Gender Roles in a Medium of Movies

Gender Roles in a Medium of Movies

在过去，地球上的人类完全无法从高科技产品中获得一些知识，相反，我们只能从父母或附近的其他人那里了解我们的性别。同时，随着电视、电影、小说等媒介的迅速发展，我们的世界观在很大程度上受到了各种媒介的影响。比如，在电视上看到一则广告，说一个女人正在用某种洗碗精洗碗，女人说的话和女人的手势，就形成了一个女人真正是什么的观念。相反，电影《变形金刚》中的主人公擎天柱教会了所有男孩什么是真正的男人。擎天柱所展现的男子气概一定会影响到他的男性观众的行为，他们会明白，作为一个男人，他应该坚强、进取、积极以及个人的忠诚。普伦蒂斯、黛博拉A和埃里卡·卡兰扎认为，男人应该具备的主要性格是坚强、进取和积极（黛博拉A和埃里卡，2002年）。本文旨在探讨电影《变形金刚》中性别角色这一最重要的话题，以便人们更好地理解性别期望和性别表演。

 In the past, human beings on earth were entirely unable to gain some knowledge from high-tech products, instead, we could only understand what our genders are from our parents or others nearby. Contemporarily, with the fast development of mediums, like television, movies and novels, our worldview is shaped by a variety of media to a tremendous extent. For example, it is not uncommon to see an advertisement shown on TV that a woman is washing dishes with a certain kind of dish detergent, the words that the woman says and the gestures that the woman has are what forms the idea of what a female truly is. On the contrary, the protagonist named Optimus Prime in the movie entitled “Transformers” teaches all the boys what a male truly is. The virility that Optimus Prime shows will definitely influence the actions of his male audience, they will understand that as a man, he should be strong, aggressive, active as well as personal loyalty. According to Prentice, Deborah A., and Erica Carranza, being strong, aggressive and active are the main personalities that a man should have (Deborah A & Erica, 2002). This essay is going to probe into the overarching topic of gender roles in a medium of movie “Transformers” so that people will have a better understanding in regard to gendered expectations and performances.

Optimus Prime is the main character in the movie “Transformers” which is considered to be one of the most successful and excellent films at present time captivating thousands of hundreds of audience to watch and appreciate. Primarily, the image of Optimus Prime will be discussed. As can be seen immediately, the prototype pattern of Optimus Prime is a car. When male children were given birth to, they will be taught by their parents that they are boys, hence, their parents will always buy them a wide range of toys resembling cars, guns, or something that is made up of iron or steel in order to render them know that boys should be aggressive and strong. It is clear that the image of Optimus Prime has done a brilliant job in cementing what masculinity is in their minds. More often than not, children have the tendency to ignore what their parents teach them, on the contrary, they are more willing to accept what a movie character that they admire teaches them. Due to the fact that everyone has the desire to be a hero like the one in the movie, Oprimus Prime will certainly affect more boys’ personalities. In addition, girls like some colors like pink, because they believe that pink is a cutest color. However, the colors used in painting the Oprimus Prime do not consist of any pinks. In contract, Oprimus Prime was painted with blue, red and black. Hence, boys will know that they should be fond of some colors like blue or black instead of pink. From these influences that media has, we can see how immense impact that the mediums of movies have on educating audience what their gender roles really are.

Furthermore, during the civil war on Cybertron planet, Sentinel Prime, the leader of Autobots, died. After his life coming to an end, he delivered the valuable “Matrix of Leadership” to Oprimus Prime and asked him to succeed to his throne. Having been the leader of all Autobots, Oprimus Prime was sparing no efforts to combat with the enemies. For example, in the year 1990, Unicron came to the Cybertron planet where Primus was falling asleep wanting to devastate this beautiful and peaceful planet. However, unfortunately, the allied forces constituted with Oprimus Prime were not powerful and strong enough to compete with Unicron, a considerable number of inevitable casualty appeared. In spite of being degenerated and giving up on the planet, Oprimus Prime was till full of courage and responsibility, he won the war in the end by the price of his precious life. He was willing to sacrifice his life to rescue everyone in the Cybertron planet. Seeing these views will help boys know that men should definitely be responsible, they can be mild or gentle, but when the war begins, when people are in danger, when the world needs them, they should stand up and fight for all rather than hide themselves in order to survive. How thrilling this movie is! Boys will finally know that boys should have the responsibility to protect the ones that they love even thought they have to sacrifice themselves. It is worthy to mention that during the war, Oprimus Prime was very strong and endeavored to defeat all his enemies via all kinds of means. The cuff and kick show that men should be powerful, strong and aggressive. There are variety of bloody scenes in this movie, instead of being afraid, Oprimus Prime felt very excited. Therefore, this teaches audience that boys should not be afraid of blood. There is no denying that more females than their male counterparts are terrified of blood, also, females are not as powerful or strong as males, we could not see girls who are apt at fighting or killing people in this movie. Meaning to say, girls will know that they are not supposed to fight for the world or be too strong and aggressive. There are some scenes illustrating that females should be more girly, they should cook for their husbands or clean the houses for those male fighters. What is more, Niebuhr, Reinhold points out that a man should be righteous (Reinhold, 2013). As a leader of all Autobots, Oprimus Prime are more than willing to help people in need, people will eventually know what justice really means after watching the behavior that he had.

Last but not the least, this character also tells us that male is excellent in leading people to live in a better world. In the very beginning, Oprimus Prime was asked to be the leader of every Autobot in the Cybertron planet, and he showed us that he was competent enough to take this throne. Oprimus Prime succeeded in winning a variety of wars by virtue of his leadership, other Autobots would always listen to what Oprimus Prime demanded them to do. With all respect, the protagonist proclaims that males are suitable for being a wonderful leader. In this movie, it did not show any talents that girls have to be a leader.

In a nutshell, it is conspicuous that anyone who watches this movie will know that the gendered expectations and performances of men are: being strong, being active, being aggressive, justice, and being able to lead people. However, women can also be an extraordinary leader, we can not deny that women are more rational and conscientious than males. The TV, movies or other kinds of media should focus more on the competence that women have in the future in order to educate people that female can also play a good role in being a great leader. Media is good at educating people what their gender roles are in this current society by the actions and behaviors that a character shows in a certain TV series or movie. People may not be able to be fully aware that they have been influenced immensely by the media in the first place, but if they do not reject to take everything from the media, their gender roles are very likely to be exactly the same as the character in the TV or movie.

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