Stage, Sex, and Suffering: Images of Women in American Films

Abstract

This article systematically examines the portrayal of women in the American cinema over the last sixty years, from 1927. More specifically, it addresses itself to the following issues: the main attributes of screen women in terms of age, marital status, and occupation; the guidelines prescribed by American films for structuring women's lifestyles; the degree of rigidity of these normative prescriptions and proscriptions; and recent changes in the portrayal of women. The research is based on content analysis, quantitative and qualitative, of 218 screen roles, male and female, which have won the Academy Award, bestowed annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the best achievements in film acting. The study demonstrates the differential treatment of gender in American films and the durability of specific screen stereotypes for men and for women. The prevalence of rigid conventions in the portrayal of women for half a century is explained in relation to male economic and ideological dominance in Hollywood and in American society at large.