Woman Interrupted: A Foucauldian Reading of Gender, Madness, and Power in the Movies Girl, Interrupted and Unsane

Abstract

This article presents a Foucauldian reading of the movies Girl, Interrupted (1999) and Unsane (2018) which deal with women in psychiatric institutions. Building on Foucault’s conceptualization of asylums, the medical gaze, and confinement as a paradigm of power, the researchers study the female protagonists in the two movies as characters struggling with psychological issues stemming from their rejection of gender normativity. The experiences of Susanna and Sawyer in asylums are a reflection of a larger struggle against social expectations and sexual norms.