The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 47

Hollywood & College Women

Gender Roles in the Media
In addition to perpetuating misconceptions
about college life, media images also communicate limiting and inaccurate messages
about gender roles, especially those pertaining to women (Davis, 2004). Common ideas
about women expressed in ﬁlms and television programs include the use of women as
sexual objects, the emphasis on thinness and
speciﬁed deﬁnitions of physical beauty, the
idea that all women desire to have established
relationships with men (ultimately ending in
marriage), and the assumption that sexual
knowledge is the most valuable knowledge for
women to possess (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro,
2008; Byers, 2005; Escholz, Bufkin, & Long,
2002; Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Kwan,
2010; Reynolds, 2009). Irrespective of reality,
Hollywood ﬁlms continue to rely on and recycle
traditional storylines and stereotypes in the
hopes of continuously coaxing audiences into
buying tickets (Jurca, 2008). As a result, the
images presented in ﬁlm emphasize women
as physical beings who lack true intellect and
perpetually exemplify sex (Escholz et al., 2002;
Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Kwan, 2010;
Reynolds, 2009).

College: Marriage Mall of America
Single women are a common feature in media
images of college life and illustrate prolonged
adolescence often revolving around the need
and desire to ﬁnd a mate (DePaulo, 2007; Engstrom, 2012; Taylor, 2012). While completing a
college degree is a good way to broaden career
and economic opportunities for women, media
images continue to emphasize college as a
place to earn the "M.R.S." degree by fueling
desires and directing individuals to fulﬁll tra-

ditional gender roles (Byers, 2005; Escholz et
al., 2002; Mustard, 2000; Newman, 2001).
Conversely, the media elect to illustrate women
who spend time developing their intellects and
attaining career success as individuals who are
missing out on heterosexual romance and are
abnormal, devious, unstable, and, ﬁnally, defeated by their own selﬁshness (Byers, 2005;
DePaulo, 2007; Escholz et al., 2002; Reynolds,
2009). Accordingly, the message conveyed to
college women is that ﬁnding a mate and settling down is the best use of their time during
their enrollment since the best way to leave
college is with a ring, not necessarily a degree
or a career.

METHODOLOGY
American studios have produced almost 700
ﬁlms that include college as a theme since the
ﬁrst Hollywood ﬁctional ﬁlm with a higher
education setting in 1903, The Professor of the
Drama (Conklin, 2008). There were more than
70 ﬁlms about college between 2000 and 2012
(Conklin, 2008), yet only eight of them had a
main female character, while the remainder
concentrated on males, with women as supporting characters or in the periphery.

Film Selection Process
The focus of this research was to examine
what messages Hollywood movies presented
to current and prospective college women regarding what they might expect and experience
during their enrollment. The following criteria
guided the selection of ﬁlms: college served
as the primary setting for the ﬁlm; the main
character(s) was a woman or women; the main
focus was on students, not faculty; and the ﬁlm
was released in theaters during the 2000s (not
direct to DVD). We also chose not to include So47
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