A feminist review of Lars Von Trier's Trilogy Of Depression

Sexism or gender discrimination, an ideology which advocates the argument that a gender is dominant over another, is an ongoing problem that has been confronting us for centuries. "What gender discrimination basically means is that the individuals in a society are treated unjustly due to their genders. In this sense, gender discrimination comes to mean that the individual suffers some sort of discrimination, exclusion or deprivation, based on socially structured gender roles and norms which purely prevent the him/her from enjoying the human rights. Gender discrimination is closely associated with the considerations, such as inequality to access the sources and opportunities, violence, inability to benefit from the basic services, limited engagement of woman in the working life and politics and the imbalanced power in the personal relations between the females and male. Therefore, the definition of gender discrimination involves the fact that the women in a society are deprived of basic services experiencing unequal conditions as opposed to men in terms of possessing the opportunities and sources, exposed to violence and rarely represented in the politics and business life. The scope of gender discrimination which causes the women are deprived of the opportunity to take part in daily living activities fully and freely includes various considerations, such as inability to participate in decision-making processes, inability to benefit from public benefits, living in insanitary conditions, inability to possess a proper home, facing obstacles in working life, being harassed or treated unfairly at the workplace, inability to become a member of unions and inability to join the union activities." (TMMOB, For Gender discrimination https://www.tmmob.org.tr/sayfa/cinsiyet-ayrimciligi-hakkinda) The concept of discrimination is sometimes seen among individuals, in the social norms and sometimes in the subjects handled in the press, on the internet media, on TV channels and in the cinema sector. In this sense, the theoretical approach, which helps with regards to cinema reading in treating the concept of sexism, is the 'Feminist Theory'. What 'Feminist Theory' that has developed over time addresses is the males' perspective in the female roles in the movies produced in the cinema industry operating in a male-dominated system. The concept of feminist review, which emerged in the cinema with a feminist ideology, opposes the sexist concept. The concept of feminist review on which the psychanalytic studies have a significant effect was developed on the analysis of the male/female roles depicted with drastic lines every now and then in the cinema. One of the most important examples in this subject is the hard-hitting trilogy of the Danish director Lars Von Trier who is known for Dogma 95 movement co-founded by him in 1995, in which he showed his own style; in which the man/woman discrimination can be seen in the sharpest way and the woman is marginalized and which has the intense characteristics of the concept of discrimination against women. The thesis which progresses based upon the concept of sexism discusses Lars Von Trier's Trilogy of Depression with the help of the 'Feminist Movie Review'. The thesis titled, 'Analysis of Lars Von Trier's Trilogy of Depression Feminist Review' firstly discusses the movie 'Antichrist, 2009', and then the movie 'Melancholia, 2011' and lastly the movies 'Nymphomaniac I-II, 2013' by means of the concept of a feminist theory. The thesis mainly focuses on how the Danish director Lars Von Trier reflected and analysed the woman effect in the 'Trilogy of Depression'. In this context, demonstrating that how the woman character in cinema is reflected to the audience as miserable and helpless is perhaps to analyse the fact that the main purpose of Tier was trying to hold the social hypocrisy against the audience, one way or another. In this sense, the movie of Lars Von Trier is discussed with a feminist methodology while the answers to the questions, 'Who is woman, why does she exist, is she a being more helpless than men intelligently, mentally and sexually? ', are addressed. Key Words: Feminist Film Review, Lars Von Trier, Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac