Reel women: gender stereotypes in film

<p>Horror films portray female characters as sexual, helpless victims. When horror films attempt to portray female characters as the hero, this sends a message to audiences that women can be strong and independent. An experiment was conducted to test an audience's perceptions gender stereotypes of women in the horror film, Scream. Results indicate that stereotypes present in the horror film effected the participants' perception of women as competent heroes. Female participants were also more likely to perceive women as more competent than male participants. Then, from a qualitative standpoint, five individuals were interviewed about their perceptions of characters in their favorite films. These interviews helped give insight into why audiences continue to enjoy films even though mainstream films tend to overly exaggerate female stereotypes in most genres of film.ree</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication, Media and Theatre Arts

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Krahn, Kayla Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Tsai-Shan Shen, Ph.D, Chair
• Dennis Patrick, Ph.D.
• Michael Tew, Ph.D.

• communication
• motion pictures
• gender
• horror
• Film and Media Studies
• Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/636

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-2015