Last night while watching the movie Dodgeball, I noticed how the actors portrayed very distinct traditional American gender roles.
The men, were portrayed the most "manly" if they had the biggest muscles. Ben Stiller portrays a character who has enormous muscles and a deep tan. In one part of the movie, the shot focuses on him inflating the section around his groin so that it appears he has a larger penis. He does this in efforts to impress the pretty lawyer. By this act, the character enforces the traditional gender obsession about size. In addition, the main actress in the movie who portrays the lawyer, also does not help the traditional gender roles. When she steps onto the court, and shows her amazing athletic ability, one teammate immediately assumes she is a lesbian. This assumption is from society's traditional viewpoint that pretty, small, "feminine" heterosexual women cannot possibly be competitive in sports with boys.
What are the impact of these messages? In truth, yes, this is a comedy, and a popular American comedy at that. However, the messages still stand as strong. Youth soak up these messages, and believe them to be true. This movie portrays that boys that are not strong, such as the character that dropped the girl in the cheer tryouts, are laughable. And girls are portrayed as striking opposites of femininity if they are athletic. Yet in the real world, this is not the case.
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