For Penn State professor Michelle Rodino-Colocino, The Women, a new film debuting Friday in theaters nationwide, will be viewed both for "business and guilty pleasure."
Films like The Women featuring strong, independent women who lead glamorous lives with or without men -- similar to the HBO hit series turned movie Sex and the City and ABC's award-winning TV show Desperate Housewives -- appeal to women, said, Rodino-Colocino, an assistant professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies
And while the trend of modern women in the media with bottomless bank accounts may be harmless, Rodino-Colocino warned the audience to keep in mind it's not reality because the average woman doesn't lead a life on that scale of glamour.
"It's entertaining, distracting; an escape," Rodino-Colocino said. "It keeps you sane."
The Women, a film which depicts the lives of modern women living in New York City and the strength of female friendship, features an all-star cast including Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett Smith.
The female attraction to this media that tends to ignore the downsides of reality is a fun fascination for the post-feminist culture, Rodino-Colocoino said.
Like The Women, another female-driven movie, Sex and the City, brought in more than $55 million at the box office, and 85 percent of audiences were women, according to The New York Times.
"Media like this is sexy. If something goes wrong in life, you just go out and buy a pair of cute pointy red heels and share a bottle of champagne and lunch with some friends," Rodino-Colocino said.
Mary Beth Oliver, professor of media in the College of Communications, said the movie shows the evolution of women's roles in media.
"The Women seems like it may be a reverse of the 'Smurfette syndrome.' In the Smurfs TV show there was only one female and she was forced to fit in with the males," Oliver said. "It seems that in this film, the females dominate. The men might have a tough time fitting in."
Assistant professor of media for the College of Communications, Michel Haigh, said media in the past has been more male-dominated.
"Even Sesame Street was dominated by a cast of male characters," she said.
On the contrary, modern media, such as The Women, portrays females in the forefront and with power.
"People are attracted to this media because it holds the promise of power, while not threatening the status quo," Rodino-Colocino said. "It's all about women's obsession with their relationships with men and buying quick happiness."
Rodino-Colocino said much of the strife encountered by characters is superficial. Struggling single moms, lesbians, women in poverty or even working class women are rarely depicted in popular female media, she added.
"The characters in these movies are both realistic and unrealistic," said Shannan McCormick (senior-kinesiology). "Many types of experiences that women go through are encountered [in these types of films], but they're not always situations that every woman goes through."
