Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Age Is Just A Number

Television has skewed the public's point of view on women and men. What is considered attractive, suitable, and "normal". TV portrays their stereotypes and raises it to the next level. In George Gerbner's video "The Electronic Storyteller: Television and the Cultivation of Values" he says that a women can only be cast as a romantic lead until the age of 30. However, there seems to be a double standard in regards to men. Men can play a romantic lead in a show or movie no matter how old he is.




When Gerbner was talking about this affect, I was thinking about "Sex and the City". The character of Samantha Jones is extremely open and comfortable talking about sex and how much and how often she has it. She's such a power house and a total independent woman. It's fantastic! Oh, and she is also older than 30. Take that! I wish more TV shows and movies would portray a character like Samantha without making her out to be a slutty woman with no morals. The "Sex and the City" series is one of my all-time favorite. And Samantha is without a doubt my favorite character. The things that come out of her mouth are provocative, crude, and absolutely true. That's the best part, women are already thinking these things in their heads and Samantha is just bold enough to say them out loud and not give a shit about it. Her confidence is one to be admired in my opinion. It gives a nice middle finger to the TV people who say a women can't be viewed as sexual or romantic over the age of 30.



1 comment:

  1. I almost wrote about the same topic because I noticed that not only were the female leads in the majority of recent movies thirty and under, but there was a typically a ten year minimum age gap between them and their significant other. For example, Josh Duhamel holds 15 years over Julianne Hough in Safe Haven while Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence have the same age gap in Silver Linings Playbook. Disappointingly, in This is 40, where the actors actually both cast and portrayed similar in age, the movie chooses to depict a romance that is losing its 'mystery' and passion.

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