The Deconstruction Analyses of M. Butterfly

It can be claimed that the representations of femininity and masculinity in the cinema reinforce the dominant masculine discourse. Not only representations of femininity and masculinity, but also another dimension of the sovereign discourse about Eastern / Western societies in mainstream cinema. While East is depicted as powerful hegemonic, East is represented as a place that needs to be civilized. Furthermore, East is associated with femininity and the West with masculinity in the dominant discourse of the cinema. The film, M. Butterfly, reverses this hierarchical discourse formally. M. Butterfly was examined through the question of what power/identity is through taking into consideration of this reversed discourse of East/West and feminity/masculinity. The ambiguity of meaning was emphasized while questioning hegemony of West in this article. Moreover it was also aimed to analyze what forms of counter hegemony are while mentioning ambiguity of construction. The suicide of protagonist in M. Butterfly which is inspired of Madam Butterfly opera, was also taken into consideration while questioning what identity and gender are. This article is qualitative and deconstructive analysis was uses in the analysis of the film as a text. It was found that no structures were ultimately constructed in the film, and that the established structures were constantly changing