Since the 1940s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing though the 1980s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of womens roles in movies from the 1940s though the 1990s. In the 1940s women did not have predominate roles in movies. In the few movies that were based around women, the womans character was written by a man, and the woman was portrayed as a sex symbol. In the movie Double Indemnity, a woman named Phillis is plotting to have her husband killed because she wants to collect his life insurance and be freed from an unhappy marriage. She uses her sexuality and good looks to convince Walter Neff to help her in her scheme. In this movie, Phillis is a beautiful, sexy, conniving killer. In the end, however, because she does not have the heart to kill her husband, the audience is supposed to redeem her conniving image.In the 1940s movie Gilda, the women has two different stereotypes. The first stereotype is a beautiful sex goddess. She is so beautiful that any man would love to be with her. The second stereotype parterres her as a scorned women. After a past relationship with a man named Johnny has left her angry, she reacts by trying to make him jealous by having affairs with other men. Through out the movie Gilda marries Johnny s boss and then cheats on him a few times. Even though Gilda does all of this by the end of the movie Johnny forgives her and once again turns the womens life into something meaningful. The...
