dramatic portrayals of females

[darkoshi]

In movies and shows like Criminal Minds, when women or girls are the victims, most of their on-screen time is spent crying, pleading/begging, whimpering, and screaming.

Whereas when men are the victims, they do much less of that.

Is there anything in real life to corroborate those kind of portrayals? Would a typical woman in that kind of a situation really act like that? Or is it mostly myth? It seems very unreal to me, and grates on my nerves.

When women are the victims, there are frequent cuts between the rest of show's action, to these scenes of crying, whimpering, etc. It is as if those sounds are meant to spur on the people trying to find and save them, or meant to provide a feeling of suspense for the viewers. It's like, oh those poor women are so helpless and in such danger, they must be saved, and quickly!

Wouldn't a real person, regardless of gender, spend more time struggling and trying to escape, as well as trying to verbally reason with their abductor, rather than crying and whimpering? Why are women portrayed as being so emotionally active and physically passive?

Comments

[chess]

Crying and whimpering _is_ a variety of struggling and trying to escape - it's an attempt to use the social role that women have been assigned to make the captor feel sorry for the victim and at least make their conditions better, if not give up and release them entirely.

For obvious reasons that's much less likely to work for men, because society has taught people that men crying and whimpering is weakness, whereas women crying and whimpering is a reasonable expression of their vulnerability and suffering.

I suspect, like everything else on TV, it's massively exaggerated from real behaviour - but there is a sensible reason for women to cry and whimper more as victims - it's more likely to be a useful strategy to improve their situation than it would be for men, in the current social climate.

[coth]

I think it is a result of the two facts that all stories speak to our anxieties and that men think of themselves - more or less consciously - as making video entertainment for men. Women crying make men very anxious, and the storytellers are using that to make their viewers anxious.

In other words, the storyteller is raising the emotions of their (assumed) viewers to drive the plot.

This has very little to do with what real women do or do not do, and not a lot to do with how women viewers will respond.

[coth]

Oh, and you could also look at Game of Thrones for a much wider range of response to threat by both men and women.

[darkoshi]

Maybe if I ever get through the other 50 or so items in my Netflix queue first! :-)
I actually suggested GoT to my partner (the one who likes watching Criminal Minds), as it sounds like something he'd enjoy. So far, he hasn't taken the bait.

[darkoshi]

You've got a point. As a viewer of the show, it's obvious to me that the abductor is a sadistic serial killer who isn't going to be swayed or put off by any crying; but the characters in the show don't necessarily know that.