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New Delhi: Talking about her journey in Hollywood and how the industry has changed for women since she started, actress Scarlett Johansson recently made some insightful remarks.

In a recent interview with the news publication The Times of LondonJohansson said that when she first entered the industry, she was mostly offered roles centering around her “desirability.” This was often in regard to those of the male audiences.

Scarlett Johansson on acting and casting in Hollywood

While talking about how she was typecasted and moreover given roles in accordance to the ‘male gaze’, Johansson also acknowledged that Hollywood today is changing and is ushering in “a different time for young women.”

“The messaging is different — there are many more role models, women are visible in powerful positions and the opportunities I have had to play women who don’t have to just be one thing or another have increased,” Johansson said. “But when I was younger, a lot of the roles I was offered, or I went for, had their ambitions or character arcs revolving around their own desirability, or the male gaze, or a male-centred story. That is less frequent, though — something has shifted,” he further added.

Johansson has always been vocal about these issues, as she has earlier also talked about being “hypersexualized” in Hollywood from a young age. Further commenting on how she thought it would be near impossible for her to break out from such categorisation.

“I kind of became objectified and pigeonholed in this way where I felt like I wasn’t getting offers for work for things that I wanted to do,” Johansson said, “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I think people think I’m 40 years old.’ It somehow stopped being something that was desirable and something that I was fighting against.”

The issue at hand is nothing new, as many actresses have talked about being viewed through the ‘male gaze’ throughout their career. Be it how they are dressed, how the close ups are shot, how they speak or how they walk; nearly all forms of depiction of females in film are catered to how men desire to see them. While with an increase in awareness and sensitivity things are changing, many like Johansson have spoken out about the issue.