Women in Movies and TV: Why Does Hollywood Always Portray Women As Weak and Helpless

Women in Movies and TV: Why Does Hollywood Always Portray Women as Weak and Helpless?

September 18, 2009 by

Jillita Horton

Jillita Horton

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Helpless|Weak|Children and Tv|Jean Smart|Women Drivers

Movies and TV still continue to portray women as weak and helpless. Hollywood hasn't progressed much with how it characterizes women; women are scripted to be weak, easily frightened, crying, shrieking, screaming, sobbing, hysterical and never able to throw a decent punch.
Ever see the character Ripley in "Alien"? That sure threw the audience for a loop: a woman grabbing a man at the collar and ramming him up against a wall. And she wasn't even bionic! Gasp! I thought this scene would be the start of a whole new trend for

Hollywood writers. But sadly, it had no effect, and Hollywood has since continued to portray women as weak, whimpering, retreating and crying.
Classic weak-woman scenes in the movies and TV:
Man grabs woman by upper arm. Woman exclaims, "You're hurting me!" (Err, isn't that the idea?)
Man suddenly appears from around corner. Woman gasps and exclaims, "You scared me!"
Man and woman are arguing. Man's voice raises and he steps towards her. Woman backs up. Man continues slowly moving towards her (no weapons, by the way, not even a raised fist) and woman continues backing away.
Man and woman are running away from gunmen in a forest. Man's hand is always grabbed onto woman's wrist and she slows man down. (A woman cannot run beyond her natural speed if a man has her wrist; if anything, she'll run slower due to the disrupted gait! A woman's, or man's, fastest sprint can only be accomplished with BOTH arms pumping freely! Wake up, Hollywood! These scenes look so ridiculous!)
Woman is running from man in woods. Woman trips and falls, and man catches up.
Woman is hit by man's backhand and falls to floor. Whimpering, she then slithers across floor away from man.
So brainwashed is the public that women should always be portrayed as weak, hapless and defenseless, that a most-brilliant Nike commercial was pulled shortly after it was aired on TV: Woman is sleeping. Man with chainsaw breaks through front door. Woman bolts awake and escapes through window into the dark. The chainsaw man storms through house and out same window. Woman is running through woods. Viewer hears chainsaw man in pursuit.
But something is peculiar here. The woman is running with beautiful strides, easily clearing forest-floor obstacles, and doesn't stumble! The scene switches back and forth between the agile woman and the increasingly out-of-breath man. Woman continues to run effortlessly, while man eventually slows, panting heavily, stops completely and can barely catch his breath.
Next scene against a black screen are the words: Why sport? It just might save your life. Nike. Just do it.
This brilliant ad was pulled because of complaints it was "offensive." Shame on anyone who complained. These overly sensitive viewers just couldn't grasp the concept of a woman outrunning a man. Yet I wonder how many of these feeble-brained viewers have enjoyed movies and TV shows showing women clumsily running from men, then tripping and falling, then being captured by the men.
SHAME ON YOU.
In real life, a woman doesn't always back down from a man. In real life, many women can outrun men. A 13-second 100-meter sprint will outdo the average man, even though 13 seconds is only good enough to place at small high school track meets. Though the world's fastest runners are men, plenty of women can run like impalas. Go to any girls' high school track and field meet or even softball/basketball/soccer game.
Most average young men off the street cannot keep pace with a woman who can cover 400 meters in 70 seconds, even though this time isn't good enough to place at most high school track meets. Women in movies and TV fleeing from men always run "like women." Their arms are flapping about, creating drag. This look stupid. Do most women who aren't athletes really run this way? And if so, this doesn't mean Hollywood must portray them like this.
One might argue it would be unrealistic to have a woman slam a fist into a man's face, let alone beat him up (without karate moves) after he backhands her. But actually, it isn't. There are real-life women who'd react this way and win the fight. Maybe Hollywood wants to stick to the norm rather than the exception. Well, if that's the case, why must the exception be in only a handful of movies (like "Alien") over the past 30 years?
Further, if Hollywood wants to present realistic portrayals, why not go all the way on realism? Look at how unrealistic many movie and TV police or law drama scenes are:
Court cases that happen in only days or weeks after filing; people always finding parking spots smack outside the building they want to enter; men leaping from one moving car to another (yet Hollywood can't create a woman character who can throw a punch??); cars plunging down hills, then the drivers and passengers (almost always men) running away with only scratches; men cops and bad guys jumping off 3-story roofs, landing on two feet and running off like nothing; and men taking two dozen punches and kicks to their faces before finally falling (yet one backhand is enough to reduce a woman to a paralyzed quivering blob on the floor).
Why not also throw in there a woman who can fight back? That would be far more realistic than any of the scenes I just described.
Men are portrayed as superhuman, leaping off the top of trains and running away; busting through glass windows, rolling out of it and hopping right back up and then taking out half a dozen bad guys; taking a gunshot to the shoulder, yet somehow beating up a string of bad guys and then driving a car throughout a 20-minute pursuit scene; yet women can't even grab a man and slam him to a wall.
This goes far beyond men being bigger than women, because in a man-to-man fight, someone always loses, and you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER see the man who loses whimpering, crying, slithering in retreat to the corner of a room, or anything else like that -- unless, of course, the male character has mental retardation. Or ... the character endures horrific abuse, such as Ned Beatty in "Deliverance."
But I'm talking about fight scenes. Every time a woman is approached in a bar by some creepo man, she acts helpless, and then it requires another man to scare off the creep.
I want to see a woman deck a guy for once, a woman who's not bionic, not part Hulk, not part alien, not a hardened prison inmate, and not strung out on drugs -- but an average woman. We've had enough of Hollywood always painting women as weeping, teary-eyed, feeble-voiced children when confronted by bad guys.
The only time women are portrayed as not afraid of men are in sitcoms, like that character played by Jean Smart who periodically showed up in "Frasier." But as usual, there was a catch: She was rather unhinged. This reminds me of a movie about a woman named "Belle" who went around strangling men to death with a chain. How sad: In order to get away with creating a fearless, overpowering woman, Hollywood must make hera homicidal maniac.

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