When Feminism Becomes a Creative Premise
Recently, a clip of Wen Qi circulated online. In the interview, she remarked that many people feel certain female centered films are too sharp or too deliberate in speaking for women. She said she has never felt that way. Instead, she believes it is still not enough. Only when feminism becomes something ordinary can we truly move beyond gender and speak about other issues. Women have long carried anger. They need to express it, to make films out of it, to articulate the harm they have endured. Only then can they begin to explore other questions. So for her, it is never enough. It must continue.
At first glance, this appears to be a compelling argument. It aligns neatly with a contemporary understanding of feminist art, where intensified expression is seen as a necessary phase, and where the eventual goal is to dissolve gender as a determining framework. Yet this is precisely where a fundamental question emerges. If the ultimate aim of feminism is to become invisible, why must it be constantly emphasized at the point of creation?
Wen Qi’s logic rests on a key assumption, that more expression will naturally lead to normalization. But art has never fully followed a path where quantity transforms into quality. An increase in expression does not necessarily deepen experience or perspective. More often, it leads to the solidification of expressive patterns. In other words, when a creator begins with the intention of making “a feminist film,” and only then constructs the story, the narrative ceases to emerge organically. It becomes something designed in advance.
Looking at many contemporary feminist films, a pattern becomes visible. Male figures are positioned as oppressors, female figures as victims. Characters rarely gain complexity, and narratives rarely achieve greater depth. Instead, the same expression is repeated in different forms. This suggests that expression is being reproduced, not developed. When most works rely on the same conflict structure of gender opposition, it gradually becomes formulaic. Creators no longer need to think their way into the material. They are already operating within a predetermined logic. Art, which once emerged from observing life and forming ideas, becomes displaced. What was once experience generating expression becomes expression predefining experience.
Viewers familiar with women centered cinema will recognize Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Over the course of three and a half hours, with fixed long takes, it follows three days in the life of a middle aged widow. It is often hailed as one of the greatest feminist films in history. Yet what many overlook is that Chantal Akerman herself stated that she did not intend to make a feminist film. The protagonist could just as easily have been a man. What Akerman explores is time, repetition, and the erosion of everyday life. The film is built on subtle variations within habitual actions. It does not originate from a declared position.
The same can be said of Wanda by Barbara Loden. Rather than presenting a figure of resistance, it portrays an inability to resist, a failure to locate oneself, and a gradual process of self erosion. Or consider the work of Maya Deren, whose films center on dreamlike embodiments of perception and physical experience, not an explicit feminist framework. All of these works were later incorporated into feminist discourse, but they did not begin there. They began with experience, with body, time, relation, and daily life. Only afterward did audiences recognize and interpret their gendered dimensions.
This reveals a crucial distinction. Earlier works offered open experiences that were later read as feminist. Some contemporary works begin with feminism, and then organize experience around it.
When this order is reversed, the internal structure of creation shifts as well. Anger is no longer the result of experience, but a pre assigned emotional direction. Characters no longer emerge from contradiction, but carry predefined positions. Narratives no longer unfold toward the unknown, but work to confirm conclusions that already exist. This may explain why many viewers have grown fatigued with contemporary films labeled as feminist. They do not invite audiences into experience, but direct them toward a position.
This raises another question. Do audiences have the right to feel resistant to such narratives? And if they do, what does that mean for creators? If viewers cannot fully accept the structure of a narrative, how can they be persuaded to accept its ideas?
When an expression requires a label to validate itself, it already exists in an unstable state. The problem in art has never been that expression is insufficient. It is that expression has become overly determined. Feminism remains essential, but perhaps the issue is not that there is too little of it, but that it still depends on emphasis in order to exist.
The most powerful feminist films are not those that declare themselves as speaking for women. They are those in which experience itself replaces position.
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2026.03.22