Gender review on Joyland

Genre: Queer, Drama, Narrative. Language/s: Originally- URDU and Punjabi. Subtitles-English

It addresses the issues that are considered taboo in our society, such as transgender romance, older adults' need for love and a sense of belonging, and what constitutes an alpha man.

Main Idea: The movie hits the patriarchal mentality of Pakistani society regarding men, women, and intersex people and their idea of identity. It also depicts the realities of regular Pakistanis having struggles with their unidentified desires for intimacy, freedom to living the life they desire and with developing the characteristics of an alpha guy to fit in with society.

Key Messages: It taps the unidentified emotions and feelings of intimacy of older adults, i.e., after the death of significant others, they still can yearn for sexual gratification, the need for love, and a sense of belongingness, which is typically disregarded in the case of women e.g., Fayyaz Auntie’s desire for remarrying Rana Sahab.

It also reflects the issue of being obliged to marry despite being aware of their sexual orientation, i.e., Haider was not attracted to his wife as he married her out of deference to societal norms. Due to this, his wife was implicitly exploited as her sexual desire was not satisfied, which caused her to turn to other coping mechanisms, i.e., masturbation, for which she was labelled as characterless.

It demonstrates that to gain appreciation and fulfill the society role of an alpha man, a man needs to be virile, a job holder, and dominant on his wife. However, if he is vulnerable and exhibits feminine traits, he should be treated like a woman and be expected to do household duties, i.e., cooking, childminding, cleaning, etc.

Main Concepts from Gender Glossary:

Gender bias as opposed to women, society is more accepting of older male adults getting remarried i.e., Fayyaz auntie was criticized openly for showing up her desire of getting married at later age of her life.

Gender based division of labor as to align with sociocultural pattern we separate certain task for male and female. If it reverses, we feel threatened and question the person’s existence i.e., happened in Haider’s case where he was bullied, rebuked by his brother and father for not being or working like them.

Social norms as to follow this, Haider had to marry against his preference, and Mumtaz (his wife) had to be silent about her sexual needs since she was a woman and endured the stigma of being characterless for choosing the unacceptable way, i.e., masturbation, to satisfy her need but remained silent as speaking up is not conforming to society.

Symbolic-interactionist Perspective: According to this, gender develops through how people behave with each other. Here, Haider’s interaction was more inclined towards women i.e. his brother’s wife, nieces, being at home all the time, and not symbolizing with the characters of an alpha man such as being muscular and dominating on his wife. That’s why he was seen as being unable to win societal appreciation and as being vulnerable to being mistreated and reprimanded by his father and brother every time.

Conflict Theory: From this perspective, we understand the inequality of freedom on a gender basis to express the needs for love and sexual intimacy at an older age. Here, Fayyaz auntie’s son scolded her for expressing her needs for marriage to Rana Sahab (Haider’s father), while no one questioned the Rana Sahab for showing his desire for marriage and sexual intimacy. Secondly, we regard it as unacceptable for women and avoid the conflict by keeping their yearns unnoticed. From this perspective, we see that man is seen as the determinant of woman because of his power. Here in Mumtaz’s case (Haider’s wife), she was unable to express her sexual desires to her husband since initiating the intercourse is considered as male determinant, not a female determinant. And men have the power to assassinate a woman's character because they are seen as powerful and the in charge of women's life in society.