Studies have found that movies are full of gender bias

(Dust 4x/picture)

Gender stereotypes influence the practice of the idea of equality between men and women. In September 2022, the TV series "Gentlemen of the East Eighth District", which had just aired, was removed from the Internet, after a large number of viewers expressed criticism of the plot and actions that disrespect women and objectified women in the show. In reality, there are certain gender stereotypes in all regions of the world, some of which are highly recognized and publicly disseminated, and some of which are unconscious prejudices lurking in people's daily words and attitudes. However, compared with the gender bias shown by individuals, the influence of mass media is widespread, and if various popular works are full of traditional gender stereotypes, it may make relevant prejudices widely and long-term spread in society through works, and continue to harm people's correct understanding of gender issues.

Recently, researchers at the University of Southern California's Department of Computer Science and other institutions used machine learning to analyze the scripts of nearly a thousand movies and identify some common manifestations of gender stereotypes in movies from more than 1.2 million scene descriptions. For example, men are more likely to be active dominant, while women are more likely to be dominated and scrutinized bearers. Men are less likely to express emotions and are less likely to cry, while women are always portrayed as in distress and in need of protection.

Specifically, in the film and television data in the study, men were portrayed as action perpetrators significantly more than women, and women were not only significantly less on this indicator, but also had a higher proportion of action bearers than men. Gender differences are also evident in their actions towards others, and men in the movie are less likely to allow other men to do anything to themselves. For professional film and television images, the study found that in the past few decades, most of the conference call scenes have occurred between two men, and they continue to do so, with men appearing in such professional scenes more often than women. The study was published in PLOS ONE in December 2022. In addition to the distinction between giving and bearing, women, as objects of gaze from a male perspective, their physical appearance and role as sexual objects and objects are always emphasized in the film.

In terms of emotions, unlike female images, there will always be emotional outbursts, and the phenomenon that men do not express emotions is reflected in a number of specific behaviors, in addition to not crying, there are also less worries, snuggling, active kissing and other behaviors. Emotional expression between people of the same sex also shows some gender bias in environments where film characters are dominated by heterosexuality, and further analysis shows that emotional expression in movies is more likely to occur between two women than between two men. Researchers analyzed that the same-sex emotional expression in previous movies was often regarded as abnormal or even disgusting, but the emotional expression between two women was more accepted by film creation, which may reflect the gendering of women's emotional expression, such as some heterosexual men will watch the picture of kissing between lesbians as a kind of sexual entertainment.

It is worth noting that these gender differences found in the latest study were achieved by analyzing behaviors in movie scripts, and the researchers analyzed more than 20,000 movie characters and more than 50,000 behavioral actions, which is a supplement to the large number of previous gender stereotypes identified by analyzing film dialogue, after all, not all stereotypes in reality are spoken plainly in the form of language. But from the analysis results, the gender stereotypes shown in the film's actions have many similarities with those previously found through verbal dialogue, such as women are portrayed as more emotional, less professional, and more dominated, while men are portrayed as relatively more decisive, more competitive, more independent, and rarely insecure. And similar stereotypes are not only a matter of the level of film production, but also exist in Hollywood, which is regarded as the benchmark of the world film industry.

In May 2022, researchers from the National University of Singapore's College of Arts and Social Sciences reported in Big Data and Cognitive Computing that they analyzed Hollywood movies over nearly 80 years since 1940 and found that gender stereotypes are long-standing, dynamic and complex over time. Specifically, male characters in Hollywood movies are often associated with a variety of themes, while female characters are mainly related to romantic themes, such as beauty and marriage. In terms of time change, while the association of female roles with appearance and marriage has decreased, the number of associations between female roles and sexual relations and weddings has increased. Overall, the 180,000 sentences drawn from 16,000 Hollywood films reflect the gender stereotypes in the film industry that have been evident over the past few decades.

Among these stereotypes, the phenomenon of linking gender to intelligence may have a particularly profound impact. Studies have analyzed the language of a large number of films through natural language processing technology, and found that Western films have equated men with talent in the past half century, and relatively speaking, the cognitive ability of female characters in movies is poor. Considering that many films aimed at children also have such gender stereotypes, if children are subtly taught from an early age that "boys are smarter than girls", then this stereotype may affect the development of girls in the long term. Some scientists believe that these gender biases are one factor in the current low representation of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and other fields.

A typical gender stereotype is that girls are not good at math. Similar ideas are no longer hidden attitudes, and have even been publicly recognized by many teachers, students, and parents, as well as supported by some performance data. But in 2019, a brain imaging measurement by Alyssa J. Kersey, a psychology researcher at the University of Chicago, found that boys and girls used the same nervous system to develop mathematical ability, and there were significant similarities in corresponding neurological functions, that is, there was no significant gender difference in mathematical ability from a physiological point of view. Alyssa Kesi told Southern Weekend that some people observed that girls' overall math scores may be influenced by the acquired social environment, such as teachers encouraging boys to learn mathematics and giving more guidance, or subtly instilling into girls the personal idea that girls are naturally not good at math. The gender stereotypes found in the latest research are far more than cognitive ability, but involve gender relations, emotional expression and other aspects, which also reminds relevant practitioners to pay special attention to the long-term and extensive social impact that gender stereotypes may exert in the creation of film and television dramas, and avoid belittling or directly labeling gender disadvantaged and marginalized groups in order to cater to the stereotypes of mainstream groups.

Of course, the number of films is very large, and in addition to language, action, actors in the performance level and other subtleties, may also obviously convey gender stereotypes, the latest research can neither involve all films, nor can analyze all film elements, so it is incomplete in reflecting film works, there are certain research limitations. However, compared with individuals, the use of calculation can analyze a large number of film and television works, find the overall phenomenon that is difficult to identify when individuals look at the works one by one, and help people recognize universal problems. The latest research has found that movies are full of gender prejudices such as "women focus on beauty and affection, and men focus on perseverance and talent", which has raised a wake-up call for the concept of gender equality that should be paid attention to in the creation of film and television dramas. In a more open and inclusive civilized society, people's emotional expression, personality traits and ability cultivation should be formed according to the needs of personal development, without the need to rigidly apply the so-called "man-like" and "woman-like".

Southern Weekend reporter Wang Jiangtao