The Images Of Female Action Characters In Hollywood Superhero Movies

In recent years,superhero movies are one of the most popular movie genres.Amazing action scenes in the movies are very exciting.Throughout the movie history,superhero movies feature main heroes,such well-known characters as Superman,Batman,and Spiderman.While in recent superhero movies,quite a few popular superheroines appear,like Black Widow and Wonder Woman.They are good at fighting and can fight with male heroes.This year,the superheroine movie named by Wonder Woman breaks several history records with outstanding box office performance,which shows the endless potential of superheroine movies in the market.This essay focuses on female action characters in superhero movies.By means of content analysis,their demographic characteristics,stereotype and violence amount and types are examined;with text analysis,how these characters are displayed and why they are displayed in these ways are explored.The research result shows that although female action characters are brilliant fighters,they are still inferior to male heroes.They are usually portrayed as young,unmarried,educated and heterosexual white people in male-stereotypical occupations,but the images of heroines in superheroine movies will be more diversified in demographic characteristics.In terms of violence types,female action characters behave more like men in real life.Overall,Hollywood mainstream movies still have stereotypical portrayals of female action characters,but their images have been improving.