The purpose of my research was to analyze the progression of how women are portrayed in films, specifically looking at how careers, relationship to men, and gender roles have changed to mirror the changes in society. To do so, I analyzed every Academy Award-winning film in the category “Actress in a Leading Role” within the years 1930 to 1945, 1960 to 1975, and 1990 to 2005. I used trailers from the films to analyze the leading women who won the Academy Awards. Utilizing scholarly articles about significant political and social changes from 1930 to 2005, I conducted my analysis of how these changes in the United States sparked women’s representational changes in films.
