Jurassic World Is One of the Most Sexist Movies of 2015 | Teen Ink

Jurassic World Is One of the Most Sexist Movies of 2015

June 15, 2015
By FlowerPower98 SILVER, Colorado Springs, Colorado
FlowerPower98 SILVER, Colorado Springs, Colorado
9 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.<br /> - Josephine Billings


The summer’s most popular movie, Jurassic World, is rife with sexism. It broke box office records and pulled in $204.6 million opening weekend. If this movie pulled in that much money then Hollywood will not think that this sexism has crossed the line. If no one complains about it, the sexism will just continue.


The sexism in Jurassic World is undeniable. In the film there are four main women characters: Claire (a high-ranking official at Jurassic World), Zara (the assistant of Claire), Vivian (who works in the control room with Scott), and the mother of the two boys in the movie, Karen (Claire’s sister). A basic overview of the movie is that there is a theme park where a new hybrid dinosaur starts eating everyone and causing a ruckus.


Fair warning, there are many spoiler alerts in here. Here are just 11 reasons or scenes that make it one of the sexist movies of 2015.


1. Claire spends the entire movie wearing high heels and a skirt. She runs from dinosaurs in high heels. Not only is this patronizing to women but it also degrades the working woman: could she not have worn pants or even better have changed. Multiple men changed clothes in the movie so it wasn’t like she didn’t have time. 
2. Claire is a stereotypical working woman. She is portrayed as a high energy, well dressed, very organized, slightly OCD woman. This is a degrading stereotype which is given to her as a woman with a position of power.
3. Claire’s sole purpose for being in the movie is to fall in love with the stupid raptor trainer, Owen. The entire movie gears up to this and that they end up falling in love is no surprise to anyone in the audience.
4. There is a scene in the control room when Claire is called by her sister, Karen, who is asking about Karen’s sons. The sister asks why Claire isn’t watching them and she says she was working and had her assistant watching them. Apparently this isn’t a valid response for the sister who it doesn’t seem to work. The sister also makes a degrading comment about how Claire hasn’t married and had kids yet. Because of course it is Claire’s purpose in life to have babies and not to be successful in her job.
5. There is a scene with Owen on the top of a waterfall when he says that she should get back in the car and drive back to safety. A. No she doesn’t that’s very sexist, B. They make it funny that she is coming along with him. She has this whole show of rolling up her sleeves and opening up her shirt (to show some cleavage). It’s supposed to be funny and that’s horrible.
6. Why does every single outfit that women have in this movie have to show cleavage. There is more to a woman than her body and her breasts. It’s frankly appalling.
7. There are multiple scenes in which Claire’s nephews make comments about how they don’t feel safe with her but with Owen. Maybe if they had given her a gun at any point in the movie and not let her be a wimpy woman they would feel better.
8. Vivian (the control panel girl who spends half the movie crying over the deaths of strangers) leaves the island when she is told to evacuate. She asks Scott (the control panel guy with all the plastic dinosaurs on his desk) if he is coming along and he says that someone has to stay there to work the computers. Why couldn’t she have stayed there and taken one for the team? There was no immediate threat to her. Also he moves forward to kiss her and she steps back saying she has a boyfriend. Why did she not kiss the guy only because she has a boyfriend. She could have not kissed him just because she didn’t want to kiss him. She didn’t need an excuse.
9. There are two scenes when Claire does epic things: one when she shoots a flying dinosaur (couldn’t tell if it was a mutation or a pterodactyl) off of Owen and the other when she summons a T-Rex with a magic flare that she gets at the end of the movie not any other time when she needs it. In both instances the camera makes her look amazing and her hair blows in the slow moving wind. The time she shots the pterodactyl is the only time the whole movie that she gets a gun and she gets rewarded for saving Owen’s life with a long romantic kiss. I think a thank you would have sufficed.
10. Claire was the next person in charge of the company under Simon Masrani (the rich owner of the island who dies half way through the movie) but no, Hoskins (the annoying guy who wants to train the raptors to fight in the military) comes in with a group of crazed militants and takes over the island. Of course they couldn’t let the girl be in charge after spending the entire rest of the movie showing how incompetent she is.
11. The only women who are praised in the entire movie are the raptors and the hybrid T-Rex thing who are all female and they are still treated like animals.


4,274 theaters internationally showed Jurassic World. We live in America the land of the free where women don’t even get equal pay yet and we are showing our children that this is ok. How is America supposed to deal with homosexuality and transgender issues if it cannot deal with the simple concept treat women the same as men? People are going to love this movie for its plot line and cool graphics; they are going to let this sexism just slide right by them. And that is frankly scary.



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This article has 2 comments.


noah.capp said...
on May. 24 2016 at 1:08 am
L. O. L. That was the funniest thing i ever read

on Jul. 28 2015 at 8:36 pm
Caesar123 DIAMOND, Union Grove, Wisconsin
50 articles 7 photos 103 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Madness in great ones must not unwatched go&quot; --Claudius in William Shakespeare&#039;s Hamlet

To a certain degree I have to agree with Newt. I for one rolled my eyes at the oft clichéd relationship between the hero/heroine shown here. But by and large most of the stuff you mention here is so subtle that it's almost comical you take the time to point it out. Was it odd that she wore a skirt and heels practically the whole movie? Yes. Could they have given Claire more of a physical/pivotal role? Sure, I wouldn't have cared. But truth be told there's real sexism out there, not a woman dressing like a woman or some of her cleavage showing. There's still women out there in the world who can't drive, can't vote, can't divorce their husbands under most circumstance, etc. Why don't you try spending your time railing against stuff like that instead of a great movie like Jurassic World, one with a strong female character I might add.

on Jul. 11 2015 at 4:57 pm
BananaBriana GOLD, Bunker Hill, West Virginia
13 articles 1 photo 12 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Why assume that to look is to see?&quot; ~Piccasso

Some of your points were well put, however I disagree with quite a few of the others. Claire was given a gun during the movie, and she saved Owen from being killed by a pterodactyl, which goes against woman stereotypes. You mentioned her shooting the pterodactyl, but before that you said she never got a gun, which is false. As well as, Claire was extremely stressed out with worry for her nephews, and she was most likely too worried to fuss over changing. Yes, it was strange that she kept on the heels, but she seemed to manage well enough, and she WAS the one who had the idea to get the T-Rex out to fight the Indominus Rex. She was also portrayed as a hard-working woman who could take command. She was not put in charge instead of Hoskins because he was a tyrant, and forced his way to the top. Yes, the two nephews did show more trust in Owen instead of their Aunt Claire, but they had enough reason to. Owen had been right there for them at that moment, had seemed more helpful than their Aunt has ever been. Not to mention Owen seemed to care more for them than their Aunt did, because she left them in the hands of a woman who could care less about them. Yes, some scenes were sexist, but not the whole movie as you have implied. I suggest you look at plenty of the other movies out, such as "Fifty Shades of Grey" and you could even look at "Spongebob Squarepants", for the females on their only wear short skirts and bras.