Objectifying Men in Movies, slipping through the cracks

With all the buzz about Oscar nominations flooding my ears over the past week, movies have been constantly on my mind. I'm a film production major so I spend a lot of my time watching and analyzing films, and I've noticed something that seems to be slipping through the cracks in relation to the back-lash certain films are receiving for casting female sex-symbols in order to attract larger audiences: We do this with men too. If you are a woman, are you more likely to go see a movie when the hero is Ryan Gosling or Kevin James? My guess is that you would prefer Ryan Gosling. He is a fit, attractive movie star that is guaranteed to pull in more female viewers. Yet this whole concept is hardly ever complained about. However, when a girl like Megan Fox is cast in a movie people immediately brand her as just being used to get more boys to go. Transformers was written off in my book due to everyone's obsession with Megan Fox and not the actual Transformers themselves. So why do people not complain about the Ryan Goslings and instead voice their opinions about the Megan Foxes of Hollywood?

A few days ago I was discussing the Oscar nominations with a fellow female film-production major. She was quite infuriated the Ryan Gosling was not nominated for his performance in Drive. Personally, I didn't think that he had been exceptional in that movie, yet she was dead set on him deserving at least a nomination. She then went on to say: "I can't believe Jonah Hill was nominated over Ryan, it's just a disgrace." Now, Jonah Hill is not the best looking fellow, but he is a pretty good actor. He has only been in mostly comedies up until his role in Moneyball, but he played the part well. Ryan Gosling has not been in many exceptional movies up until Drive either, his most notable being his role in the sappy romance The Notebook. I thought it was interesting how my friend was so upset that the chubby Jonah Hill had beat out the dashing Ryan Gosling for an oscar nom.

Another way to look at the issue is in terms of the James Bond movies. In each movie there is always a super sexy girl, known as a "Bond Girl", who usually is Bond's romantic interest. These women are always sly and extremely attractive. As a girl I usually dismiss these women as useless actresses that are simply there to further entertain the male audience. However, I had never really thought about James Bond himself. Bond is always an extremely suave, attractive man. When Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond in the most recent installments there was a large amount of controversy over him being the first "Blonde" bond and whether or not he was attractive enough for the role. Therefore, James Bond himself is as much a useless, good-looking figure as the bond girls. I think that this idea says a lot about how our society still views men and women in the media today.

-Elle Callahan