Angelina Jolie & Kathy Bates Compared in UC Davis Study

Which female character do young women perceive as a better influence?

• Angelina Jolie’s robot-crushing character in “Tomb Raider."
• The mouthy Kathy Bates who carries a gun in “Primary Colors.”

The answer is Angelina Jolie, according to a recent UC Davis study conducted on 122 undergraduate students. The study found that movies reinforce gender roles that expect women to be attractive and aggressive, but also nurturing. 

“The media content we watch affects what we expect of others, and probably of ourselves,” said Laramie D. Taylor, assistant professor of communications at UC Davis and a co-author of the study. “When it comes to gender roles, watching these women who can effortlessly do it all leads us to believe, at some level, not only that women can do it all, but that they should.” 

The study was called “Watching Aggressive, Attractive Female Protagonists Shapes General Roles for Women among Male and Female Undergraduate Viewers.” It was published in the journal “Sex Roles.” 

Both women and men perceived the “attractive” female leads as better role models, according to the study. Here’s how the test was conducted: 

In the experiment, students — both male and female — viewed clips of films featuring “stereotypically attractive” actor Jolie, as well as Bates, in two violent films (“Tomb Raider” and “Primary Colors”). Students also looked at two non-violent films, “Changeling” and “Fried Green Tomatoes,” also featuring female protagonists.

The study concludes that featuring a female protagonist who is both aggressive and stereotypically attractive led to greater endorsement of stereotypically feminine and stereotypically gender role expectations for women.