Just finished reading the article for this, and was very disturbed by its conclusion! I think it was Amy Richelin who wrote how history can be read from a feminist view in two ways; with women as repressed victims of patriarchy or with women as an active and intelligent constructor/director of their own (sub)culture. This article with its silly old tropes of 'third world labor' transnational capital' and 'subordinated third-world woman' is obviously on the victim reading.
Wei-Wei seems to be pretty actively pursuing her own agenda and taking advantage for her own ends, to paint her as a victim of international patriarchy/capital etc does her a great disservice. Taking the arguement that Wai-Tung wants to control her 'product' as first her landlord and later as her husband: he doesn't want, like, or care about her artworks and takes it only to justify letting her control him by not paying rent because she was in charge and he needed to feel some control. Later she is the one who coerces (with what can almost be considered date-rape) him and controls the outcome of her pregnancy but gives him the choice of 'becoming a man' by taking care of the baby and giving them a place to live. She is an active and powerful director of her own life and interjects herself into his life to get what she wants, and when she realizes that isn't going to happen she adapts and comes up with a new plan for a life she wants, a second choice but one more realistic to what she has come to find out is possible. All that under a traditional culture (both the Taiwan and USA cultures) that is seeking to deny her everything she wants.
Interestingly, the concept of 'space' is used a lot in the movie, and it occured to me later that SR Joshel's article 'The Body Female and The Body Politic: Livy's Lucretia and Verginia' speaks directly on this by saying that in most histories women are used to describe the territory in which men establish their social identity. (as Claude Levi-Strauss sez, "Women are good to think with.") That is, a woman will be 'penetrated' by a man and the outcome is his property and future, in history and myth that takes place in almost all 'founding' stories of people or civilizations, a woman or group of women are procured somehow and by the loss of their virginity the founding fathers acquire new honor and identity and a new city/race/people/nation come into being. In this movie, Wai-Tung penetrates Simon's space (living in his house) and Wei-Wei penetrates Wai-Tung's space (as non-rent paying tenant) and later Simon's space also (at Simon's request in his hopes of getting more control over Wai-Tung). So with that consideration, again Wei-Wei is the dominant and the one in ultimate control, using the patriarchal system to her benefit. So basically, the 'third-world woman' is strong, dominant, and in control of her destiny within the framework of a patriarchal system seeking to deny her all that control. Wei-Wei is the boss, she rocks!!!
Hahaha! I am so opinionated! That's what comes from studying classics and history from feministic teachers.
p.s. I just found the article mentioning the importance of 'reading resistance' and power into feminist history, it is by P.K. Joplin titled 'The Voice of The Shuttle is Ours' and is great to show the history of feminist voice from ancient Greece and Rome to Virginia Woolf! This article doesn't consider race/ethnicity or 'third-world' politics but the message and consideration is still relevant.
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5 comments:
I agree. The article unfairly criticized Wedding Banqut for not doing "enough" for the queer community but I felt like it switched up alot of stereotypes. Also, in gay-themed movies, it is very common to have an ending thats marked by misery or sadness. Nothing EVER works out for the gays! But this movie brought everyone a happy ending and provided an idea of a modern kind of family. Considering that it was also made like fifteen years ago also shows that it was very daring for its time.
This movie was bitter sweet for me … the whole story about having to hid who u are to your parents because of your culture sounds like my story, I related to wai-tung on that level, but the movie was sad in my eyes due to the fact that it I saw my self doing things covering up who I was to satisfy my parents. The light at the end of the tunnel was that everything came out in the open one way r another and things were still ok. That was a great unexpected ending to the story, because usual in a queer story the family is either whole heartedly excepting of the alternative life style or just against it at all coasts. And in this case the family was ok with it but not ok enough to be open about it. And to me that’s only because of there culture. I think if the parents thought it would have been culturly excepted they wouldn’t need too lie about there son’s life style to those in there country. My story has many path it can take at this point, but I know hiding who I am isn’t going to be one of them.
What Ryan has to say about gay movies always ending horribly is so true. It's sad though, that if someone doesn't get brutally murdered or totally disowned by their family it is a happy ending. I thought the plot was a good one, but I can't say I was happy at the end of the movie.
Like Miss Flirt, the movie made me think about my family too. I am not in the closet, but the whole "gay issue" is, as an unspoken rule, not a topic to be adressed, especially in front of my father. My late girlfriend, Karen, and I lived together for four years, some of that time, even under my father's roof. We were in a fully commited relationship, she came to every holiday event (or I went to her's) and we were never seperate. My dad and Karen were close, and he definitely cared about her. She was a aprt of our family. However, and this is my point, not a gay *gasp* part of our family. Everything is ok if nobody talks about the queer aspects of life. It's very interesting to me how famalies (and in this case parents) can build such a wall of denial... Not really denail though, more a wall of forced lies, in the case of my life, The Wedding Banquet, and I'm sure many other people's lives.
I thought that the film was great considering that it did not end in tragedy. Woo hoo. I was sad that there had to be such complication but in the end everything worked out like every other sappy movie. I guess even queer films are conforming to mainstream movie-making.
I liked the complexity in the end. Funny how Wai Tung left China to be sexually free to be himself and there he was in NY being just as deceiving.
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