Cruel Optimism and Gender Identity: A Case Study of Jawani Phir Nahi Ani and Oye Motti in Contemporary Lollywood

This paper examines how Pakistani popular cinema reproduces a cruelly optimistic attachment to gender identity and thinness, where weight loss is imagined as the key to love, success, and social acceptance. Rather than surveying the entire industry, this study focuses on two emblematic case studies—Jawani Phir Nahi Ani (2015) and Oye Motti (2021)—to show how Lollywood normalises fatphobia through comic ridicule, makeover tropes, and exclusionary casting practices. The analysis reveals how fatness is framed not as an identity but as a flaw to be corrected, rendering overweight characters undesirable despite their talents or personalities. Thus, fatness is usually treated as an obstacle to social acceptance, marriage, and personal happiness; the very hope of inclusion becomes an instrument of exclusion, exemplifying Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism. In Berlant’s terms, cruel optimists always struggle to achieve unattainable fantasies of a better life that promise upward mobility.