Women in Film

(Title) UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT, ASM COMM.

The history of the American cinema from 1910 until the present illuminates one underlying concept regarding mass media-as the values of the times change so do the images and issues portrayed on the screen. In each decade since the 1910s, the topics, values and kinds of characters portrayed on screen have been a reflection of the social values in each decade. However, while the portrayals on screen come to us in different versions, with different poses, attitudes, styles and reactions, the underlying concepts where the portrayal of women is concerned have not changed a great deal since 1910. Basically, the underlying archetypes of women that were created at the beginning of American cinema are the ones that have remained to this day, albeit they are presented in each decade in different ways with different surface appearances, attitudes and reactions. Traditionally there are three roles women have portrayed in film: women as workers; women as housewives; women as sex-objects (Masavisut, Simson and Smith 181). Yet, underlying these divisions is the continuous portrayal of women, both the good-woman and bad-girl, as being incomplete without the love of a man. This analysis will discuss how the roles of women on film have changed since the beginning of the American cinema, but argue that underneath all the variations of roles there lies the same archetypal portrayals originated nearly o

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Category: Film - W