When I grew up in the 1980s and 90s, television was premium. I loved running home on a Friday night to watch the TGIF lineup, it was like my personal treat to enjoy after a hard week at school. Back then television was more wholesome, it taught values and important life lessons and parents didn’t need to worry what the shows content was. Those days are OVER.
With the feminist push to equalize women in Hollywood and women’s roles portrayed on screen television has become, in my opinion, lackluster at best. Don’t get me wrong, Hollywood was always a male dominated industry which needed more gender diversity inside it, I don’t think anyone would refute that. In pursuit of said equality Hollywood decided to go from one extreme to the other; and went severely overboard. Before I jump into what those extremes are, let me give you a lesson on the word “equality”.
According to Oxford Language the definition of equality is as follow: “the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.” So Hollywood before the feminist push would look like, out of 10 new shows men would be the lead character or portrayed as the strong character in 7 of those 10 movies. Women were often the compliment to the man, being his strength or kryptonite. This is just one example of pre feminist Hollywood would be like.
Now today the landscape is completely different. Hollywood’s version of equality looks like (especially for kids shows) 8 or 9 out of 10 shows have a female as the main character. The female character would be fearless, bold, laser focused, able to multitask, brilliant, overachieving, empowering to other women, big into political agendas (mostly liberal leaning agendas), when they talk about strong women they reference all liberal political and civil rights ladies. Then if there are any male characters in the show, they tend to be bumbling idiots who can’t focus if their life depended on it, careless, trouble making, and annoying.
For the most part in the past television was pretty balanced when it came to “dumb or airheaded” characteristics in characters. A good example comes from Full House, Dwane and Kimmy Gibbler. A modern version of todays opposite exrteme would be Disney’s Raven’s Home or Sydney to the Max. We will focus on Raven’s Home. Raven had two children Booker and Nia. The story picks up that Devon and Raven married and had their two children. Somewhere along the way Devon and Raven divorced and she took custody of the children. Raven’s character would be classified as a hard working, intelligent single mom tries hard to raise the two children in Chicago, who is wise beyond her years and loves designing. Her children were polar opposites. Nia was an A+ student top of her class, who wanted to empower other girls, she was an advocate for saving the planet, bring renewable energy to the forefront, she was into the student government and idolized powerful women like Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Justice Ginsberg, Rosa Parks and others. She was big into civil rights and fighting white supremacy and racism. Her brother was someone who always got his head stuck in things, was decent at Basketball, had bad grades, always in trouble, he lacked focus and not the favorite child of Raven.
So reading that, does it sound like what I was explaining? I think so.
Now Disney movies are even incorporating these characteristics for their female characters. You see this blooming in their top movies in the Marvel Series and Star Wars. Now even reimagined characters like Snow White, Ariel, Belle and more are changing their original personalities for the modern women.
This should be raking in the sales at the box office right. WRONG! Sales for movies where these unobtainable female characters dominate the sales are flaccid at best. Now why would this be you ask? I think it’s because its not about equality but pushing the narratives, demoralizing men, and the woke agenda. Most people are on to this. Its true though, most people sit down to watch a movie or television show because they want to be distracted from the reality around them. Now that reality is oozing into the escapes we onced loved so we are abandoning it for greener pastures. Sad part is Hollywood executives can’t see this.
I think what bothers me the most is that kids who see this are being shown women who they look up to but are mostly unobtainable in real life. When we look up to someone we want to mimic them. When we fail to match them we look at ourselves in a negative light. So kids who see these characters and want to be those “women” will find out they don’t live up to that. These girls will think they failed, when in reality they are perfect as they were. Not everyone can be the “A+ student top of her class, who wanted to empower other girls, advocate for saving the planet”girl. Some are going to be the athletes, some are going to be free spirits, some are going to overweight and deal with health complications. Some will be happy being the housewife who works for her family she loves. Some will be dumb like Kimmy but has a heart of gold. The point is, these are what some women are and it’s BEAUTIFUL so why can’t some of the lead characters be like this?
I also hate that men are being wiped out of Hollywood by these women and their agenda. Now remember it wasn’t fair for women to be treated unequal, yet now that they are becoming more powerful in Hollywood they are doing to the men what they said was unfair to them. This is not equality. Equality would mean out of 10 movies there are 4 strong men leads, 4 strong women leads and 2 equal power leads both male/female. There would be a balance in the “dumb friend” between the genders. These things balanced and equal pay would be true equality. Equality should make us all feel satisfied and not a war between the sexes.
