Critical Investigation: blog task

Why do comic book movies like The Avengers reinforce traditional gender stereotypes and what impact does this have on audiences?

Comic books have always mostly had a male heroic character as for example batman, superman and there have been some female heroic characters such as wonder woman, hawkgirl. However the male superheroes have always shown first and also had there solo movies as female haven't really had any. The reason of this would be by using female gaze as they want the stars to be attractive as for Hugh Jackman was bulky as the wolverine and was shown attractive to women as to bring them to movie and this goes gender stereotype to show they want a big guy as in the comics the hero is actually short and is very hairy. The gender stereotype is shown by also women characters being male gaze which is mulvey as to black widow wearing her black leather costume. It is to attract the audience to her. This creates impact because we have all these heroes in avengers who are very bold and attractive and impact on audience because they have a range.

In addition another part would be the reason of movies as there are many movies where the male is the protagonist there hasn't been one where its just the women being the main character this leads to controversy that women are always going be damsel in distress or the side person who does help. I can go against this as Marvel has actually move forward on doing movie called Ms marvel which is a heroine and this could change the whole stereo type. This is an alternative stereotype to females that actually can have a big part of movies now being god. This impact audiences because we are getting the equal of female superhero movies now like the series agent carter and the new one coming super girl. This has been pushed from the past years as they use to mean nothing and now we have gone against that as to having main female characters.

To what extent do the female characters in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘SALT’ challenge traditional female stereotypes?

The female stereotype gets shown as being alternative as in Salt played by Angelina Jolie she is the main protagonist where as you wouldn't have it. This goes from being a movie about her character to show the set skills a woman can do. This reinforces the stereotype proves that there can be female movies that they can be dark and be famous such as the movie Kill Bill. The female characters go with stereotype in the dark knight rises as to the reason of catwoman loving batman but also putting him in a death situation and it goes against the stereotype but then loves him going to the stereotype with her costume goes with it. The female stereotypes will always be there as even the male stereotypes as having love of life and being the hero but female are becoming the male stereotype as being the hero as its evolving however its not complete still trying to reinforce it that women have power.