Gender Roles

I am very sensitive to the way women are portrayed in movies (maybe its because my mom read The Feminine Mystique back in the 70s and I still hear about gender role issues in my household), but it bothers me when film portrays women as the helpless, the tag-along, the dependent, the whore, or the over-the-top-opinionated-run-people-over-with-her-attitude witch with a capital "b." Can't we have more movies that portray women working along side of men, not running them over like they have something to prove or walking behind, but movies that show what one would hope the reality is? Unfortunately, I think most movies do a great disservice to women. I am not going to lie; I don't watch a great deal of movies, but Romanowski got me thinking about the movies I have watched. The common portrayal of women that bothers me the most is "the helpless woman." I believe superhero movies do the greatest disservice to women in this area. Superhero movies have a tendency to have a strong male figure who wants nothing more than to save a damsel in distress (helpless woman). Spiderman did not do a great job for the image of the woman; MaryJane always needed to be saved from some sort of evil force. Daredevil on the other hand, for all its faults, did a better job at portraying a strong woman (Jennifer Garner) who could hold her own. So those are my thoughts for better or for worse. As Christians I believe that we need to portray women who have ethics, strong character, who aren't run over by the male figures in their lives (unless showing how male dominance isn't necessarily positive). It would probably be very beneficial to show women and men working side by side to promote positive societal changes. This is not to say in some movies we shouldn't show reality, but we should show it and put a different spin on it.