Sexist films are born in the script. Ross Putman, producer, started a twitter @Femscriptintros that is calling out some of the most sexist intros for movies of all time; leave it to the Internet to reveal all of the dirty secrets of the film industry. He refers to all of the women as Jane, but otherwise the intros are typed verbatim.
What makes a sexist intro, one may ask? The answer is simply the focus on appearance. Every single tweet describes “Jane” as beautiful, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The thing is that most of the intros show no distinction between the female character roles. Also, there are several implications in some of the intros, such as youth being intertwined with beauty, “JANE is in her mid-30s attractive even now, with dark semi-circles underlining her closed eyes.” “Behind a steamy shower door is the indistinguishable but sexy silhouette of JANE showering.”
Do any of these women have anything to offer besides their looks? If you’re still not convinced that this is not sexism at its best, this is what male intros would look like if they were written the same way.
Hopefully this will make people aware that even though a movie has a leading role in a film, they are definitely not given the same respect as their male counterparts.