Since the beginning of the motion picture industry women have been somewhat subdued and restricted to playing stereotypical roles in movies. Up until recently women, for the most part, women have been quite limited as to the roles in which they could take. For many years women were stereotyped as housewives, maids, secretaries, nurses, and schoolteachers in cinema (to name a few). Over the past couple of decades however, slowly but surely, women's roles and rights in Hollywood have slowly been coming around for the better. They have begun to be recognized as true professionals and in return have been rewarded with more positive recognition and better more appropriate roles. Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeifer, and Cameron Diaz are just a few of the many women who have truly come out on screen and helped to break to barrier for women in film. They have played roles such as Erin Brockivich, Catwomen, or the owner of the Orlando Breakers, a professional football team, roles which would never have been conceived to been played by a women in the past. However while a change in women's rights in Hollywood is happening, there roles still reflect the ways in which things used to be, not only in the motion picture industry but in society as a whole. Despite all of the progressions made by women throughout the years, it is quite obvious to realise that they are still portrayed as somewhat of a lesser being then their male counterparts. This is displayed quite evidently in the movies "The Associate" starring Whoopi Goldberg and Diane Wiest as well as in the movie "American Beauty" starring Annette Benning, Thora Birch and Mena Suvari. Both of these films demonstrate the views which Hollywood and Society cast upon women in the real world. From everyday occurances like taking care of a family to succeeding in a predominantly "male oriented business world", these films showcase the trials and tribulations of what women must endure despite anything they may have already accomplished.
