The Role Of Femininity In Romantic Comedy

Is it true to say that the representation of women and femininity has had limited development over the last 25 years… or would it be more accurate to say that these representations have dramatically changed? Has stereotyping become less accurate and more common or has the Romantic Comedy genre developed its representations to break female stereotypes? This investigation aims to explore these questions and, ultimately, to evaluate if the representation of femininity has developed over the last 25 years. Also, to find out to what extent the female role within Romantic Comedy has changed. Exploring the representations of female characters by comparing and contrasting the representation of femininity in the chosen texts; Pretty Woman (1990) directed
The actress who plays her is only twenty-six years old throughout the whole filming period, which suggests to the female audience that in to be the most desirable age one must be young. Similarly in Pretty Woman5 Julia Roberts who played the character of Vivian was aged twenty-one when she was cast in the role. Whilst Vivian breaks stereotypes in that she is depicted negatively (as a prostitute with a lack of manners) she does on the other hand fit other stereotypes as previously mention such as being attractive and dependent on men, she also fits into Prop’s ideas of ‘the hero’, ‘the heroine’ and ‘the helper’. The ‘heroines’ within the Romantic comedy are often seen by females as an inspiration and an example of their desires in life and the only way the ‘heroine’ can achieve true happiness or a new equilibrium is when they have found a partner, this is problematic for application in real life, a female audience member may come to think that this is the only way to achieve happiness. Forbes7 magazine notes that, also, in action films that: ‘It is the fault of every action movie producer who puts in the ‘token girlfriend’ purely so they can pander to female stereotypes’. Token girlfriends
Also by following the plot of Shakespeare’s play: ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ the audience experience an unstructured story with types of characters that are not usually featured as main roles within Romantic Comedies as Kat (Julia Styles) is uninterested in dating boys or finding love, she is opposed to traditionally girly stereotypes and appears individual and intelligent and has no care about what people think of her, a complete contrast to her younger superficial sister, Larissa, who seems to embrace every stereotypical characteristic possible, her character enlightens the audience to the usual depiction of teenage girls within Romantic Comedies. Although we see Kat with her wall up she eventually toward the end of the film she shows she has reached as she admits does love Patrick (Heath Ledger), and here achieves happiness again however this is only with the aid of a man (Patrick), who simply apologised and buys Kat a guitar to be forgiven which gives an impression that although Kat seems quite alternative and a unstereotypical character she is still shown to be materialistic. Whilst 10 Things I Hate About You does manage to depict a more realistic and less generic female role it still insinuates