After almost done with Gender on Screen, I'm super excited to reflect upon this whole project.
"Screen" broadly refers to films, television screen, or laptop screen. So I focused mainly on three aspects of media: films, YouTube and advertisements.
Though the proportion of women employed in film industry, both behind the scenes and on screen, is rather small, it is still increasing. As a matter of fact, many women have a very promising and decent career in this area.
I also talked about YouTube, the website I usually don't have access to in China but is so important to me, in this project. The video-sharing site YouTube has enabled everyone to discover their talents. I love the hilarious comedians, mostly male, that have brought me so much happiness. And these comedians have been connecting well and collaborated to make videos. While men play an important role on YouTube, I'm so glad to find women, including the makeup artists doing how-to videos, are also establishing a significant role on YouTube and thrive through such media. There are so many talented vloggers on YouTube and my favorite is absolutely the makeup artist, Michelle Phan. I started watching her videos simply because I have a huge passion for makeup, but her story and her positive attitude towards life truly inspired me.
While the video shows how women are objectified and sexualized through the presentation of media, I think it's more important for us to study the reason why advertisements do so.
To wrap up, there are certainly inequalities between genders in advertisements and film industry, on television, YouTube, not only on screen, but also in other aspects of society. Still, we should see how much effort both men and women put in the areas that they're truly passionate about and how both genders strive to succeed.