Tuesday, May 14, 1996
Sex sells. Or so it seems. From the busty bikini-clad babes in
beer commercials to the hot, slinky please-save-me smoking beauties
in Hollywood movies, sex has long been a staple of the American
marketplace.
That is not to say that the commodification of sex in our
society does not cut two ways, since men and women are (s)exploited
in much the same way. Men just get paid a lot more for it.
Sure, Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Cruise must flex their steely
abs on demand and nude-up for gratuitous love scenes, but they get
paid $20 million to do it. And they inevitably get to play strong,
successful, virile heroes  the type of men all boys dream of
being.
Women actors, on the other hand, get paid considerably less for
their effort and usually end up playing the victim, the oppressed,
or the "damsel-in-distress," if you will. Look at Demi Moore.
According to the press, she’s making $12 million for her latest
flick. But for what?
Does she get to play an action hero, a world leader or an
international spy? No, she’s a stripper. What a surprise! Julia
Roberts makes big bucks too. But do you remember how she catapulted
into fortune and fame? By playing a hooker, of course! Apparently,
women in Hollywood don’t have to have brains to make money, just
boobs. And the bigger the better, it seems.
Now this disparity has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, Hollywood
executives are taking a lot of heat for it (and other things) these
days. From Bob Dole’s mantra that movie producers are partly
responsible for the proliferation of violence in our society to the
concerned parental complaint that "films should show our children
that females can be heroes too," movie producers have become our
country’s most convenient cultural scapegoats. Culpable, or so
their critics say, for most of the ills that currently plague our
society.
That Senator Dole saw fit to condemn Hollywood leaders as the
purveyors of violence and moral decay on the one hand, while
advocating the repeal of the ban on assault guns on the other,
reveals to me the true extent of his own personal and political
hypocrisy. But that is a column for another day.
What intrigues me now is the parental lament which  though
I agree with it to a certain extent  strikes me as somewhat
disingenuous. I say this for two reasons. First, because like all
corporate leaders, Hollywood producers are not driven by some lofty
moral purpose but by the "bottom line" (not to mention the
strictures of business law). Second, because implicit in parental
contention is the notion that it is the responsibility of Hollywood
filmmakers to be the moral educators of our children.
Now, I don’t have kids, but I don’t think one has to be a parent
to know that it is not, nor should it be, incumbent upon the
entertainment industry to provide for our children more positive
female role models. Rather, it is our absolute non-delegable duty
as parents to show our kids that women are not the passive and
dependent objects of desire that popular culture so frequently
portrays them to be.
If parents are worried about the negative effects that movies
have upon their children’s perceptions and beliefs, then perhaps
they should examine their own attitudes and behavior first. If they
truly want to expose their kids to more positive female images,
then perhaps the next time their kids ask to see a movie they will
invite them instead to the local library. Sure, the children might
initially resist. After all, how many kids would choose a book over
Batman or Pamela Lee?
But once there (at the library), parents could expunge the image
of the hot, breathless, I’m-only-powerful-if-I’m-beautiful
celluloid babe and introduce them instead to the works and ideas
of, say, Jane Austin and Virginia Woolf, or Simone de Beauvoir and
Betty Friedan. These were not women who were passive and
disempowered: Indeed, their words quite literally changed the
world. What a powerful lesson to teach our children  both
sons and daughters alike!
If books do not pique the kids’ interest, then perhaps parents
could take them to one of L.A.’s many extraordinary museums. Rather
than sitting silently beside their kids in the darkened arena of a
theater, parents could stroll with them through centuries of
artistic creation at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, for
instance, or the Fowler Museum here at UCLA. There are dozens of
world-class museums in our area where kids can view magnificent
works of art which depict some of the most influential female
figures in world history.
If the kids demand a little more action, then their parents
could always take them to a women’s sporting event. UCLA, Loyola
and Pepperdine all have great women’s intercollegiate athletic
programs and all have phenomenal female athletes. Take your pick:
tennis, volleyball, basketball, gymnastics  there’s a sport
for every season. And who knows, the kids might just walk away
inspired to take up a new sport. Or, better yet, determined to
attend a particular university. There aren’t too many movies that
can do that these days.
In an age where television and entertainment is rapidly becoming
the dominant moral force in our children’s lives, it is crucial
that parents do not abdicate their responsibilities. If they truly
want to expose their kids to more positive female images, then they
must stop blaming others and do something about it themselves.
Sure, it might take a little effort and a small dose of creative
persuasion, but fortunately, positive female role models are
everywhere in our society. It just takes looking beyond the borders
of our TV and movie screens to find them.
Evans is a 1989 UCLA alumna and graduate student in history at
UC Berkeley, and works in the UCLA history department this quarter.
Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.