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How has the role of female characters changed in Hollywood movies and become more dominant over the years with reference to resident evil extinction.

“mankind faces extinction, one women, is the final hope, for our survival”

‘In 1970s action-adventure shows, only 15 per cent of the leading characters were women’[1]. This quote shows how rare it was for women in the past to have a lead role in movies this proves that women were under-representated and hardly had a value in society. However this had changed over the year as number of women in leading dominant roles was exceeding this shows change in society. ‘In action adventure shows only 15% of the leading characters were women’[2].Males have dominated the action genre for many years, playing the protagonists in every film. Therefore females were given roles in action films purely because of their physical attraction and to be used as sex objects. Women were stereotypically given the passive roles whilst men were given the active roles; however this is not particularly the case in Russel Mulcahy’s film Resident evil extinction in which women are portrayed differently in this male dominated society these women in this film oppose Propp’s theory as women are not princesses but the ‘heroes’.

[1] Gauntlett, David (2002): ‘Media, Gender & Identity: An introduction’ Routledge
[2]