A Study on Cultural Discipline Seen Through Oscar-Winning Films

This study critically examines the representation of feminism in recent Oscar-winning films and explores how these depictions reflect broader power dynamics within cultural institutions. Although the Academy Awards have increasingly showcased "strong female" characters, a deeper analysis reveals that these portrayals often remain confined by traditional male-dominated narrative frameworks. Drawing on Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power and feminist epistemology, informed by feminist standpoint theory, this research argues that the construction of female subjectivity in these films frequently reinforces existing power structures rather than deconstructing them. By analyzing characters in films such as CODA, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Minari, and Poor Things, the study highlights how female characters are often positioned as reflections or reversals of male roles, failing to achieve genuine feminist ideals. To ensure analytic consistency, the analysis is organized around four dimensions—agency, emotional labor, institutional endorsement, and narrative closure—while employing a working definition of “internalized discipline” to differentiate between surface progress and structural transformation. Publicly available institutional summaries are used solely as contextual materials, and claims are limited to analytic generalizations.