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Creation Date

4-19-2016

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Introduction: While superhero films have been examined for their violent content, and identification with the characters, there has been little systematic work examining sex role stereotypes in their portrayals of male and female characters. Given that video games and music videos are rife with stereotypes, we chose to examine superhero films as another genre popular with young adults and teens. We examined movie trailers because they are constructed to contain what the producers see as the highlights of the films. They are also readily accessible to the general public through previews in movie theaters and websites like IMDB. Methods: Two undergraduate research assistants coded the trailers for all 36 MARVEL movies released since 2000, after practicing the codebook on 5 action movies released in the same time period. When the average agreement reached acceptable levels on the variables (kappa > .75), they coded the superhero movies. Variables coded are discussed in the results due to word limits. Results: Male characters were nearly 3x more frequent than female characters (x2 (1, N = 192) = 39.42, p < .01). Male characters were more likely to have their name said (x2 (1, N = 192) = 8.053, p < .01; Cramer's V = .205). Males were more likely to be portrayed more powerful than the females (x2 (1, N = 192) = 19.584, p < .01; Cramer's V = .319). Female characters were more likely to be portrayed as sex objects, (x2 (1, N = 192) = 5.441, p < .01; Cramer's V = .168), but this happened relatively rarely overall (3.8% vs. 0%). Female characters were also more likely to be scantily clad (15.4%), but males never were scantily clad (x2 (1, N = 64) = 21.4, p < .01). Females were also more likely to be role objectified (17.3% vs. 2.14%; (x2 (1, N = 192) = 14.882, p < .01). Within their respective sexes, males and females were equally likely to be portrayed as heroes, but women were less likely to be heroes overall, (x2 (1, N = 192) = 22.475, p < .01). Males were overwhelmingly the villains in our sample (25 of 27 villains; x2 (1, N = 192) = 6.159, p < .05). Females were also less likely to be portrayed with a weapon (x2 (1, N = 192) = 4.149, p < .05). Discussion: Although the Marvel films definitely contained their share of sex role stereotypes with nearly three times as many male characters as females, an unequal distribution of both power and weapons favoring the males, and a greater likelihood of objectification and sexualization of the female characters, the portrayals were not as stereotyped as those in video games. Future research should examine how these characters are perceived by viewers and what impact these portrayals have on viewers' attitudes and behaviors.

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