Journal

Journal Entry Sameer Pandya’s The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker, Stefan Babich’s The Fall of the Female Protagonist in Kid’s Movies and Amanda Marcotte’s The Shocking Radicalism of Brave all expresses a tone of opposition to the issue of gender gap. They specifically focus on the media especially in movies and cartoons where men are most times the prevailing character and superheroes while women are helpmates and trophies to be won by them. This is an obvious trend and I indisputably agree with this resentment. Sameer Pandya in his article mentions that “The attributes that are most valuable today-social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus-are, at a minimum, not predominantly male.” (Pandya, 201). He also mentions that “boys who remained close to their mothers, siblings, and peers did not act as tough or shut down emotionally. However, close relationships with fathers encouraged greater autonomy and detachment from friendships.” This shows that the fathers of these boys have been brought up in a like manner and always has been a trend in the past. Society teaches girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. Girls are allowed to have ambition and aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise the men will be threatened. Does the society actually see women as a lesser identity? If boys are taught to be tough, autonomous and stoic, what role would the girls play? Maids, perhaps.
Also, Stefan Babich’s article throws more light to the devastating issue of gender gap. She considers the role of female protagonists in animated children’s films. Using Disney and Pixar as a case study, she fairly criticizes Disney films for being sexist and mentions that “A pretty big percentage of the female leads in Disney musicals seem to have only one goal- to get