Abstract
In the preceding chapter, I discussed a highly commercialized zhuxuanlu production that emphasized the socialist spirit of submission to political leaders and regime. To obtain a more complete understanding of political subjectivity as depicted in films, in this chapter I explore three films that contain potentially subversive elements that challenge state power—East Palace, West Palace (東宫西宫), Lan Yu (藍宇), and Butterfly (蝴蝶). The common feature that draws these films together is their association of politically dissenting ideas with non-heteronormative sexuality. I maintain that the sexual and political taboos portrayed are interwoven within the present political and cultural milieu and therefore form a counterexample to proper Chineseness. These films suggest that the state allows only certain kinds of personal desires to break the surface, while all others are denied a place in the post-socialist, neo-liberal Chinese context. As seen in Chapter 5, a political subject has to embrace political leaders, and those subjects who do not fit the image of submissive patriotism may be considered verboten, as is the case with the protagonists depicted in the three films I analyze below. As these films are either shot underground or made without the intention of capturing the mainland market, they provide an angle from which to understand the type and salience of critical political subjectivity that can be screened in filmic productions that ignore or bypass China’s censorship system.
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Notes
Alvin Wong argues that the interregional borrowing, adaptation, and retranslation involved in the production of Butterfly destabilize easy definitions of Chinese, Taiwanese, and local Hong Kong identities. However, I maintain the opposite—that it is the unique adaptation of Butterfly that makes up a local Hong Kong identity. See Alvin Wong, “From the Transnational to the Sinophone: Lesbian Representations in Chinese-Language Films,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 16, no. 3 (2012): 307–22.
Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 150. Zhang Yuan’s previous efforts, the feature film Beijing Bastard and the documentary The Square, were only screened at international film festivals.
Homosexuality has been increasingly associated with the term “hooliganism” since this label was introduced in Criminal Law in 1979, even though it was not explicitly listed as a form of criminal action until a specific reference to the crime of hooliganism was made in 1997. See Travis Kong, Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi, and Golden Boy (New York: Routledge, 2010), 154–55.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).
Song Hwee Lim, Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 95.
Sebastian Veg, “Wang Xiaobo and the No Longer Silent Majority,” in The Impact of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, ed. Jean-Philippe Beja (New York: Routledge, 2011), 86–94.
Chris Berry, “East Palace, West Palace: Staging Gay Life in China,” Jump Cut 42 (1998): 85.
For a detailed analysis of the changes in literary writing and publishing in contemporary China, please refer to Shuyu Kong, Consuming Literature: Best Sellers and the Commercialization of Literary Products in Contemporary China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).
This loyalty contrasts with the main character in Hong Ying’s fictional Summer Betrayal. Summer Betrayal takes place after the June Fourth Event and follows the main character as she commits a double betrayal of both her government and her boyfriend. See Michael Berry, A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 309.
For example, Feng Congde mentioned several times in his memoir on the June Fourth Event that the International Anthem along with the Chinese National Anthem were repeatedly broadcast to demonstrators at the Tian’anmen Square to boost morale. See Feng Congde, Liusi riji: guangchang shangde gongheguo 六 四日記: 廣場上的共和國 [A journal of Tian’anmen] (Taipei: Ziyou wenhua chubanshe and chenhong shuju, 2009), 173, 357.
Perry Link, “June Fourth: Memory and Ethics,” in The Impact of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, ed. Jean-Philippe Beja (New York: Routledge, 2011), 14.
Cui Zi’en, “The Communist International of Queer Film,” trans. Petrus Liu, positions: east asia culture critique 18, no. 2 (2010): 419, 421.
Beijing tongzhi, Beijing gushi 匕京故事 [Beijing story], Yifan shuku, http://www.shuku.net:8080/novels/beijing/beijing07.html (accessed April 22, 2012).
Helen Leung, “Queerscapes in Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema.” positions: east asia cultures critique 9, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 434–35. For example, Intimates (dir. Zhang Zhiliang, 1997) shows an old woman yearning for another woman with whom she has been in love since they were young.
Fran Martin, Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
Chu Wei-cheng recognized Chen Xue together with Chi Ta-wei and Lucifer Hung Ling as representatives of the beginning of queer literature in 1990s’ Taiwan. See Chu Wei-cheng, ed., Taiwan tongzhi xiaoshuo xuan 台灣同志,小 說選 [Selections of Taiwan tongzhi fiction] (Taipei: Eryu Wenhua, 2005), 28. Fran Martin suggests Chen Xue’s novel inflects the figuration of the relationship between jia and tongixnglian and a decentering of “Euro-Western” queer theory;
see Fran Martin, Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in Taiwanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003), 119–40.
Tze-lan Sang, Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 129.
Cui Zi’en, “The Communist International of Queer Film,” trans. Petrus Liu, positions: east asia culture critique 18, no. 2 (2010): 421.
Chou Wah-shan, Hou zhimin tongzhi 後殖民同志 [Post-Colonial tongzhi] (Hong Kong: Xianggang tongzhi yanjiu she, 1997), 360.
Chen Xue, “The Mark of Butterfly,” in Hudie [Butterfly] (Taibei Xian Zhonghe shi: INK yinke chuban youxian gongsi, 2005), 61.
Students demonstrators in Tian’anmen Square called for Hong Kong’s support in May 1989; see Zhang Liang, ed., Zhongguo “Liu Si” zhenxiang 中國「六四」 真相 [June Fourth: The true story], (Hong Kong: Mingjing chubanshe, 2001), 255.
For the rescue of fugitive democrats and commemoration of the June Fourth tragedy, see Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo, Competing Chinese Political Visions: Hong Kong vs. Beijing on Democracy (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), 23–43. Lo argues that Hong Kong’s vision for democracy is competing with Beijing’s one-party dictatorship and is a model for China’s democratization.
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© 2015 Wing Shan Ho
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Ho, W.S. (2015). (Dis)Associating Political Dissent and Non-heteronormative Sexual Desire. In: Screening Post-1989 China. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514707_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514707_7
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