Unpacking Gender Stereotypes in Film Dialogue.

The representation of gender stereotypes in films profoundly impacts societal values and beliefs since they reflect and can potentially reinforce prevailing social norms. Hence, it is crucial to unravel how such stereotypes arise from gender portrayal in films. In this paper, we decompose the gender differences portrayed in movies along several socio- and psycho-linguistic dimensions. In particular, we consider gender disparities in four dialogue dimensions: 1) the degree of assertion, 2) the degree of confirmation, 3) the valence of emotions, and 4) the topic. Empirical analyses show that the valence of emotions expressed in the dialogue explains the most variation in gender disparity. Moreover, for certain kinds of dialogue, such as those occurring between different gender actors, the topic of discussion is also a strong predictor of gender differences.