Male and Female Depictions in the Media

[Flashlight]

How do you feel Males and Females are generally depicted in the media?

Are we equals, or do we still stand in the Macho Man and Damsel in Distress steriotypes. What message does this send to kids? Is this is how you should be?

Of course there are many differant forms of media, Movies, Television, Literature, News Media, Theatre, and many more, so naturally you're going to see each gender represented in just about every way imaginable if you search hard enough, but generally speaking, do you feel any sex in demeened more often than not?

What are the steriotypes of today? Boys still see big action stars like The Rock or Vin Diesal, like the previous generation had Arnald Schwartzaneggar and Jean Claude Van Dame, and do they feel that is how they should grow up to be? And what about little girls, seeing how today's stars dress and act in ways previously thought unfitting for society, do they feel that is what it means to be an adult? Do they themselves one day want to act like that, because of how men and woman are portrayed on television and film, and even literature? Are you happy about that?

Are men and woman really portrayed like that, or do you have a different opinion. Again, I'm talking in a general sense, as everyone will be able to find an example of where men and woman or portrayed very differantly from what I feel.

And even in the news, is one gender given more attention that the other? A woman and a man are both involved in a similar car accident, on the same day, in two differant locatons but still the same city. The news station only has time to report on one of the two incidents. Which do they report on? Are you happy about this? Is it right?

What do you feel male and female depictions in the media are? Do you think they are accurate? Why.

[Orb]

Yes men and women are treated differently in the ways you mentioned. Like if something bad happened people do care more if it is a women. And they think women are supposed to be really sweet and care for their man. And guys are supposed to be, well, men. I know some of you may not agree with me but i sort of like it that way. Girls are girls and men are men.

[Bullet Theory]

Men are usually depicted as the Macho Men, as you stated, but that is because a vast majority of males you see in magazines, TV, and movies are quite built and that's what the women flock to. There are some males, like myself, that aren't the most built, aren't the most popular, and don't always get the girl. Girls...well most girls I know, think that the most attractive guys can treat them the best, but most of them are jackasses. Common misconception.

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]The other day, when out for dinner (I had a very nice club sandwich and fries with gravy, if you care.) I sat across from a television mounted towards the ceiling. This meant that, while waiting for my aformentioned dinner, I had little to do but watch Smackdown without sound while a group of guys a few tables down made particularly loud comments on what was going on during it.

At one point, they marched out a pair of "school girls" who were dressed in tastelessly mini skirts and shirts that exposed the better part of their stomachs and boobs, and, well, it was [i]wrestling[/i]. You know the story.

You could blow this off [i]as[/i] wrestling, justifying it by the fact that most of the men walk around in narry but their underwear (though they don't hump the borders of the ring), and that wrestling is basically tasteless, so I'll move on to another example.

Music. Hong Hing made a particularly accurate observation of the modern-day music industry in a recent post on her [URL=http://www.myotaku.com/mew_wem]myO[/URL] a few days ago (during which we learned some particularly useful advice to do with maintaining the condition of your new bedsheets), so I urge you to, as Sara would say, kip along to that.

But, to get back on track, I don't think showing rich, brawny, bling-covered men surrounded by women in naught but their bras and panties is much in the way of closing the gender gap when it comes to representation of people in the entertainment media. (That's [i]if[/i] the director of the particular video in question was decent enough to leave them in any clothing [i]at all[/i].)

In children's TV shows, girls are more often than not represented as boy-crazy and spending hours primping their hair and "imperfect" 12-year-old faces.

As far as news anchors and whatnot go, however, I detect no prejiduce when it comes to weighing the value of what a man or woman might say, unless they are particularly screwed towards a specific viewpoint.
Covering stories involving men and women is, however, slightly skewed, I think.

You hear mostly about women being killed, raped, or abducted, but rarely about them committing crimes.

But that could be due to the fact that girls and boys have gender stereotypes and roles so engrained into their psyche that boys think it's "manly" to be violent and play around with guns.

Statistcally, the most dangerous state of being in North America is male between the ages of 18 and 24. That could be due to hormones, but messages beaten into little kids' skulls since the age of 3 probably has something significant to do with it.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[wrist cutter]

Males are being portrayed as lazy, slovenly, stupid and neglegent these days. And if you disagree you should watch a sitcom sometime. Hell, you don't even have to look past the Simpsons, the ultimate show for stereotypes.

I'd be offended but I simply can't muster up the energy.