'Causeway' Explores Toxic Masculinity Through Its Protagonists
The message to take away from 'Causeway' is that toxic masculinity can manifest in anyone, no matter what their gender identity is.

A homicide occurred in a community in a certain city. A woman with no injuries on her body died in her bedroom. Everyone was at risk for a while. Captain Liu of the Interpol team investigated the case, and gradually all the people involved in the case surfaced. A husband who is busy with his career and rarely returns home; a weak and cute daughter who is studying abroad; a cousin who is ambitious and vainly trying to be a high-ranking cousin; a driver with a sleek and innocent face, and a mysterious female suspect in the driver's mouth.
The message to take away from 'Causeway' is that toxic masculinity can manifest in anyone, no matter what their gender identity is.
The “gay best friend”, an age-old trope, has been done in countless films and television series. Ranging from one-note (Sex and the City's Stanford and Mario) to nuanced (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss), the gay best friend exists to support and advise the main protagonist, with their conflicts swept to the side.
Treated like a granter of wishes for those earning out of retelling the same tragedy, Marilyn looks like she's caged in different stages of trauma for us to stare at, instead of someone we’ve finally allowed to rest in peace.
Facing the world with our fair share of uncertainties and/or apprehensions, many of which, sadly, may be well-founded, is nothing to sneeze at. Influenced and buffeted by the constant barrage of social media, fake news, and general upheaval present in our contemporary reality, what IS real and what's not becomes a blur.
A recent look at gender and racial diversity in film shows some signs of progress. However, white men still make up the vast majority of actors and directors in top-grossing films.