Gender Differences in Film

In Scar 3D, there is one character, a male, who intends to remain a virgin until marriage. His girlfriend taunts and teases him, and begs him for sex. When he repeatedly says no, she leaves, yelling that she'll find someone who will.

This is typically a trick employed by males to females, rather than vice versa - or at least, so most people perceive. Women are usually seen to be the victim. I think, if the gender roles here were reversed, the scene would have felt different.

There's also the film My Super Ex-Girlfriend. It's about a woman who, when broken up with, decides to physically attack her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. With her super powers.

The film is a comedy.



Again, I suspect that if the film had been My Super Ex-Boyfriend, it would have had a very different feel. It wouldn't have been funny, or cartoon-y, and it would have been extremely hard to pull off if it was. It would have been about a stalker, and domestic violence.

The reason the film is funny, or is perceived as a comedy, is because people don't really believe that women can damage men. Sure, sometimes they do, both in real life and the media - Fatal Attraction, for instance - but they switch between the roles, of threatening and harmless, far more easily. Sometimes, women are scary. More often, they aren't.

I can't recall, at the moment, a single film which includes a angry man attacking a woman, which is considered to be comedy. Angry men attacking women are scary. Angry men attacking men can be either funny, in a black way - Fight Club - or, tense. Angry women attacking women can be sexy or scary - Single White Female. Angry women attacking men are funny. Or sometimes scary, although in the examples I can think of, either a woman is the main target, or the man's family are attacked.

There may be instances I cannot think of, where women are given more traditionally masculine roles, but, generally speaking, women are treated differently by the media. Since there are also differences in real life, this may not be entirely unrealistic. I'm not sure if it's "wrong" or not, but they're interesting to notice.

Bartelmy