Do you think men and women get treated the same in movies, books and TV?

Ha! That's a joke right from the start, isn't it? This is something I've been thinking about for quite some time now.

I was having a discussion with my brother one day about a year back, I'm a writer, not professionally, I haven't been published yet, I've only finished one novel I've started...but I digress...in my stories the main characters are usually women and not the typical sort either, their whole life doesn't revolve around if they get married, if they find the right guy, if they can get past their drinking/drug problem, if they can move on from the years of physical/sexual abuse they endured at the hands of...somebody for so long...my stories don't have any of that. In my books, the women are always on the same front line of all the action as the men, and they play as well as the guys. My brother disagrees with this idea, he calls it affirmative action to have women up front in everything. I disagree, and I told him why:

Let's take a minute and really stop to think about this...how many things have men been in the spotlight on in movies and books and everything? You have Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, King Arthur, Merlin, Robin Hood, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, the 3 Musketeers, the Count of Monte Cristo, Ivanhoe, Don Quixote, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, The Hardy Boys, Huckleberry Finn, Zorro, the 3 Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, The East Side Kids, the Bowery Boys, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chase, Fatty Arbuckle, Superman, Batman and Robin, 3 of the Fantastic Four were men, Spiderman, X-Men, The Green Lantern, Green Hornet, The Shadow, Connor MacLeod, the Kurgan, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vadar, Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, Rocky, Rambo, Scarface, the Godfather, the Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller, Indiana Jones, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Eagle, Joe Friday, the Blues Brothers, Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason, Lucky Terrell, Buck Rogers, Carter and Lee from the Rush Hour movies, Dirty Harry, McQ, The Wild One, Blackboard Jungle, Walking Tall, Stand Alone, Little Ceasar, Black Caesar, The Public Enemy, the Lavendar Hill Mob, and then even the cartoons it's heavily male dominated stuff: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, the Tazmanian Devil, Mickey mouse, Donald Duck (they had their female counterparts but they weren't as fun to watch, were they?), Goofy, Huey, Dewey and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, The Real Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragons, Johnny Quest, you name it...and somebody let me know if I forgot anybody.

So yeah, you have all these stories and movies and everything about all the crazy and wild things that primarily, men get into, and for the women's side, what is there in comparison? Thelma & Louise, The Legend of Billie Jean, The Bat, Miss Marple, Lucy Ricardo, Coffy, Foxy Brown, but not really much is there?

I'd say that no - for the most part, women aren't treated the same as men in movies and books. I mean - even in the superhero movies, you have the women in the low-cut costume that SLINGS to her body, whereas superman is the only one I can think of who's always in a form-fitting costume.

I don't think women need to be up front in everything and I think you can have a strong, dynamic women who is still feminine. I really liked the show Dr' Quinn, Medicine Women" when I was younger, because of how Dr. Quinn was portrayed. It was nice to see a show that featured a women in a role like that. I think the dramas today do a better job of equalizing the gender roles - the CSI's, Bones, and so on, because you have women who lay opposite of men, in equal roles.

As much as a part of me loves the knight in shining armour storyline, I also love a women who can rescue herself, like in the movie "Ever After" when the prince rides up to rescue her, only to learn that she's rescued herself. That was a great movie!

what I can't stand are the movies, books, TV shows where the women is the perpetual victim, shrieking hysterically and standing around helpless.

I don't know if I"m answering your question, though.

No way. Women are made into sex objects that the men have to save, but the men are presented as brainless twits who cannot survive without their women.

Exactly. My brother doesn't seem to get any of this. He seems to think that there are enough women up front doing things, I disagree, I say the whole thing with them in the media needs all the help it can get.

Men in novels are portrayed as heroic vigilantes or alpha fiends.
Women in novels are portrayed as airheaded damsels, super sympathetic or overly quirky.

Yup - and the women are always in need of a man to rescue them, with few exceptions. The cupboard door squeaks and they can't fix it for themselves. Someone is stalking them and they stand there screaming, rather than grabbing the nearest heavy object and walking the guy as hard as they can.

I remember one time saying that I loved "Seven-of-Nine" on Star Trek and one of my guy friends looks at me and goes: "Yeah - I thought you girls would". I asked him what he meant, and he went on about how she was portrayed as what every woman wanted to be - strong need a guy and I finally had to stop him and tell him it had nothing to do with that - that I liked her because she was funny and didn't really care what she looked like or how she didn't need anyone. He assumed that Seven's only appeal to women was how she was portrayed.

I do think there needs to be more balance in novels and that they need to stop writing women as needy and weak. TV is a bit better but many movies portray women as weak, as well.

Ain't that the truth? Usually it's two guys up front, and a woman to the side, as a girlfriend, or the wife, the 'responsible' 'mature' one who's so uppity and just stands around and you can't do anything that might be fun because it's stupid, or you'll look stupid doing it. That's all over movies, School of Rock, Bedtime Stories, Wild Hogs, The Burbs, etc. and it goes back to the 1930s and 40s, You Can't Take it with You, Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm, etc.


Or, what you have is those movies where they're the quintessential too clueless to live types, and if they're not that, they just HAVE to find the right guy, they just HAVE to have a baby or else their life serves no purpose and they're a big loser, and there are plenty of examples to pick from: House Bunny, Confessions of a Shop-a-holic, Material Girls, 27 Dresses, He's Just Not that Into You...meanwhile when was the last time there was a movie about a guy who just HAD to find the right woman and HAD to have the perfect wedding?

And like I said, in comparison to the man always being the action hero, the outlaw, the fugitive from the law on the run, the whatever...what is there in comparison with women? Thelma & Louise is about the only serious movie that comes to mind, there are others, but they turn it all into one big joke like Bandidas. And people say Kill Bill...question, WHY is the main character in that movie known only as the bride? She can't even have a name to be identified by? We have to constantly be reminded that she's going on this killing spree because she was gunned down at her wedding, always a wedding with women in movies, isn't it?

As a woman, I've always found the whole thing insulting, they're basically saying only men are smart and can do anything fun or exciting and women either just stand by being responsible and not doing anything fun, or they just stand by waiting for their boyfriend to come back to them, or they're only driven to fight and kill if they lose a man. You very seldom EVER see it being the other way around, do you?