Gentle, Obedient, Caring: How Cinema Still Reproduces Gender Roles

Popular culture plays a powerful role in shaping how society understands gender. Films, especially Hollywood blockbusters, do not simply reflect reality but actively participate in constructing ideas about masculinity and femininity. Through repeated images and storylines, cinema can reinforce traditional gender roles or slowly challenge them, influencing how audiences perceive men’s and women’s emotions, behavior, and social value.

A recent study conducted by international Erasmus Mundus students at Åbo Akademi University in Turku used machine learning to analyze scripts from 34 Hollywood films across different genres. Their goal was to examine how gender roles and emotional expression are portrayed on screen. The results showed that many familiar stereotypes remain deeply embedded in blockbuster narratives. Male characters are more often depicted as aggressive, dominant, strong, and jealous, while female characters are more frequently portrayed as caring, loving, happy, and compliant. Even when women appear more often on screen, their emotional range and narrative function remain limited.

At the same time, the study noted a positive shift in representation over time. In the early 2000s, women made up only about 15 percent of characters in major films, whereas by 2015–2019 this figure had risen to nearly 44 percent. Despite this numerical progress, researchers emphasize that visibility alone does not guarantee equality. Many female roles still follow stereotypical patterns, suggesting that gender bias has become more subtle rather than disappearing altogether.

Similar conclusions appear in earlier research on film and literature. A large-scale analysis of books, movie summaries, and screenplays found that female characters’ happiness is often portrayed as dependent on romantic relationships, a pattern sometimes described as the “Cinderella complex.” Using language analysis, researchers showed that women’s narratives tend to focus on romance and emotional attachment, while men’s stories emphasize adventure, action, and independence. These storytelling conventions quietly reinforce unequal gender expectations.

One of the most widely used tools to assess gender bias in cinema is the Bechdel test, which checks whether a film includes at least two named women who talk to each other about something other than men. Large studies using automated methods have shown that although more films now pass this test, meaningful interaction between multiple female characters remains rare. Male characters, by contrast, are far more likely to appear together in central, plot-driving roles.

Overall, research suggests that while gender representation in cinema is slowly improving, deeply rooted stereotypes continue to shape how men and women are written, feel, and act on screen. These patterns matter because films help define what is considered normal, desirable, or possible. Changing the numbers is a start, but transforming the narratives themselves remains a much bigger challenge.