"Gender Roles"
by Alison Wielgus
As I sat down to make my list of the top ten movie performances
of the year, I easily came up with many names: Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Heath Ledger, Jeff Daniels, Ralph Fiennes, Damien Lewis and so on. But
aside from Amy Adams, Keira Knightley, Michelle Williams and Maria Bello,
I realized that I didn’t have very many women on my list while I had
so many men that I had to cut quite a large number of them out. The
abundance of solid male roles and the lack of roles for women has been
an oft-noted fact over the past year. Do audiences dislike women in
lead roles, or are there other factors affecting this current and slightly
disturbing trend?
It’s a known fact that it’s easier to market male characters than female
characters, especially in children’s literature. In “Engendering Equity,”
Debbie Abilock notes that while both girls and boys will read a book
with a male or female protagonist, boys prefer to read books with male
protagonists (noodletools.com). Is this an attitude that is carried
over to adult audiences as well? It certainly seems like it is, as films
with female leads have made less money than films with male leads. Examples
of such massive moneymakers include Spiderman, Batman Begins, and Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Two of the most successful comedies of
the year, Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year Old Virgin, were centered
around male characters. Out of the top ten grossing films (domestically)
of 2005, only a few featured females in major roles. The Chronicles
of Narnia was split between two boys and two girls, King Kong featured
Naomi Watts, and Mr. &Mrs. Smith, was the only film in which the
actress, Angelina Jolie, was probably the main box office draw, with
quite a bit of help from her relationship with Brad Pitt.
So, is the lack of female roles due to a lack of box office clout by
women, or would films starring women make money if they were marketed
better and there were more of them? I would have to lean towards the
former, as the few films this year starring women, like In Her Shoes
and Pride and Prejudice, weren’t box office smashes. But the TV show
Desperate Housewives is extremely popular, winning its second Screen
Actor’s Guild Award for best ensemble cast this year. I’d like to think
that if more interesting roles were offered to women, people would show
up to see them perform.
The number of roles seems not to be limited by gender, but by the age
of the women who can play them, with a much higher number of roles for
younger women. It seems like most of the roles for older women, at least
in mainstream Hollywood releases, fall into a small variety of characters:
the brash, slightly mischievous woman who is so often played by Judi
Dench, the intelligent lawyer/journalist (Laura Linney in every other
film role), the matriarch who is on the verge of losing control of her
life and herself (Annette Benning), and the romantic comedy/infidelity
drama part (Diane Lane). Sure, there are other actresses like Joan Allen,
Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep, who get to change their stripes whenever
they play a new role, but parts for them in major films are not as frequent
as they should (or could) be.
Compare that list of older actresses to the many older actors who consistently
get good work in Hollywood. There’s Morgan Freeman, Bill Murray, Clint
Eastwood, Liam Neeson, George Clooney and now, hopefully, David Strathairn.
There are also many unconventional-looking male actors, while so many
female actresses must conform to unrealistic images of beauty. Such
a large part of successfully marketing a film to women now appears to
go hand-in-hand with being able to model clothing in In Style or appear
on the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan. At the same time, women often
seem to idolize women who look incredibly glamorous, like Catherine
Zeta-Jones. Women have to be attractive enough to appeal to both men
and women, while men aren’t don’t typically seem to be concerned with
the attractiveness of another man. Where’s the female equivalent to
Steve Buscemi or Paul Giamatti? Why is it so easy to accept that men
can be character actors, while whenever an unattractive role comes up
for a woman, it’s given to someone like Nicole Kidman, who’ll don a
fake nose, or Renee Zellweger, who’ll gain weight, or Charlize Theron,
who’ll have her face transformed by make-up? They’re all applauded for
the risks they take in looking unattractive, and win Academy Awards,
but there’s rarely anyone who is unattractive (without the help of makeup)
cast in a major role.
In an article in Entertainment Weekly from December 2nd, Harvey Weinstein
is quoted as saying "Marketing will tell you: cast a man in the
lead of the movie, build a franchise around him, and you have a better
chance of making money." Our society has supposedly come a long
way from the days of yesteryear, where women were viewed as inferior
in the workplace. But in 1979 Sigourney Weaver began a franchise with
Alien and in 1978 Jamie Lee Curtis helped kick off the Halloween franchise.
Women have proven that it’s possible to be part of a successful franchise,
and maybe if studios were willing to trust them a little more, they
could do it again.
But as Entertainment Weekly goes on to say, "In today’s gossip-driven
entertainment world, acting chops and maturity (as in talent, not age)
just don’t seem to be priorities, otherwise Maggie Gyllenhaal or Bryce
Dallas Howard would command top dollar." Just consider that one
of the most praised performances of the year was by Felicity Huffman
in Transamerica, playing a man going through the final stages of a sex-change
operation. So far, the film has made about $1.5 million, a bulk of which
was made after Huffman won the Golden Globe (before the Golden Globe,
it hadn’t made very much money at the IFC Center in New York, but has
now been selling out performances regularly). And speaking of Bryce
Dallas Howard, the new Lars von Trier film Manderlay in which she stars
in features an intense performance that is unlikely to be seen by very
many people outside of New York and Los Angeles will see. We need a
renaissance with regard to the roles offered to women, and we need young
actresses who are willing to take on serious roles. Here’s hoping that
Reese Witherspoon is up to leading the charge.
