Trauma, memory, and revenge: systemic patriarchy and female resistance in Promising Young Woman

1 Introduction

Gender inequality and sexual violence are among the most entrenched social injustices of today's world. Women are subjected to widespread discrimination, harassment, victim blaming and systemic assault in both the public and private sphere. Feminist academics have highlighted that these are not isolated, idiosyncratic events, but rather structural manifestations of patriarchy that are aimed at ensuring that male autonomy is prioritized, and that the male narrative is given greater credibility than the female (Walby, 1990). In these systems, men's violence against women is often normalized, minimized, or protected by the legal and social systems, making it difficult to achieve legal and social justice

Fennell’s (2020) Promising Young Woman is a searing condemnation of these dynamic systems. The story centres on the life of former medical student, Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas, who finds herself in a situation where the gang rape and suicide of her best friend, Nina Fisher, has thrown her life into disarray. Cassie is troubled by the absence of institutional accountability and launches a strategic campaign to reveal the complicity of individuals, educational institutions and societal norms that work to silence victims and shield perpetrators.

Promising Young Woman has received a great deal of scholarly attention since its release, but the study to date has tended to focus on the script in isolation or from a limited thematic perspective. The script's subversion of script genres, including the rape-revenge genre, and its aesthetic decisions (Meek, 2023; Projansky, 2001) have been discussed in scholarly works. The script's commentary on post-feminist sensibilities has also been examined in other studies, such as the cultural myth of the “Nice Guy” and the modern media depictions of sexual assault (Manning and Crăciun, 2024). Furthermore, the focus of visual analysis has been on the use of costume design and pastel color palettes (Réti, 2023) in Fennell's work to create the “visual ‘male gaze'”.

However, a critical gap remains in current script and literary studies: existing studies tend to treat these elements in isolation. Few researchers have conducted an integrated textual analysis that examines how patriarchal power structures, rape culture, unintegrated trauma, and performative gender subversion interact within a single, cohesive framework. Prior studies frequently overlook how Cassandra's strategic enactments of hyper-femininity function specifically as a performative tool (Butler, 1990) to dismantle the “Nice Guy” facade, or how personal trauma (Caruth, 1996) intersects directly with institutional complicity. By examining the screenplay as both a visual and literary text, this study addresses this analytical gap, demonstrating how these distinct theoretical pillars operate interdependently to critique societal failure. In order to fill these gaps, this study uses a multi-theoretical approach that uses Feminist Theory, Rape Culture Theory, Trauma Theory, and Gender Performativity Theory to analyze Promising Young Woman. Specifically, this study aims:

• To examine the portrayal and reinforcement of patriarchal power, male privilege and male entitlement in Promising Young Woman.
• To analyse the ways in which the screenplay perpetuates a culture of rape through victim-blaming, witness silence and institutional complicity.
• To examine the portrayal of trauma, loss, and suffering in the portrayal of Cassandra and the symbolic presence of Nina.
• To explore the use of performative femininity and the strategic subversion of gender roles in the exposure of predatory behavior in the context of Gender Performativity Theory in the case of Cassandra.
• To examine the ways in which female resistance and retributive justice are represented as social protest against the injustice of systems.

2 Literature review

2.1 Patriarchy and gender inequality

Feminist study has theorized the problem of gender inequality in a multitude of ways as a structural issue. Patriarchy is seen as a system of social relations in which men are dominant over women in political, economic, cultural and familial relationships. Walby (1990) points that a series of interrelated institutions, family, education, religion, law and media that have the capacity to promote gender inequality. In these systems women are constrained, are denied opportunities, and have limited social power. In the same way, Millett (1970) stated that patriarchy is a political system which gives men power and positions women to receive this power. This oppression is often perceived as normal and cultural beliefs that hold men's power should be the norm and women's dependence is valued

De Beauvoir (2011) also asserts that throughout history women have been constructed as the ‘Other’, in relation to men who are established as the norm. These are ideologically constructed and they maintain social inequality and make male discourse paramount and female side to it subsidiary. These ideas have been opposed by contemporary feminist scholars. The notion of hegemonic masculinity was created by Buchwald et al. (2005) which explains the social power of the dominant forms of masculinity and the marginalisation of women and non-hegemonic men. This conceptualization is important when analyzing Promising Young Woman, since the script shows many types of masculinity, ranging from the obvious predator to the seemingly “nice” guy, all of which continue to reinforce the patriarchy.

Gender inequity occurs when the distribution of resources, opportunities and social power is unequal. Gender inequality is thus created by the institutions and cultural practices that privilege the man's side of the equation and diminish the feminine side (Lorber, 2010). In a similar way, Hooks (2000) argues that sexism is a form of oppression which benefits people in power and disadvantages women and other marginalised groups. Such disparities are entrenched in the everyday encounters, institutional practices and cultural imagery of socially constructed gender roles. In the literary or cinematic context, feminist critics analyze the relationship of the narrative with the male-dominated power structure (Tong, 2009). Feminist criticism focuses on revealing social processes that allow inequalities to be legitimized and/or reproduced, and to promote more balanced depictions of women. Feminist theory therefore offers an important lens for examining texts of critique to gender oppression and questioning the power dynamics.

2.2 Feminist film theory & visual representation

Feminism in Film theory began in the 1970s, when women were under-represented and objectified in Hollywood Films. In the context of traditional cinema, scholars noted that depictions of women as passive objects of men's desire contrasted with the portrayal of men as active subjects in charge of the storyline. The male gaze is a concept from Mulvey (1975) that is still central to this critique as it theorizes the way that classical cinema constructs pleasure around the male viewer's viewing of the woman as an object. According to Mulvey, the cinema apparatus tries to place the viewer in a male perspective, leaving the female to become an object. This objectification takes place in a number of ways, including camera movement, editing, and the organization of the narrative (Mulvey, 1975). Berger (1972) makes a similar observation that “men act, women appear”, recognizing the unequal power dynamics in the patriarchal visual culture in which women are displayed for men to see and consume.

In understanding why women are treated as objects instead of being recognized as autonomous subjects, an objectification theory is useful. According to Nussbaum (1995) the process of objectification is the act of treating a person as an object instead of seeing the person as a human being. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) support this point by suggesting that women are often judged by their appearance instead of their performance that this results in self-objectification, psychological distress and low self-esteem. Modern feminist writers have disputed such stereotypical images and have singled out scripts that break out of the mould. Smelik (1998) suggests that the male gaze can be countered with images of women as subjects who can act, resist and change. Feminist criticism also seeks to uncover oppression, as Thornham (1999) argues, but also to seek out ways of empowerment and social change. Such changes have created opportunities for the emergence of women-centered stories which have challenged the concept of patriarchy and provided alternative concepts of gender relations. Cassandra's performance and resistance could be considered as a rejection of the traditional gender representation, which can be seen in Promising Young Woman as it actively rejects the traditional male-view of womanhood.

2.3 Rape culture theory

Rape culture theory was emerged from second wave feminist study on the normalisation, excusing and perpetuation of rape in society. The feminist theorists believe that sexual assault must be considered not just as a crime but as a social injustice in general. Brownmiller (1975) theorized that rape is a way for men to show their supremacy over the women, and is as much a personal attack as it is a political tool of control. Buchwald et al. (2005) define rape culture as a society that “encourages cultural values, institutional policies, and social norms that normalize sexual violence. Such cultures focus on the victim's behavior instead of what the perpetrator is doing, and then they deflect blame for the crime from the perpetrator. The survivors might be exposed to doubt, blame, and social stigma, while the perpetrators might be exposed to sympathy, protection, or a lower level of accountability” (Buchwald et al., 2005; Koss et al., 1994).

One of the hallmarks of rape culture is victim blaming. Burt (1980) believes that rape myths perpetuate victim blaming attitudes by providing a reason for sexual violence based upon the circumstances of women's decisions, dress, or behavior. These myths foster mistrust of the victim, rationalize perpetrator's actions. In addition, by blaming the victim, the assumption of a just world is reinforced, enabling people to not acknowledge their own vulnerability (Janoff-Bulman, 1979). But this attitude leads to secondary victimization and discourage survivors from seeking justice (Campbell, 2005; Lonsway and Fitzgerald 1994). Another important topic in rape culture debate is consent. Muehlenhard et al. (2016) believe that consent is three-fold: voluntary, informed, and continuous. Sexual violence is any sexual act carried out without consent, including by means of force, violence, intimidation, manipulation or when a person is incapacitated. MacKinnon (1989) argues that sexual violence is a manifestation of general power imbalances.

Another important issue in rape culture is normalisation of sexual violence. Kelly (1988) suggests that there is a continuum of sexual victimization ranging from harassment, intimidation, assault to rape. This continuum shows how different types of abuse are related to each other in a system of oppression. Recent study has begun to look at digital technologies and social media as both a perpetuation and a critique of rape culture (Salter, 2017). Promising Young Woman addresses these theories by depicting victim-blaming, institutional failure and normalizing attitudes towards sexual violence.

2.4 Trauma, memory, and psychological consequences

The perspective of trauma theory is a powerful way to gain understanding of the psychological effects of loss, injustice and violence. The field of trauma studies began in psychology and psychiatry but has since ventured into literary and cultural studies to explore the representation of trauma in the narrative. Normal memory functioning is disrupted with trauma, and memories become intrusive and are replayed in disturbing and repetitive ways (Van der Kolk and Van der Hart, 1995). Traumatic memory is not as complete as normal memory, in that it is not fully engaged in conscious memory during the trauma, and thus might be experienced as haunting long after the event. Trauma is not a forgotten experience over time, but rather a repeated one (Caruth (1996), who uses the terms to refer to symptoms, feelings, and actions. This idea has been significant in literary studies and helps to interpret the narrative as a representation of trauma, the one that is repeated, fragmented, silent and absent (Caruth, 1996; Felman and Laub, 1992).

Furthermore, trauma theorists draw links between the suffering of individuals and the larger social structures. Alexander (2004) argues that trauma can be seen as psychological as well as cultural and social phenomenon that emerges from a response to a collective trauma. The same goes for trauma's influence on personal and collective memory, which doesn't always resolve, as LaCapra (2001) points out. Trauma, memory and identity have received a lot of attention in trauma studies. Freud (1917) suggested that unresolved grief can result in psychiatric symptoms involving ongoing psychological connections with the deceased through the repetition of memories. Neimeyer (2001) continues this idea and proposes that symbolic interaction can be used to reconstruct meaning with the deceased in mourning. This is because memory is an important conduit for the transmission of trauma across the lifespan of identity and behavior

Herman (1992) offers a base for understanding the psychological impact of trauma and the need for safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection with the life of ‘normal’ living. Recent trauma study has focused on the connection between trauma and narrative, which implies story-telling is one way in which trauma can be processed (Herman, 1992; Van der Kolk, 2014). Cassandra's trauma is shown in the script Promising Young Woman by the persistence of memories, repeated confrontations and the failure to move on, which embody theoretical ideas of traumatic repetition and grief unresolved.

2.5 Gender performativity theory

Theory of Gender Performativity is a compelling analysis by Judith Butler of how gender is performed, policed and subverted in narrative and visual texts. Butler (1990) rejects the idea that gender is a natural biological fact, and instead proposes that it is a performative act—a repetition of gestures, behaviors, and visual cues which gives the appearance of an enduring gendered self. This perspective, when applied to script and textual analysis, moves beyond a traditional focus on women as victims of patriarchal oppression to women as active agents who can mimic, disrupt and weaponize gender expectations to challenge systemic power.

The framework of Gender Performativity has three core concepts that will be operationalized as an analytical method: normative performance, subversive parody, and strategic disruption. Normative performance looks at characters who take on society's enforced “heteronormative matrix,” which are the rigid cultural films for what it means to be feminine (passive) or masculine (authoritative). Subversive parody, on the other hand, examines the characters’ intentional hyperbole of these roles, revealing their artificiality. If a character plays a hyper-feminine or vulnerable role, they are doing so as a tactic to get some strategic advantage over oppressors, using society's gender assumptions as a disguise. Lastly, strategic disruption points are the moments in the story when a character suddenly breaks this performed character. The character's sudden collapse of the act reveals the constructedness of gender expectations, and invites both the actor and the audience to confront the power dynamics at play.

In Promising Young Woman (2020), Cassandra's actions are a sophisticated subversion of performative gender roles. Cassandra's weekly practice of staggering in nightclubs and pretending to be quite drunk is a conscious enactment of the “vulnerable woman,” the one who is supposed to be available for male exploitation in the world of patriarchy. On the other hand, the script reveals the chivalrous and protective male entitlement scripts men like Paul, Jez, and Ryan play to the hilt, all in the name of the “Nice Guy”. The analytical turning point is when the subversive pivot takes place, when Cassandra suddenly loses her intoxicated affect, moves into a fully sober voice and faces her potential assailants. Cassandra's use of Butlerian subversion is the weaponization of the performative helplessness of femininity, using pastel hues, nurse outfits, blonde hair ribbons, and other visual cues of submissive innocence as a Trojan horse to take down the entitlement of the patriarchy from the inside.

In a multi-theoretical study, Gender Performativity Theory is used as an operational link between systemic power structures and individual psychological trauma. Patriarchy creates the structural inequalities, and rape culture gives the justifications for sexual violence, but Gender Performativity is the way in which these are enacted and maintained through the behavioural films of everyday life. In addition, it tracks the way that Cassandra's traumatised past becomes an active resistance. Cassandra employs the inversion of gender expectatio as a series of performative lures, calculated traps, in her traumatic repetition.

2.6 Feminist resistance

Modern feminist writers have applied Butler's concepts to study how women have reacted to the power of men in terms of agency and self-definition. According to Ahmed (2017), feminist resistance can be manifested as rejecting social expectations and making others aware of injustices that they may not be aware. Banet-Weiser (2018) suggests that the modern feminist empowerment story relies on interventions, self-determination, and challenges to the institutional authority. These approaches highlight that resistance is not only a response; it can also be proactive and transformative.

Literary and filmic contexts provide rich opportunities for the analysis of gender performativity for characters who perform or challenge stereotypical gender expectations. These depictions include how gender norms are formed and how resistance can be achieved. Feminist stories challenge the assumptions of patriarchy through disruptive actions, and advocate for more equitable power relationships. Through Cassandra's performance of vulnerability and femininity and a sobriety that exposes the predatory nature of the “nice guy” persona and the victim's role, Promising Young Woman serves as an example of this.

Overall, the theoretical framework of Promising Young Woman is a multi-layered, interconnected system that each theory informs about and builds on to begin to make sense of the critique of gendered violence in the film. The overarching structural analysis is based upon the concept of Patriarchy and Gender Inequality (Millett, 1970; Walby, 1990), which defines the relationship between male privilege, entitlement and authority in interpersonal relations and in formal institutions. This systemic disparity is manifested through the social logics of Rape Culture Theory (Brownmiller, 1975; Buchwald et al., 2005), which include victim-blaming, witness silence, and institutional self-preservation, which all serve to protect the perpetrator, normalize sexual misconduct, and obscure predatory behavior behind the culturally benign “Nice Guy” facade.

Socio-structural environment is visualised and narrativised as Feminist Film Theory (Berger, 1972; Mulvey, 1975) and Gender Performativity Theory (Butler, 1990). Although women are traditionally the objects of the “male gaze” in cinema, Emerald Fennell turns the camera back onto the male predators. Cassandra shows gender performativity in order to challenge the patriarchal assumptions about women's bodies. Through an intentional act of hyper-femininity, submissiveness, and extreme intoxication, Cassandra plays into the behavioral tropes upon which rape culture feeds to justify rape. When she exposes her total sobriety, she breaks the performative illusion, disarming the perpetrator and making Butlerian performativity a performative tool of feminist intervention and exposure (Ahmed, 2017; Banet-Weiser, 2018).

Lastly, Trauma Theory (Caruth, 1996; Herman, 1992; Van der Kolk and Van der Hart, 1995) provides the internal psychological motivation for Cassandra's actions, and answers the question of why she engages in these performative traps. Cassandra is a woman who suffers from unintegrated grief and the psychological residue of her best friend, Nina's gang rape and suicide. Her weekly encounters are an effort to rehearse and rehearse the situation of Nina's attack in a safe environment. Cassandra's defiant refusal to conform to society's expectations of moving on, which would involve society's collective forgetting of Nina's death and her institutional erasure, becomes retributive justice, forcing society to face its collective responsibility in sustaining sexual violence.

3 Methodology

Textual analysis research approach is used in this research to investigate how patriarchy, rape culture, trauma and female resistance are represented in Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020). This approach is suitable for a study that is intended to interpret meanings, themes, and ideologies in textual data, rather than numerical measurement. It allows for a detailed analysis of language, story and symbol that can provide an understanding of complex social phenomena, as mentioned by Creswell (2014). The method is appropriate for the goal of the study of the construction and the critic of gendered power relations in the script.

3.1 Primary source

The study was conducted from the script Promising Young Woman. The script was obtained and used as a basic text source for the analysis of the script, written by Fennell (2020). This study examines some key aspects of the script's narrative, dialogue, and character relations that directly address issues of sexual violence, victim-blaming, complicity of institutions, trauma, gender performance, and resistance. The script is the most direct source of dialogue and narrative structure, the two units of analysis for this study. Special attention is paid to key scenes with the presence of the woman, symbolic figure Nina Fisher, Dean Walker, Al Monroe, Madison, Ryan and all of the men who represent the patriarchal attitudes. Textual elements are used in this analysis to highlight the characteristics of the script's depiction of rape culture and feminist response to rape culture.

3.2 Secondary sources

The secondary sources were also consulted for this study, apart from the primary source material, in support of the theoretical interpretation. These include scholarly books, peer reviewed journal articles, and academic work on Feminist Theory, Rape Culture Theory, Trauma Theory, and Gender Performativity Theory. These sources provide conceptual frameworks to analyse the thematic issues of the script and place the analysis in the context of other scripts and the larger discussions of gender inequality, sexual violence, institutional failure and the trauma in script. The secondary sources also contribute in articulating the research gap and how the study contributes to the existing study on Promising Young Woman.

3.3 Textual analysis method

The data analysis techniques used in this study are mainly of textual analysis. A qualitative research technique that interprets the meaning of a text, such as a written, visual or audiovisual text, by examining the language, structure, symbolism, and ideology contained within the text. According to McKee (2003), textual analysis is a technique used to find out how meaning is developed in texts in specific cultural and social contexts. This study uses textual analysis to examine the portrayal of masculinity and femininity, power dynamics, and trauma in Promising Young Woman. Analysis of ideology in character behaviour, dialogue and in the development of the narration.

3.4 Sampling and selection criteria

The scenes and dialogues were chosen for analysis due to their direct connection with the research goals. The following were included: (1) scenes of gender inequality, male entitlement, or institutional sexism; (2) conversations that involve victim blaming, witness silence, or normalization of sexual violence; (3) scenes of Cassandra's strategic performance of femininity or resistance; (4) narratives aspects of trauma, memory, or psychological suffering; and (5) confrontations with perpetrators or institutional figures. Only scenes which directly addressed these themes, or expanded on points already made, were included. The selection process was based on the theoretical frameworks to be able to analyse the goals of the research.

3.5 Data analysis procedure

A multi-theoretical framework, which consisted of Feminist Theory, Rape Culture Theory, Trauma Theory, and Gender Performativity Theory was used for analysis. Patriarchy and its critique, as well as its representation in a form of male privilege and institutional sexism and gender inequality, were analyzed using feminist theory. Rape Culture Theory was used to explore the normalization, minimization and victim blaming of rape and the silence of the witnesses and the failure of the institutions. Using Trauma Theory (Caruth, 1996; Herman, 1992), the psychological and emotional effects of sexual violence, loss and bereavement were examined, depicted through the character of Cassandra and the lack of the character of Nina. The theory of gender performativity (Butler 1990) was used to examine the act of femininity that is performed strategically by Cassandra as a way to subvert the expectations of patriarchy.

The analytical method they used was the close reading of the script to locate the evidence that is relevant to the analysis. Quotes from the excerpts were grouped into themes: patriarchy and male entitlement, rape culture and victim-blaming, institutional complicity, trauma and memory, and female resistance. These categories were then analyzed in light of the selected theories. An examination of the script's construction of meaning and the challenge to gender-based oppression was conducted through an analysis of dialogue, narrative structure, repetition and symbolic representation. Findings were triangulated across the various scenes and characters to ensure analytical rigor, by identifying patterns and themes across the different sources.

4 Results and discussion

One of the most interesting findings of this study is the portrayal of patriarchy as a social structure that is entrenched and upheld by both individuals and institutions namely male individuals and institutions that maintain the entryway of male privilege. Male entitlement is all over the script and is a normal and common way of social interaction. It does not just point to the presence of “deviant” individuals as the cause of sexual violence, but also shows how the presence of patriarchy is embedded in the way gender, power and sexuality are taken for granted in everyday life.

Promising Young Woman's narrative structure is not an account of individual, idiosyncratic misdeeds, but a description of a structural condition that is maintained by the routine and institutional complicity of men's entitlement. The script challenges the liberal “bad apple” model of sexual violence and shows how patriarchal norms are systematically built into the fabric of social life as a normal and unchallengeable reality.

The first sign of male entitlement is the everyday encounters between the “Nice Guys” that Cassandra encounters in nightlife spaces. Men such as Paul and Jez see predatory behavior not as an act of violence, but as a protective act or as a mutual choice. Paul's anticipatory victim-blaming (“asking for it” Fennell, 2020, p. 3) is a patriarchal move that places all of the blame and control of the body on the shoulders of women. At the same time, Jez's obsession with the “safety” of Cassandra's body as she strips him of his clothing (Fennell, 2020, p. 9) reveals the predatory entitlement of men cloaked in chivalrous concern. Jez does not imagine himself as an abuser as heteronormative dating scripts allow men to have sexual access to the vulnerable body of a woman. A reckoning with the overlap of ordinary male sociability and non-consensual exploitation is forced when Cassandra suddenly comes out of the fog of her intoxication, revealing her sobriety and the destabilization of power.

In addition to individual interactions, the script addresses directly Institutional Betrayal Theory (Smith and Freyd, 2014). and how academic institutions play an active role in perpetuating rape culture. During Cassandra's confrontation with Dean Walker regarding the historical gang rape of Nina Fisher, the Dean's immediate failure to recall the female victim contrasted sharply with her glowing recollection of Al Monroe as a “nice guy” and “very smart” student (Fennell, 2020, p. 67) exposes an institutional habitus engineered to protect privileged male talent. The university administration is in a “gendered ‘credibility gap’” (MacKinnon, 1989) where the evidentiary “he said/she said” impasse (Fennell, 2020, p. 69) is a constant reality.

Moreover, the university's approach to sexual assault cases as administrative hassles normalizes the systemic harm, as it receives “one or two a week” during party season (Fennell, 2020, p. 69). The university polices female risk taking (with a heavy emphasis on Nina's drinking), and shields male perpetrators from reputational and legal sanctions. The script shows that the neutrality of institutions is a chimera, that academic and legal institutions are self-preserving mechanisms that actively reinforce the power of the aggressor, that they silence the victim and that they immunize the aggressor.

Promising Young Woman is a critique of rape culture that shows how the processes of victim-blaming, spectator laughter, and social minimization work in tandem to normalize sexual violence (Boswell and Spade, 1996; Sanday, 1990). The script highlights that sexual violence is not just perpetuated by the person committing the act, but also by a system of passive bystanders and trivializing cultural narratives that surround it.

One of the key mechanisms of this normalization is the collective entertainment of sexual assault. Nina's assault was not a secret, hidden crime, but rather a public display, over which “all were watching, laughing” (Fennell, 2020, p. 68). The spread of the assault video is a symptom of collective misogyny. The fact that Madison's confession was made later, after she realized that she could not understand how they could have watched the video and “thought it was funny” (Fennell, 2020, p. 104), is indicative of the role of peer groups in dehumanizing victims by using sexual violence as a common social ritual.

The dichotomy of predator and innocent bystander is complicated by the character of Ryan. Ryan's appearance in the assault video, his brief discomfort at the thought of it “Stop filming this!”, and then later his collective laughter (Fennell, 2020, p. 105) is a testament to the insidiousness of passive complicity. In the face of the challenge years later, Ryan resorts to the usual methods of neutralization: “We were kids” and “I don't remember” (Fennell, 2020, p. 107–108). These claims are rape myths that serve to normalize serious rape as a minor youthful indiscretion or collective amnesia.

Cassandra's weekly social experiment is a direct measure of the prevalence of this predatory consensus. Her observations show that it is not unusual for male predators to take advantage of performative vulnerability in order to gain sexual conquest, as she describes in her analyses of every week of the ostensibly “nice guy” (Fennell, 2020, p. 28). These guys always have the indignant response, such as Paul saying, “Why do you all have to ruin everything?” (Fennell, 2020, p. 83). This defense positions feminist responsibility as an unfair interference with the rights of men. The script therefore shows that the problem with rape culture is that society gives men a wide range of excuses and justifications to avoid moral responsibility.

The concept of Gender Performativity (Butler 1990) offers a useful lens to examine Cassandra's actions as a subversion of normative gender roles rather than a straightforward narrative of personal revenge. Butler's understanding of gender is not biological but a continuous repetition of acts, gestures, and postures that are reinforced by heteronormative structures. This binary matrix is a key component of rape culture, which builds female bodies up as passive, fragile, and available, while male bodies are built up as dominant, active, or chivalrous.

Cassandra's nightclub act is a parodic master class. She deliberately mimics an exaggerated hyper-visibility of the “drunk, helpless female body” by slurring her speech, dropping her head and pretending to have lost motor control. This calculated performance is examined from a Butlerian perspective to reveal the heteronormative rape culture that is activated by visual cues of the helplessness of women. Male predators interpret her expressed vulnerability as a call for a non-consensual sexual encounter, rather than a need for medical or social services.

The climax of this strategy is the sudden departure of Cassandra from the script. What she did was to sit up straight, to drop her slurred inflection and to ask, “What are you doing?” The naturalized link between femininity and vulnerability is immediately broken when Cassandra appears on the scene (Fennell, 2020, p. 10). This abrupt turn de-naturalizes the heterosexist script, taking away the predator's sense of female passivity and plausible deniability. Cassandra uses what Butler describes as a “parodic repetition” — she plays the part of the weak female to subvert the heteronormative trap that these men have set for women.

In addition, Cassandra utilizes aesthetics as a weapon in her broader effort of institutional disruption. She deliberately occupies hyper-feminine aesthetic markers (wearing pastels, floral dresses, blonde hair ribbons, pink aprons) which patriarchal culture codes as docile, innocent and non-threatening (Mulvey, 1975). Cassandra's hyper-feminine presentation is a tactical disguise in order to infiltrate hostile space. From the perspective of an innocent former student in order to confront Madison to the exaggerated nurse costume at Al Monroe's bachelor party, Cassandra exemplifies Butler's article that gender is a man-made, highly malleable entity that can be strategically manipulated and politically resisted.

The results show that Cassandra Thomas in Promising Young Woman is not simply a typical vigilante, but rather a “Feminist Killjoy” (Ahmed, 2017) who is a “willful subject who actively refuses to make the world more comfortable, to forgive the violence of systems, or to follow the norms of female success” (2010: 9). Cassandra's choice is not to marry, not to pursue a career, and not to have a family (Fennell, 2020, p. 34) is a radical rejection from a crime that her community actively wants to forget.

Cassandra's agency is mostly based on counter-memory and systemic confrontation. Her ledger is a tangible object to the counter-history, a record of the names of those who have done the harm and institutionalized it, challenging institutional amnesia. Cassandra's attempt to provoke an empathetic moment by confronting Dean Walker and leaving her in a state of terror about her own daughter (Fennell, 2020, p. 72) is just one example of how institutional figures usually only recognize harm when it relates to their own domestic sphere.

Trauma is the structure of Cassandra's resistance. The dead Nina Fisher is not on screen but is the driving force of the narrative. Cassandra's problem is not a mental illness that needs to be fixed, but a political choice not to tolerate violence without consequences. Cassandra symbolically breaks through the temporal distance by declaring “My name is Nina Fisher” (Fennell, 2020, p. 118) in her final encounter with Al Monroe and literally bringing the erased victim into the perpetrator's life.

The script's sad ending, however, brings a deep critique to liberal individualist notions of female empowerment. Cassandra tries to take her own revenge in Al Monroe's bachelor party, but it ends up killing her, as Al Monroe overpowers and suffocates her. This deadly twist reveals the practical boundaries of personal agency in a system of patriarchy. Personal vigilance, tactical performativity and righteous anger is not enough to counteract the raw physical and structural violence of male privilege.

Most importantly, the script does not directly replicate physical revenge as the ultimate means of retribution, but instead uses the state and legal systems as post-mortem means of retribution that Cassandra cleverly manipulated before her death. Cassandra arranges for the automatic transmission of evidence to attorney Jordan Green and notifies law enforcement, ensuring that Al Monroe's public arrest during his wedding. This resolution creates a strong theoretical paradox:

Strategic Victory which shows Cassandra is able to outwit the patriarchal network, using its own legal system to create public and legal consequences. Structural Failure which reveals the story is that individual female resistance cannot achieve justice on its own, but it needs state institutions, the very institutions that failed and degraded the victim.

As a result, Promising Young Woman isn't a straightforward feel-good fantasy of female empowerment. Rather, the script shows retributive justice as a tragic social protest. Cassandra's death is a reminder of the high price of silence in rape culture. Her death paved the way for a powerful message to the audience: although personal acts of resistance are effective in making people aware of institutional complicity, revenge is a destructive alternative to real structural change. Justice won through a woman's total destruction is not an easy victory for female agency, but a harsh indictment of a society that requires the total destruction of a victim before it will hold male perpetrators accountable.

5 Conclusion

Based on the integration of Feminist Theory, Rape Culture Theory, Trauma Theory and Gender Performativity Theory, this study looks at how patriarchy, rape culture, trauma and female resistance are represented in Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman. The analysis shows that the script is a strong critique of the systems of power that are centred on men and gender inequality that is experienced in society. Male entitlement works both in the individual action and institutional practice, which allows perpetrators to escape punishment and the victims to be ignored. The script illustrates, through characters such as Al Monroe, Dean Walker, Ryan, and several predatory men, that the future, opportunities and reputation of men is valued higher than the safety, dignity and justice of women.

The study, moreover, reveals that there is rape culture within the script's social environment. Sexual violence is minimised and excused through a combination of victim-blaming, witness silence and normalisation of predatory behaviour, and institutional neglect. Victim blaming happens and the perpetrator and the bystander avoid taking responsibility through denial, justification and social acceptance. Importantly, the script does not show sexual violence as an isolated incident, but rather an issue that impacts many. This is in line with Buchwald et al.’s (2005) definition of rape culture as “a society in which cultural beliefs, institutional practices and social attitudes normalize sexual violence”.

Moreover, Cassandra is portrayed is as a feminist agent of resistance. Through her use of gendered norms of passivity and silence, her performance of femininity and her pursuit of accountability, she disrupts the expectations of women to be passive and accommodating in a patriarchal society. The script represents agency as women's ability to challenge injustice, to remember, and to defy those who protect the perpetrators. Cassandra's act of vulnerability and drunkenness is a conscious evasion of what was expected of her as a woman—a “parodic” repetition of feminine norms that makes them apparent as “manufactured”. Through this deployment of performative gender, she exposes the predatory rationale behind acts of “niceness” on men, and makes them confront their actions.

The study also shows that trauma, memory and grief are the emotional underpinnings of the drama. The emptiness of Nina's body is a potent reminder of unhealed wounding, and the psychological torment of Cassandra is a call out to sexual violence and systemic failure. The tragedy of her quest for revenge is a protest against rape culture and collective social responsibility. The script's conclusion, however, makes a straightforward interpretation of revenge as empowerment or resistance challenging. Cassandra's death and the slow response to justice imply that although individual resistance is important, it cannot counter systemic injustice. It is important, because this tension gives a voice to the boundaried nature of retribution and makes it clear that resistance is required.

5.1 Theories and applications

It is a theoretical contribution in several aspects to feminist film study. First of all, it shows how to use a combination of theories (Feminist Theory, Rape Culture Theory, Trauma Theory and Gender Performativity Theory) to analyze a script's ideology and its critique of it. The current study reveals that they can complement each other to shed light on the multifaceted nature of the script's exploration of gender-based oppression. The study focuses on interconnected - patriarchy, rape culture, trauma, and resistance.

Second, the study can be thought of as an example of how to use Butler's theory to understand cinema's depictions of resistance. Second, the paper makes a contribution to study on gender performativity because it shows how Butler's theory can be employed for the analysis of cinema's depictions of resistance. Cassandra's performance of femininity and vulnerability is a palpable example of the resistance of gender norms to be subverted for political ends.

Third, the study will add to trauma studies by analysing the representational possibilities for the long-term consequences of sexual violence within the script narrative. Themes of unresolved grief and traumatic memory, as discussed in theory by Caruth (1996) and Herman (1992), are exemplified in the way that the script depicts the issues that Cassandra has to face with her trauma and her memory of it.

The practically implications of this study are the factors contributing to understanding the relationship between popular cinema and contemporary social issues. Promising Young Woman is a cultural intervention that aims to inform, raise awareness and question the audience's complicity with sexual violence and institutional failure. The success of the script and the critical acclaim supports the idea that there is a strong demand for feminist scripts that will not leave the viewers with an easy, happy ending; instead, it will force them to deal with uncomfortable truths. Implications for script makers, educators and activists who wish to use media as a means of social change.

5.2 Study limitations

There are a few limitations in this study. First, it is limited to a particular script and not investigates how others audiences received the script or how it relates to other scripts or wider script discussions on the ending. Future study may focus on how the audience understands the script and how the script's message relates to other cultures. Secondly, the study is mostly textual, lacking empirical information from viewers and script makers. Thirdly, it is based on the script, instead of visual elements of the script. The script is the best place to study dialogue and plot, but visual elements, such as cinematography, sets and props, and acting, also help to convey meaning. Future studies might explore the impact of visual aesthetics on reinforcing or complicating the thematic concerns identified in this study.

5.3 Future directions for research

There are a number of avenues for future research. Comparative studies might try to look at the ways in which Promising Young Woman compares to other feminist films dealing with sexual violence and institutional failure, like The Invisible Woman, The Assistant, or She Said. Second, reception studies can explore the interpretation of the ending of the script by various audiences and their perception of whether it is empowering or pessimistic. Third, research should investigate how the script connects and influenced the present-day social movements, such as MeToo and TimesUp, and the feminist discourse. Fourth, intersections of gender and race, gender and class, and gender and sexuality could be analyzed for how they are addressed or not addressed in the script. Lastly research could look at the industrial context of the script - the production, marketing and reception of the script in the present day script industry.

To sum up, Promising Young Woman is an important cultural document that addresses pressing concerns of the present regarding sexual violence, institutional inadequacies, and feminist opposition. The script's layered depiction of trauma, memory, revenge, and accountability invites viewers to see and consider the systemic nature of gender-based oppression and how they can be part of the solution. This study shows the benefits of using the different theories together to understand similar types of texts and it reveals new discussion for feminist film criticism, trauma studies and cultural representation of gender-based violence.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

Edited by: Fatih Özel, Uppsala University, Sweden

Reviewed by: Margana Margana, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia

I Gusti Ayu Mahatma Agung, Udayana University, Indonesia