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Eliza Britt14 January 2019Professor Amy Herzog VIS 369Miss Representation: How to Represent her Brains without Sexualizing her BodyThe evolution of female characters in film have faced an intense transformation. In the beginning, the film industry utilized female characters purely as objects of desire or in need of saving. They were used as rewards for the triumph of the male main characters. They were necessary for the romantic subplot or to make the male leads seem more humane. These women did not drive the plot or even effect the storyline; rather, they added another, usually superficial and unnecessary, element. From the women used as arm-candy in the James Bond series to the “helpful” but non-intricate roles of Hermione and Velma, it has taken Hollywood nearly a decade to write a female character into the plot in a meaningful and necessary way. For years, women were woven into the fabric of the movie as decoration while the plot moved on, but without them, the movie’s structure remained predominantly the same; these female characters are relevant only in relation to the male leads, and they fail to exist without them. They are objects that act as a surface upon which the male characters express their ideas, realizations, and sentiments (mostly to communicate them to the audience). In their cosmetic role, it is their surface which is so highly valued. Even today, after many years of film-making, a women’s greatest asset on screen seems to be an attractive surface, a conventionally beautiful physical appearance worthy of reflecting a man’s thoughts. So, what happens to the smart women that would not simply smile and nod no matter what the man was saying, the nerds who possessed their own thoughts and opinions and ways of doing things? Their character was not built to agree with the men because society constantly enabled them. If anything, these women were wired to question the man because he was male. In an industry that ardently supports and retells the dominant narrative, was there a space for these brainy women to exist onscreen? How would they fit into the acceptable storyline that Hollywood was continuously churning out?As women’s onscreen roles expanded, in number and in depth, an opportunity arose for female characters to exist on screen in a more meaningful and predominant way. As female characters started to exist outside their relationship to the male leads, more female archetypes could form. This this carved out a space for nerds to occupy roles that possess agency and action, roles that used to be strictly reserved for men and then reserved for the pin-up girl. Previously, these peripheral women were confined to exist and act only in relation to men. The general role of the female nerd varied between being dismissed by the better-looking lead characters or undergoing a physical transformation to become one of the better-looking lead characters. Both outcomes being relatively bleak; but a space was forming where smart female characters were able to have dialogue that could not be dismissed by the male characters without alienating the audience from that character. Life influences art and art influences life, so as women moved closer to equality in society and the workplace, women characters gained esteem, complexity, and significance in media. These advancements, especially periods of intense reformation the Second and Third Wave of Feminism, coincided with advancements in women’s representation in film. It is these shifts and social changes that forced the film industry to pave a way for smart women to appear on screen in more influential roles. Films that did not adjust in this way were at risk of alienating 50% of the audience, their female viewership. The process was slow and ongoing, but the result was more screen time and power in the hands of intellectual women onscreen. The complexity of these female characters and their place in the storyline arises when we look at how these female characters gained this screen time and plot influence. As women fought for equal rights in society, the film industry did not simply follow suit and treat Kay Scott’s character more respectably; but as women started to fill high-power, intellectual, business, and leadership roles, society too evolved and came to be attracted to smart women – nerds became sexy. This change in society created a space in Hollywood for “nerdy” female characters, but the role was written for a nerdy character who could be sexual, an actress who could pull off glasses but also a bodycon dress. By definition, a nerd should lack the social skills or desire to come off innately sexy and alluring, but the space that Hollywood created for a female intellectual to prosper required this element. If a woman was going to occupy a lead role in a film, she had to be appealing in all departments and to all genders. For the purpose of this exploration, I am discussing these characters in relation to heterosexual relationships, not because that is the only conversation to be made but to 1) narrow the discussion in order to make it manageable in this paper and 2) because Hollywood stereotypically displays these female characters in these terms. Although that is beginning to change, this paper relies on the historical or stereotypical portrayal of smart female characters, and they have overwhelmingly been displayed and inserted in heterosexual relationships. This line of thought also lays the groundwork that explains how the nerdy female character gained attraction. While reading magazine articles and blogs about this archetype, there was a pervasive explanation for how these characters (and women in real life) gained their appeal. The nerd stereotype was known for her love of science fiction and videogames and her distaste for shopping and all things girly. According to that description, what took male characters so long to find her attractive? To justify her historical social ostracizing, there had to be an element of this character that was unattractive. She lacked style, or she did not care enough about what she looked like to try to impress men. It was this flaw that did not fit the storylines that were willing to star nerdy girls. Kay Scott’s character had to change. She may have been able to hold a conversation about a subject that didn’t include shopping, and she was smart enough to solve a problem without a man’s help; but there was something missing that dismissed Kay from the eyes of her co-male characters. In order to become Jessica Day, the modern nerdy female character, Kay Scott had to evolve. She had to give something to receive the spotlight. Her signature element of disinterest in men or appealing to them through her appearance had to be sacrificed to gain the male gaze and allow this archetype into the center of the story. This character could not exist on her own terms. For Kay to gain her own TV show like Jess, she had to be the whole package. Women had to admire her, which was easy with her witty humor, but she also had to appeal to men. So, her female characteristics were accentuated and sexualized in the transformation from Kay Scott to Jessica Day. The film industry has not reconciled how to display brains without beauty without dismissing the character, but in some ways, it is encouraging that they are attempting to display beauty with brains. Whether it is because films are experienced visually, and the visual aesthetics must pass a certain threshold to be enjoyable, including the attractiveness of the actors, or because women are historically held to a higher standard of attractiveness in applying for a role, in film but also in other industries, it is as if a woman must first be beautiful before her other credentials are acknowledged. The evolution is in no way perfect, but, to play devil’s advocate, the sexualization of smart female characters in order to make them appeal to the audience, especially male audience, does work for women in another way. These characters are evidence that being nerdy or intellectual does not disqualify a woman from also being physically attractive. While no character should only be able to exist if they are sexy or worthy of an aesthetically pleasing onscreen relationship, sexualizing nerdy women onscreen breaks down the antique belief that smart woman cannot be attractive and attractive women cannot be smart. Whether men were simply more attracted to women who did not display intelligence, ambition, or strong interests is a different story, but displaying smart, even nerdy, women as feminine or conventionally attractive works to break down mainstream predispositions. Earlier this semester, we engaged with the work of Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl. Brown vouched for ownership of one’s gender and, in some cases, one’s sexuality and using these as tools for female advancement. It could be said that conforming to Hollywood’s expectations of sexuality is a temporary way to attain larger and more influential roles for women…but for how long? This strategy may acquire these roles, but it also propagates the expectation. For as long as females continue to conform to industries’, especially entertainment industries’, visual expectations for women, the harder the pattern will be to break. Female character roles are finally detaching themselves from their male co-stars and becoming their own character with their own plot uncoupled from the male’s, and with this, there is an opportunity to display brainy female character without the prerequisite of beauty. Industries are adjusting to the concept that feminine beauty and intelligence can both be completely developed, within the same character, but it still seems as though femininity and success are mutually exclusive. I pledge my honor that this paper represents my own work in accordance with the Princeton University Honor Code. Eliza Britt ................
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