representation gap. Both the behind-the scenes and in front of the camera, women are also significantly underrepresented in awards shows and get paid significantly less than their male counterparts. Within these percentages, women of color are even further underrepresented.

Media affects people and how they interact with the world around them. Film affects people at large, and the male gaze affects women intimately. A study shows that “the internalized male gaze, and not just any gaze, negatively affects [college] women” even in situations that aren’t directly related to the body, and with no actual observers present. The study used questionnaires that specifically stated the gender of the supposed stranger the individuals were told to imagine they interacted with. Which means that when women perceive men to be watching them, they experience an increase of anxiety and self-criticism. They objectify their own bodies as they imagine a man would do, in order to present themselves properly. It has been shown that “objectification of one's own body produces negative emotional experiences and has a detrimental impact on mental health” (Calogero).


Don’t let all of the research leave you hopeless. There is a correlation between women behind the scenes in film and women in front of the camera. It isn’t hard to guess that the correlation is positive: more women in prominent positions behind the scenes results in more representation of women in the story. Lauzen has found that of films that had at least one female director and/or writer, 50% had female protagonists, as compared to those films with no female directors or writers, wherein 13% had female protagonists. I have also found that films with female writers/directors tend to confront the male gaze and gender stereotypes and complicate, challenge, or subvert them. I examined a few films that were both written and directed by women in the last (roughly) ten years, and found unique ways that each of these films chose to push the boundaries that the film industry has set for women. I examined Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, which showed women making autonomous decisions about their body, Dee Rees’ Pariah, which featured a complication of femininity as the female protagonist challenges traditional stereotypes of female dress, action, and sexuality as she navigates her sexual identity in a way that does not fetishize it, and Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, which features a female protagonist whose main goal is to protect her family above all else.


I encourage you to think about who creates the films you watch and why it matters.

This research stemmed from a project for my wonderful Women’s and Gender Studies course, Art and Activism taught by Professor Tanya Shields at UNC-Chapel Hill and is adapted from an essay for Professor Shayne Legassie's Seminar course.






Calogero, Rachel M. "A test of objectification theory: The effect of the male gaze on appearance concerns in college women." Psychology of Women Quarterly 28.1 (2004): 16-21.


"Gender Inequality in Film - An Infographic." New York Film Academy Blog. 2013. Web. 05 May 2016.


Lauzen, Martha M. “It’s a Man’s Celluloid World: Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2015.” San Diego State University Center for the Study of Women in Film and Television. 2016.


Lauzen, Martha M. “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-The-Scenes Employment of Women in the Top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2015.” San Diego State University Center for the Study of Women in Film and Television. 2016.


Mulvey, Laura. “Visual and other pleasures”. Vol. 28. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.