THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MYTH OF YOUTH AND BEAUTY IN CINEMA: A STRUCTURALIST AND SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE FILM SUBSTANCE

Year 2025, Volume: 15 Issue: 4, 1640 - 1655, 01.10.2025

Gamze Yetkin Cılızoğlu , Zeynep Benan Dondurucu , Aysel Çetinkaya

https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1761339

Abstract

The aesthetic pressures individuals experience through gender norms and popular culture contribute to beauty and youth becoming a social ideal, particularly for women. In this context, women attempt to preserve their youth and beauty through cosmetic products, aesthetic and surgical procedures, diet culture, and fitness to achieve social acceptance and be perceived as desirable. The persistence of this effort is reinforced by the construction of a distorted body perception standardized by popular cultural mediums such as advertisements, mass media, social media, and cinema. In this study, the film Substance is examined within the framework of myth and binary opposition construction, which underpins Lévi-Strauss's structuralist approach as it critically interrogates the ideals of youth and beauty imposed on women, and Roland Barthes’s semiotic framework based on denotation and connotation. The analysis reveals that binary oppositions such as youth vs. old age, natural beauty vs. artificial beauty, and control of the female body vs. women’s autonomy are constructed through the two female characters and articulated via denotative and connotative signs in the film.

Keywords

Body Politics , Lévi-Strauss , Structuralism , Binary Oppositions , Film Analysis

GENÇLİK VE GÜZELLİK MİTİNİN SİNEMADAKİ İNŞASI: CEVHER FİLMİ ÜZERİNE YAPISALCI VE GÖSTERGEBİLİMSEL BİR ANALİZ

Abstract

Toplumsal cinsiyet normları ve popüler kültür aracılığıyla bireylerin maruz kaldığı estetik baskılar, özellikle kadınlar için, güzellik ve gençliğin toplumsal bir ideal hâline gelmesine neden olmaktadır. Bu bağlamda kadınlar, toplumsal kabul görmek ve arzulanmak amacıyla, kozmetik ürünler, estetik ve cerrahi müdahaleler, diyet kültürü ve fitness yoluyla gençliklerini ve güzelliklerini korumaya çalışmaktadır. Bu çabanın sürekliliği, reklamlar, kitle iletişim araçları, sosyal medya ve sinema gibi popüler kültürel mecralar tarafından standartlaştırılan çarpık bir beden algısının inşasıyla pekiştirilmektedir. Bu çalışmada Substance filmi, Lévi-Strauss’un yapısalcı yaklaşımını temel alan mit ve ikili karşıtlık kurgusu ayrıca Roland Barthes’ın düzanlam ve yananlam temelli göstergebilimsel analiz yaklaşımı çerçevesinde incelenmektedir. Analiz, gençlik–yaşlılık, doğal güzellik–yapay güzellik ve kadın bedeni üzerinde kontrol–kadın özerkliği gibi ikili karşıtlıkların, filmdeki iki kadın karakter aracılığıyla inşa edildiğini ve bu karşıtlıkların düz ve yan anlamsal olarak göstergelerle ortaya konduğunu saptanmıştır.

Keywords

Beden Politikaları , Lévi-Strauss , Yapısalcılık , İkili Karşıtlıklar , Film Analizi

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