USC Annenberg study: Hollywood hooked on sexualizing women and teen girls

A new study by USC Annenberg researchers Stacy Smith (pictured), Marc Choueiti and Stephanie Gall surveys the top 100 grossing movies of 2009 and shows Hollywood’s addiction to films that marginalize and sexualize women is as strong as ever. - The study, "Gender Inequality in Popular Films," can be found here (PDF). Perhaps most troubling were the findings about young teen characters. Professor Smith and her research team of undergraduate students found the same prevalence of sexually revealing clothing and partial nudity in female characters in all age groups from 13 to 39. In fact, 13- to 20-year-olds were just as likely as 21- to 29-year-olds to be depicted that way. The survey found 33.8 percent of female teen characters were seen in sexy clothing, and 28.2 percent were shown with exposed skin in the cleavage, midriff or upper thigh regions. For male teen characters, the numbers were drastically lower – 5.3 percent shown in sexy clothing and 11.2 percent showing skin. Sexualizing a significant portion of women this age may contribute to males viewing girls and women as “eye candy” at younger and younger ages, Smith said. “Viewing sexualized images of females in film may contribute to self-objectification in some girls or women, which – in turn – may increase body shame, appearance anxiety and have other negative effects,” she said.