Man's World

From: Avery

The Smurfette principle is often a practice seen in media, films and in television shows, that have only one woman role in an otherwise entire ensemble of male characters or roles. It establishes a male dominated narrative, where the women are the exception and they only exist in reference to the men. It allows for a mind set that a woman can’t do anything without a man. As a child, growing up I watched movies like these very often, such as Miss Piggy in the muppets and Princess Leia in star wars. These movies and shows taught me that we do need men in our lives. Also that males are individuals who can have adventures and go create and do things, while females are a type of deviation who exist only in relation to males. This harmful principle allows for young girls to be taught that they need a man's help with even little things and that’s just not true. I believe that we shouldn’t be teaching our children to rely on other people, whether it’s a woman or man. The creative techniques I used to portray this ideal were foreground and background. I chose these techniques to show you the difference between the two people. I chose to put the male in front of the female because with the Smurfette principle we are talking about a male dominated role with a small female role played. I chose to use children in my depiction because this is when it undoubtedly starts, at a young age, and more personally when I started seeing it in my life. I also used a portrait mode picture effect to really show the difference in the photo. This allows for you to see a bigger difference between the two people in the photo. I think by using these creative techniques it will greatly help push my points across to the viewers. Society and mass media show us that we as women need to be rescued by men and that we need the validation from the opposite sex. I've seen this through many forms of publication and advertising but mostly I’ve seen it throughout my own life.