In 500 days of summer, Kaplan's theory of the submissive female gaze is presented to a certain extent. Although the film is thrown primarily from Tom's point of view and how he sees the "relationship", the negative parts of his encounters with Summer can possibly be from her perspective. Summer is a dominant and independent character who takes on masculine qualities, reversing/challenging stereotypes of Hollywood cinema, therefore making Tom the subject instead of her. Summer adopts qualities of being a femme fe tale character, becoming the central aspect of the story line as opposed to being the subject.
There are specific parts of the film where the Male Gaze is clearly presented and conforms to the stereotypical Hollywood film. An example is the scene where Tom has sex with Summer for the first time and it breaks out into a massive dance scene in the middle of the street. Although this is a comical part of the film, it displays the male gaze on a large scale; a large celebration of Tom conquering Summer with his penis, making Summer the subject and Tom regain his masculinity. Another example is when Tom and Paul are talking about Summer and Paul is only interested in knowing the sexual details of their relationship, enforcing more ideas that the male gaze is a dominant aspect in Hollywood cinema.
Linda Williams suggests that when a woman becomes dominant in film, she usually pays for it and is punished. In 500 Days Of Summer, it's not Summer who's punished, but Tom. Summer adopts masculine qualities that make her independent, leaving Tom to be the fragile and emotional character. An example of this is when Tom and Summer are in the pancake house and she ends their "relationship", describing that their Sid and Nancy. When Tom argues this, Summer says that she is Sid, enforcing more ideas that her masculine qualities make her strong and independent, challenging Williams' theories seeing as Tom is the one who suffers emotional damage, not her.
