The implied meaning behind each film is a form of challenge to analyze the subtext and what the film is actually portraying in a less than straightforward way. I decided to work on a feminist subtext and the film I will analyze is “Sucker Punch”, an American action thriller film together with a Pakistani film, “Cake”. These two films refer to the gender stereotypes that have been created in our society and around the world if we talk about its perspective and perception, globally. Gender stereotypes arise because the psychological characteristics corresponding to the behaviors are generalized to the sex that typically performs them, and these characteristics are seen as stable, intrinsic attributes of each sex. Specifically, to the extent that women are concentrated in domestic work and demanding community-based jobs, people believe that they are caring, caring, and socially competent. To the extent that men are concentrated in force-intensive roles and high-status roles, people believe they are assertive, forceful, and dominant. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First of all, it is important for us to know what feminism actually means before proceeding to the subtext of the film, Sucker Punch. Feminism is the belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. It is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities and is basically a social movement organized around this belief and has had a huge impact on film theory and criticism. There are some well-known feminist theorists who have highlighted the importance of demonstrating women in films. Through their theories they also highlighted the goals of feminism to reveal that historically men have remained dominant and authoritative while women have been shown as subordinate to men. Feminist theorists include Laura Mulvey and her theory of the gaze, Claire Johnston who talks about the ideological image of women and Freud's psychosexual theory. “Sucker Punch” is a film directed by Zack Synder. Through this film many feminist issues were represented in an indirect way, where the objectification of women, their position in society and their ability to react with the world constantly trying to harm women through sexual violence was addressed. depicted. This film is about a young girl, Baby Doll, who is sexually abused by her stepfather. She and her younger sister are left alone with him after her mother's death. To also save her sister from her stepfather's sexual abuse, she tries to escape from the room where her father has locked her. With a gun in his hand he tries to save his sister but accidentally fails due to which his sister dies. . While crying he points the gun at his stepfather but doesn't shoot him. As a result, she is sent to an asylum by him when she is no longer needed or wanted. Here, I would like to mention a famous feminist theorist Claire Johnston who was among the first feminist critics to critically analyze stereotypes from a semiotic point. of sight. She explained how classical cinema constructs the ideological image of women. According to her theory, in Sucker Punch, the male class is shown to be superior, such as her stepfather who takes her to a mental institution and is in a position to control her life by paying the person responsible there, Blue, to hospitalize her and have her lobotomized . As analyzed by Claire Johnston, the male character is active and powerful, as can be seen in the film. Blue is a strong figure since he is the leaderof the metal institute, which according to Baby Doll is a brothel and the other patients are prostitutes. She is in control of where women are sexually and physically abused by the male workers who are supposed to protect them. The Subtext Behind this film is nothing other than the reality that the female character is passive and helpless due to the mistreatment of women. This reality is not depicted as it is, but the connotations are that the protagonist Baby Doll dances and imagines herself to be strong enough to fight her condition of being locked in a situation she wants to escape from. This also portrays her weak position as she and the other female characters named Blondie, Sweet pea, Rocket and Amber are helpless in escaping which depicts a hidden meaning in the film that women despite having a strong inner self as shown in the film when Baby the doll dances and with the magic of her dance she diverts the attention of each male character so that the four needs necessary to escape are limited to their need for satisfaction. Due to the supremacy and superiority of men in our society, woman is forced to be treated as something inferior which men take advantage of as Blue thinks he owns girls by fulfilling their needs and managing to keep them there, he thinks they should obey him no matter what, which is totally unacceptable because males and females should be given equal rights, but the women in the film are not allowed to make any decisions or even live according to what they want because it is the men who rule over them, the which shows how helpless they are due to the fear of being killed if they don't obey. However, according to Laura Mulvey's theory, the film Sucker Punch can be called a film in which the objectification of women is at its peak, not only physically but also mentally. I would like to demonstrate my point through a couple of examples. Laura Mulvey's theory of gaze is used to refer both to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium and to the gaze of those depicted in visual texts. It involves camera angles, camera movements, and how an act is presented in a frame that attracts the male gender to the opposite gender. The close-ups, the extreme close-ups, the mid-shots, every angle in the film acts as a tool and describes the message behind it which helps connect the momentum with other shots and scenes in the timeline. This concept of the male gaze is quite visible in the film as a protagonist; The doll has been dressed in an attractive high school outfit with two ponytails giving viewers a Barbie doll vibe. This creates attraction for male viewers, as analyzed by Laura Mulvey that males within the narrative are shown looking at and usually lusting after female characters. It could be through the camera lens, which lingers on one woman in a scopophilic manner, shown in the film while others are dressed in cleavage-revealing clothing and wearing sheer pantyhose. These women are dressed provocatively when they are at the Brothel and it becomes even more intense when these girls try to get the four elements to escape and the way they are seen as objects by men. They are prostitutes and are attractively dressed. However, their body is not too objectified through close-ups, but in some places women allow themselves to attract men's attention, such as when Baby Doll started dancing in front of a rich and tidy customer wearing a top small with cleavage having fun and panties underneath due. to which the theory is appliedof the male gaze and at the same time another female is sitting on him to fulfill the desire. In this way, Laura Mulvey's theory of visual pleasure can be represented as the desire of male audiences who are invited to stare at attractive women on the screen and enjoy the desire of their own fantasies through them. In the film, the main subtext behind this is that women throughout the film are treated as commodities on display where customers come, use them and throw them away as if they have no life or dreams. Males look at them and objectify their body parts. They see women as objects to satisfy the active male desires to stare at the female character. Throughout this film, women were portrayed as inferior to men because the plot was crafted that way. However, at certain levels the film showed powerful women, such as when Baby Doll is forced to dance for the first time in front of everyone, she becomes so stressed that she is not willing to show herself while being sexually observed in that atmosphere. But another female head shown dominant grooming other girls, motivates her to show herself to the world and tells her that she can do it. Due to which Baby Doll closes her eyes and takes her to another fantasy world where she is depicted as a fighting woman with weapons in her hands and fights the evil that prevents her from escaping. The subtext behind this is that if a woman once decides to do a task, whatever comes her way, she will complete it. She has a strong inner soul and the way Baby Doll leads Blondie, Amber, Sweet Pea and Rocket's escape plan demonstrates her leadership skills: even though she is shown forced to do what she wants, she is still able to lead everyone. with confidence and when more than one woman decides to work together they are more powerful than anything and for this reason they become strong thanks to mutual support. But social observation during this level of fantasy is complicated. From what I saw in the film, these women control their lives by obtaining elements of escape, yet a male character tells them what to do and where to find it. Furthermore, in some places it is also depicted that women who try to hypnotize men by allowing them to look at them, indirectly control the minds of males and by doing so; they try to take advantage by collecting all the escape items. Similarly, Baby Doll appears authoritative and confident when she stabs Blue when he is defenseless and tries to get close to her. The movie Sucker Punch highlighted all the feminist issues also mentioned in Freud's psychosexual theory. Freud's view of women is seen in films where women who assume positions of power, become sexually aggressive, or desire a career are punished for crossing the boundaries established by the dominant patriarchy. This is shown in the movie Sucker Punch because when Baby Doll and his other team slowly began to misplace the cook's knife, the rich client's lighter, and the map, Blue warned them sternly and threatened them with death. And when they still didn't obey what he said, Blue being the authoritative personality killed Blondie and Amber one by one. The subtext behind this is that in this male dominated society, no one questions the male for doing something wrong. He is always seen as someone supreme and is always seen as right. They are never punished for oppressing women and threatening them, but females are. Even though in some films women are shown as dominant, there always comes a point where the stereotypical image of women, less active and of lower status than men, is highlighted. Psychosexual theory supports the typical viewpatriarchal society according to which men are superior to them. women and they should be the responsible ones. If women try to compete with men, this is perceived as a threat by the patriarchy because women not only want to gain power for themselves, but they want to take power away from men. So, from all the analyzes I've mentioned so far, the subtext of Sucker Punch is pretty deep when it comes to the feminist point of view. Each theorist through his theories expressed his point of view regarding cinema and the history of the stereotypical image of male power and female objectification in classical cinema. They demonstrated their analysis through the narrative of classical cinema which is constructed by men, therefore representing women from a male perspective. However, if I compare Sucker Punch with another movie, from a different part of the world, it would be the movie 'Cake', which breaks stereotypes. Although there are high rates of male dominance even in our country Pakistan, a different message has also been conveyed through the film regarding women working and managing the external environment. Aspects such as cinematography, sound, framing and camera movements, misc-en-scene have been designed to reflect the genre element in a way that complements the film, Cake, at several points. "Cake" is set in the present. the day Karachi where the film revolves around a dysfunctional family of five; Zareen (Aamina Sheik), the middle child who left her dreams to look after her parents, their farmland and essentially everything else in the house, Zara (Sanam Saeed), the youngest who has lived in the UK for a long time and the eldest, Zain (Faris Khalid), who lives in New York with his better half, a child and their parents (Mohammad Ahmed and Beo Rana Zafar). The family reunites after the parents' well-being begins to weaken. After their meeting, circumstances emerge in which the family is forced to clash against each other and deal with their grievances, complaints, feelings of resentment, privileged facts, happiness and everything in between. The film recently has just the right measure of intelligence and fun, set by the perfect measure of disaster. At its core, “Cake” is a film about the progression of time seen through the eyes of a family and offers a sincere look at the substances of life, different times, decisions and outcomes. Cinematically and aesthetically, this film in relation to the fight against stereotypes, represents gender performance on the screen. The way the composition and framing help portray Zareen's dominant position and how she treated the workers and took care of the home creates a narrative structure that compliments the female gender. The sounds used, the background scores, the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds and the camera movements at different points helped build the momentum of the film based on each situation, whether at work or in a home environment. Cake offers its audience realistic sets and a strong performance from the actors as the script called for a plot that made goals, motivations and success Zareen's first priorities and Zara gave a message of strength for other women in the community to believe in. our nation and the world. in themselves. In the book “Black Feminist Thought” by Patricia Collins (1999) she talks about the image of the mom which typically portrayed black women as obedient and faithful maids who basically said they were only good for housework and taking care of children. With this image black women continue to endure this as society still looks at the woman as someone who is dedicated to.