Coming out of class on Monday night I was very interested in gender stereotyping. When I heard about an opportunity to see a movie that was about being a Playboy bunny, I knew I had to see it in order to learn more and see more stereotyping. Little did I know that there would be such an abundance of it in one movie.
"Miss March" was a funny movie. I laughed a lot but at the same time I was quite disgusted in the way women were portrayed throughout the entire film. Parts of it were even very crude and uncomfortable to watch being a woman myself.
The movie was about two young guys who have been great friends for a long time. One of the boys goes into a coma for four years and during those four years his girlfriend becomes the March centerfold of "Playboy." That, in and of itself, is very stereotypical of the type of girl that these boys would date. She was a dumb blonde and probably did not have much self-confidence.
His friend, Tucker, also had a girlfriend in the movie and for her birthday he bought her a stripper pole to use. The girlfriend took the stripper without any hesitation. That insinuates that all girls would like to have stripper poles in their bedrooms, which is definitely not the case.
A friend of the two boys brings about the most gender stereotyping in the movie. Their friend is a rapper who makes very derogatory music videos. His song titles are even too horrible to name. One of his videos show a bare chested woman bumping and grinding and showing no morals. I was extremely offended by that because I believe that women are better than that and that girls should not resort to doing that type of work.
The rapper brought the two friends on his tour bus and on the bus there were a lot of promiscuous women. At one point, the rapper told one of the girls to go have sex with Tucker and she nodded and went. She was letting some man tell her what to do and control her. It was, in my opinion, the saddest part of the movie.
Once the friends made it to L.A., they arrived at the Playboy Mansion. The mansion was full of blonde bimbos with little dogs and a ton of pink. None of them seemed to portray intellectual women. In fact, there were no women in the movie that were portrayed as "smart" or "intellectual." Every girl was seen as dumb and easily convincible.
Although the movie was funny, I would never see it again. It was extremely crude and offensive toward women. It's goal was to show how dumb girls are and that all they are good for is looking good and being sex symbols. I would not recommend it to anyone.
By the way you describe it, the movie sounds like something I would like to see if I were a middle school or high school guy. I really know nothing about this movie or movies in general but I do know that each movie plays to a certain croud. This movie sounds a lot like the American Pie movies which playes directly towards every adolescent males fantasy world which at the age of 14 or 15 he doesn't realize that that world doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteIt also targets respectable women like yourself who are offended by the stereotypes in this movie but at the same time have to see it themselves...
Just like the advertising seen in class on Monday, sex sells. And the point of advertising is to sell a product or image. And the point of movies is to sell tickets and movies.
It's interesting to me that there is an entire genre devoted to this type of movie. Exactly as Ross said, it is targeted at young men. Honestly, the movie sounded a lot like any reality show that you see today when you flip on the TV. I agree that this is not okay and it cheapens a woman's sexuality. A woman cannot be a sexual being unless it is blonde, buxom, and rubbing itself suggestively. When a girl is instructed to go have sex with someone and she nods her head in agreement, what is this teaching boys? That this should be how easy it is? That women should and do want to have sex on command? Though I don't completely advocate that media has total control of shaping young minds, it does play a part. We must be careful what we teach.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lot of movies out there today; I don't think movies that are geared toward younger generations portray women intelligently or with morals. And when and if they do portray women with intelligence or morals they are seen as more masculine than feminine, because you just cannot be feminine and be smart at the same time. You're right it does teach young people/boys that women will do as they are told and that they will love stripper poles or completely outrageous things like that. I think these movies have gone beyond the point of "sex sells". Because the full-on nudity and commanding sex isn't just implying sex as ads usually do, this is throwing it in your face. Then, you said it had some racial stereotyping in it too, with the rapper friend and his degrading rap videos. Is there a movie or TV show out there that does not have gender or racial stereotyping? I don't think so. And that is terribly sad. Well, I'm sorry you had to watch something you wouldn't recommend to anyone else.
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