Narratives of violence against women and diverse communities
Tropes that perpetuate racial and gender stereotypes present marginalized characters as expendable, often sidelining their narratives to advance white male protagonists. News coverage also influences public perceptions, often reinforcing systemic issues and stereotypes. Social media exposes viewers to raw accounts of violence, but also mobilizes support for social movements.
In his book Avengers Assemble!: Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Terence McSweeney argues that films act as “a barometer for attitudes towards national identity but also endorse what a culture regards as its norms of gender, sexuality and race.”[1] While McSweeney refers specifically to the rise of superhero films that emerged in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the US, this argument is applicable to all fictional media. What, then, does the portrayal of media violence towards women and diverse communities say about our culture’s norms?
Popular media cast women and diverse characters in disposable roles so reliably that they’ve produced a number of easily recognizable tropes – common patterns or traits in stories or characters that convey information to the audience. Unfortunately, these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.
Consider the following tropes:
- The Black Guy Dies: This trope describes a trend that crops up frequently in action and horror films as well as in television, games and comic books. The name of the trope describes the trend of Black characters more frequently dying off than their white counterparts.
- Women in Refrigerators: Comic book writer Gail Simone noted the trend of female comic book characters being victimized in order to further the plot of their male significant others and teammates. The term is derived from the death of superhero Green Lantern’s girlfriend Alex DeWitt, who was killed by a super-villain and left in the hero’s refrigerator.[2] This trend is also frequently observed in video games and movies.[3][4]
- Bury Your Gays: While this term was popularized in recent years, the trope isn’t new. It refers to the trend that makes “gender- and sexually-diverse (2SLGBTQIN) characters more expendable in television narratives than, relatively, their straight and cisgender counterparts.”[5] The trope is traced back to 19th century laws that directly or indirectly forbade homosexuality in media and is found in a broad range of genres, including horror, children’s cartoons, drama and fantasy.[6]
Although these three tropes deal with different types of victims, they all describe instances in which violence is perpetrated against a secondary character in order to further the story arc of the protagonist. A common reaction to this trend is the response “So what? These are action and adventure stories. Bad things happen all around. The hero gets in fights and gets beat up all the time too.” While this is true, the context of the adversity faced by these different types of characters isn’t the same. Gail Simone examined the plight of similar male characters and found a wholly different trend. While female characters were typically made irrelevant through death, insanity or disempowerment, their male counterparts tended to experience such setbacks (even death) as temporary obstacles to an eventual triumphant return. Women’s deaths, on the other hand, are most often used to create a narrative for the white male hero to seek revenge or overcome adversity.[7],[8]
Tropes that treat women and diverse communities as expendable are played over and over again, especially in action and superhero films. While scholars identify multiple reasons that might explain “the rise of the age of the superhero,”[9] the general consensus is that major cultural events since the beginning of the 21st century, like the 9/11 attack on the US (and the global impact of its subsequent War on Terror) and the 2008 financial crisis, have strongly contributed to this phenomenon.[10] Academic literature has detailed examples throughout modern history which conflate national crises with masculine crises,[11] and films that have followed these global crises such as Aquaman, the Avengers series and The Batman glorify physically strong, violent and athletic men who assert and preserve masculinity.[12]
In the last few years, the female hero has become more prevalent in action films, specifically superhero features like Captain Marvel and Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey. While the commercial success of these movies proves that audiences are interested in powerful female protagonists, researchers have found that “while men can, and sometimes do, tell female stories successfully, they often fail to empower women.”[13] One study found that films directed by women tend to have more positive representation of female characters.[14]
Media violence against women isn’t restricted to action and superhero films. An analysis of the top 10 films available on Netflix in 2020 sheds light on the pervasive nature of violence against women within contemporary media: 64 percent of total instances of violence depicted in these films were perpetuated against female characters.[15] Whether through physical assault, verbal abuse or other forms of aggression, female characters often bear the brunt of violent acts, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and reinforcing gender-based power dynamics.
Media tropes also impact racialized people. There is a recognized trend in Hollywood in which popular media often focuses on stories of Black trauma, particularly those related to historical events such as Black slavery, the American Civil War and systemic racism. Media that “don’t provide that pathway forward beyond the pain”[16] only serve to “glorify and exploit the depictions of systemic pain specific to Black people for the sake of entertainment.”[17] This overemphasis can shape audience perceptions in a way that reinforces racial stereotypes that perpetuate anti-Black violence[18] and traumatize actors and viewers alike.[19]
News media
Public perceptions of crime and law enforcement are influenced by how media outlets frame news stories, and media portrayal of law enforcement’s use of force is currently facing a reckoning. Stoked by the flashpoint of George Floyd’s murder by American police and the subsequent spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a significant shift in the relationship between the police and the press. Journalists are increasingly investigating and examining the methods and actions of law enforcement agencies,[20] but many believe that newsrooms still have a long way to go in how they report on crime news. Linguistic analysis of news media coverage in late 2020 revealed that, while there was a slight increase in headlines mentioning police violence, “headlines focusing on protestor violence and disruption were about four times more common.”[21] Diverse communities call for journalists to critically examine police behaviour,[22] humanize victims by sharing personal photos and stories, and emphasize the systemic issues[23] that lead to more violence against racialized groups.[24]
News media also portray violence differently depending on who is involved. Research has found that news reports about Black people are almost four times more likely to include violent content than those about white people.[25] News media contributes to this phenomenon by amplifying crime news in racialized communities: a Canadian study that compared crime news articles to crime statistics in Toronto found that lower-income neighbourhoods occupied primarily by racialized communities experienced a disproportionately high amount of crime media coverage compared to other wealthier, Whiter neighbourhoods.[26] This negative portrayal of racialized communities has damaging real-world consequences, creating barriers for residents seeking employment and social services outside of their neighbourhood.[27] Furthermore, news media also portrays violence differently depending on the victim. The murders of Black people, particularly those killed by police, are routinely justified by saying the victim was “no angel,”[28] while white people who commit violent acts are much more likely than Black people to have their actions attributed to mental illness.[29]
Similarly, news coverage of violence against women – especially violence that occurs within abusive relationships – often perpetuates the very narrative that contributes to gender-based violence, including “victim-blaming, decentring the responsibility of perpetrators, and deploying stigmatizing or sensationalizing language that draws upon harmful gender norms and stereotypes about women’s and girls’ ‘appropriate roles.’"[30] A recent Canadian study of media coverage of femicides (murders of women because they are women) found that while almost none of the reports blamed the victim in their framing of the story, nine in 10 framed it as an individual crime rather than part of a broader social problem and fewer than one in 10 referred to the perpetrator’s history of violence against women. Only one in 50 included any information about resources for victims of violence against women.[31]
Social media
Social media is undeniably central to the shift in how we consume news media, providing platforms to share and witness first-hand accounts of community violence that previously would have been filmed and filtered through a specific lens via mainstream news coverage.[32] The availability of citizen-captured police misconduct videos on social media leave consumers open to negative impacts of engaging with police brutality, including psychological distress and fear of crime.[33] However, the availability of video evidence that counters law enforcement narratives and the ability for social movements to mobilize has also resulted in support for social movements that advocate for police reform. One study found that the Black Lives Matter movement effectively used Twitter to bolster community support by evoking the names of previous Black victims of police violence, leading to the surge of support that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020.[34]
What does this all mean?
These trends don’t necessarily indicate that media producers intentionally promote senseless violence against disadvantaged communities or portray women as lacking agency; rather, they illustrate the problem of representation and diversity in the media. While it’s common for heroes in stories to triumph over adversity and deal with the loss of loved ones, these thrends show that members of marginalized communities will more often be cast in secondary roles rather than as heroes themselves.
We should learn to spot this trend, notice the lack of quality diverse characters and the lack of attention that is paid culturally to the stories of these groups.
For further exploration into how the media represent women and people of various marginalized backgrounds, see our articles on representation of gender and diversity. Our section on privilege further explores what it means to have one’s experience subordinated because of one’s minority status.
[1] McSweeney, T. (Ed.). (2018). Avengers assemble! critical perspectives on the marvel cinematic universe. Columbia University Press.
[2] Simone, G. (1999) “Women in Refrigerators.” Retrieved from https://www.lby3.com/wir/index.html
[3] Riley, B. (2019). Distressed damsels, expendable men: SCREEN VIOLENCE AND MASCULINITY. Screen Education, (92), 54-61. Retrieved from https://qe2a-proxy.mun.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/distressed-damsels-expendable-men-screen-violence/docview/2371355234/se-2
[4] Stuffed Into the Fridge. (2024). In Tropedia. https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Stuffed_Into_the_Fridge
[5] Cover, R., & Milne, C. (2023). The “Bury your Gays” trope in contemporary television: Generational shifts in production responses to audience dissent. the Journal of Popular Culture/Journal of Popular Culture, 56(5–6), 810–823. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13255
[6] Rude, M. (2023, May 26). 15 recent, especially brutal, examples of the Bury your Gays trope. Out Magazine. https://www.out.com/television/2022/9/19/most-brutal-examples-of-bury-your-gays-trope-in-television-movies#rebelltitem1
[7] Bartol, J. (n.d.). Dead men defrosting. Women in Refrigerators. https://www.lby3.com/wir/r-jbartol2.html
[8] D’Arcy-Reed, K. R. (2023). Death, Gender, and Superheroes [PhD dissertation, University of York]. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/33231/1/Richards_DArcy-Reed_204053324_correctedthesisclean.pdf
[9] [9] McSweeney, T. (2018). Avengers assemble!: Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Columbia University Press.
[10] Jenkins, T., & Secker, T. (2022). Superheroes, movies, and the state: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes. University Press of Kansas.
[11] Myrttinen, H. (2023). Men, Masculinities and Humanitarian Settings: A mapping of the state of research and practice-based evidence. UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/men-masculinities-and-humanitarian-settings-en.pdf
[12] Harriger, J. A., Wick, M. R., Mendez, K., & Barnett, B. (2022). With great power comes great responsibility: A content analysis of masculinity themes in superhero movies. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 23(4), 353–361. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000398
[13] Kunsey, I. (2019). Representations of Women in Popular Film: A Study of Gender Inequality in 2018 [Capstone Course, Elon University]. https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/153/2019/12/03-Kunsey.pdf
[14] Ibid.
[15] Rutledge, A. L. (2022). Violence against Women on Netflix [MA thesis, University of Alabama]. https://ir-api.ua.edu/api/core/bitstreams/3a76bae0-66fe-4d04-a787-f4ece7e6d6b8/content
[16] Jones, M. (2019). How “Watchmen” explores generational Black trauma and provides a path beyond the pain - blavity. Blavity News & Entertainment. https://blavity.com/how-watchmen-explores-generational-black-trauma-and-provides-a-path-beyond-the-pain
[17] Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, E., Carter, A., & Morton, N. (2023). “Bad Taste in Movies”: HACKing Films as a site of praxis for Black embodiment. Black Educology Mixtape “Journal,” 1(1), 15–32. https://repository.usfca.edu/be/vol1/iss1/2
[18] Ibid.
[19] Jackson, A. (2020, July 22). Jay Pharoah, Derek Luke, Chris Chalk, Aldis Hodge and Algee Smith on the Realities of Racism in Hollywood. Variety. https://variety.com/2020/video/features/aldis-hodge-derek-luke-chris-chalk-jay-pharoah-algee-smith-variety-represent-black-men-in-hollywood-interview-1234711986/
[20] Johnson, K. (2024, January 23). Dealing with Police a ‘Challenge’ in Post-George Floyd era. National Press Foundation. https://nationalpress.org/topic/george-floyd-criminal-justice-transparency-police-reporting-credibility-storytelling/
[21] Kilgo, D. (2021). Media bias delegitimizes Black-rights protesters. Nature, 593(7859), 315. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01314-2
[22] DiMera, M. (2024, April 2). What needs to change in Canadian crime reporting. The Resolve. https://theresolve.ca/what-needs-to-change-in-canadian-crime-reporting/
[23] Aslam, Y. (2022, June 21). Missing, Murdered and the Media: Why journalists must cover Indigenous stories better. The Review of Journalism. https://reviewofjournalism.ca/missing-murdered-and-the-media/
[24] Wortley, S., Owusu-Bempah, A., Laming, E., & Henry, C. (2021). Police Use of Force in Canada: A review of the data, expert opinion, and the international research literature. Canadian Criminal Justice Association. https://www.ccja-acjp.ca/pub/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/08/Full-Report-PUF.pdf
[25] Frankham, E. (2020). Victim or Villain? Racial/ethnic Differences in News Portrayals of Individuals with Mental Illness Killed by Police. The Sociological Quarterly, 61(2), 231-253.
[26] Jahiu, L., & Cinnamon, J. (2021). Media coverage and territorial stigmatization: an analysis of crime news articles and crime statistics in Toronto. GeoJournal, 87(6), 4547–4564. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10511-5
[27] Ibid.
[28] Mian, Z. N. (2020). “Black identity extremist” or Black dissident?: How United States v. Daniels illustrates FBI criminalization of Black dissent of law enforcement, from COINTELPRO to Black Lives Matter. Rutgers Race and the Law Review, 212(1), 53–92. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/black-identity-extremist-dissident-how-united/docview/2403310248/se-2
[29] Frankham, E. (2020). Victim or Villain? Racial/ethnic Differences in News Portrayals of Individuals with Mental Illness Killed by Police. The Sociological Quarterly, 61(2), 231-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2019.1593063
[30] Fuentes, L., Saxena, A. S., & Bitterly, J. (2022). Mapping the nexus between media reporting of violence against girls: the normalization of violence, and the perpetuation of harmful gender norms and stereotypes. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Evidence-review-Mapping-the-nexus-between-media-reporting-of-violence-against-girls-en.pdf
[31] Hancock L. (2021) Femicide Report. Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Houses. Retrieved from http://www.oaith.ca/assets/library/OAITH-Femicide-Report-2020-2021.pdf
[32] Miethe, T. D., Venger, O., & Lieberman, J. D. (2019). Police use of force and its video coverage: An experimental study of the impact of media source and content on public perceptions. Journal of Criminal Justice, 60, 35–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2018.10.006
[33] Spriggs, S. (2022). The psychological impact of viewing police brutality videos on social media [PhD dissertation, Fairleigh Dickinson University]. https://www.proquest.com/openview/651c376fa2c693f7c5012c63113e11e2/1.pdf?cbl=18750&diss=y&pq-origsite=gscholar
[34] Wu, H. H., Gallagher, R. J., Alshaabi, T., Adams, J. L., Minot, J. R., Arnold, M. V., Welles, B. F., Harp, R., Dodds, P. S., & Danforth, C. M. (2023). Say their names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd. PloS One, 18(1), e0279225. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279225