Hollywood has traditionally been a men’s club where movies are created by men and for men. There is little surprise that throughout Hollywood’s history, women were consigned to the position of sex objects primarily for the watching pleasure of the male audience. The portrayal of women in Hollywood may be generally classified into two primary groups.
The first category is for women in movies created for the male audience, and the second category is for women’s movies intended for the female audience. The Fast and The Furious is an example of a movie designed for guys that displays macho men driving fast vehicles. The Devil Wears Prada is a women’s movie highlighting successful professional women and their challenges. Both these movies exemplify how Hollywood trivializes women and their place in society.
I would be a bit more precise with the term men, as the racial and economic make up of Hollywood is extremely homogenous, and thus so is the lens. Also, with regards to the portrayals of women, which women? Gender doesn't exist in a vacuum and thus who is treated as woman is a racialized matter. The way Black women are portrayed vs. Latin women vs. East Asian women vs. South Asian women vs. White women shows there's quite a lot of space for how someone read as woman can be read. All are quite different though there are definitely examples of some overlap it's not 1 to 1.
Going off of your examples they're both primarily white with few characters of color and I believe there is room for that discussion. – SunnyAgo2 years ago
I feel that this topic is a bit too broad and has been overdone especially in video essays on YouTube. I do think it would be interesting to dive into what is the female fantasy according to Hollywood/the male gaze (or if there even can be one). – shaymichel202 years ago
It would also help to discuss how films directed by men vs directed by women differ in their depiction of women – Anna Samson2 years ago