Enrolment Task - Genre

Action/adventure Genre
I have researched how the action/adventure genre incorporates gender within films. If you look at action adventure films, you can see that they are very male based. Most main characters are males and if there are any women, they normally play very little roles within a film. Most action adventure films have the same storyline to them where there is a hero who has to defeat a villain, the hero is almost always a male because of the characteristics a hero has to have. The stereotype of a hero is someone who is strong, brave and will beat impossible odds to save the day, these characteristics are strongly linked to men, for example, superman, ironman and spiderman. Women are not as strongly represented as men because in films they are usually the damsel in distress, they are supposed to have characteristics of being helpless, weak and that they need saving. Male actors also get paid a lot more than female actors, this is because the film industry is very male dominated especially when it comes to action adventure films.

However an increase of films where the main character/protagonist is a woman, can be seen lately. For as long as the history of action adventure films, men have been the main characters but in the last couple of years there has been more and more women protagonists in action films, such as wonder woman and divergent. It's good to see film producers addressing this issue because it is so rare to see a female lead. However this does not solve the problem all together because male protagonists are still much more common and women are still not as strongly represented as men. If a woman plays the protagonist in an action film, she is very often shown as intelligent, acrobatic, heartless and strong, women aren't shown as normal women, they are shown as very masculine women. If a man plays the protagonist then have characteristics that normal men are supposed to have; strong, willing to help people, brave, fit and naturally good looking. All men in action films have the same characteristics to fit the stereotype, this is why action adventure films are so popular. Male protagonists are the most popular because they conform to the target audience that the genre is aimed at. The target audience for action films is 14 - 40 year old males, this is because people generally enjoy films more where they can relate to the main character also because the male target audience are more drawn to films that include violence and fighting. Another reason the target audience is men is because the protagonist is also a man so people can look up to the hero and aspire to be like them.

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