Transformation of gender roles in hollywood movies: 1946-1990

Over the past 25 years Hollywood filmmakers have gradually broken with tradition and now portray men and women in new ways. Female characters, no longer so exclusively focused on romance, have emerged as more complex, alienated, and violent. Through a systematic content analysis of the movies from the 1940s through 1989, the authors explore the shift in gender roles, showing how the images reflect the attitudes of a new Hollywood elite of filmmakers who have succeeded in replacing old myths with new.