Title: Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas
Abstract: Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Cinemas, by Song Hwee Lim. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. xviii + 247 pp. US$54.00 (hardcover). This monograph, which grows out of author's PhD dissertation, is first sophisticated analysis of representations of male in transnational The author's insightful readings on selected group of movies are supported by exhaustive scholarship and break new ground. The study, which borrows heavily from queer theory and from other Western theorists such as Michel Foucault, Kaja Silverman, Judith Butler and Roland Barthes exemplifies comparative and theoretical approach to cinematic texts. As title suggests, study addresses issue of male homosexuality in Chinese cinemas. As definitions of both terms are in fact highly disputable, Lim is wise enough to provide at outset brief and lucid explanation of two terms from constructionist perspective. Chapter 1 then discusses situations of cinemas against context of a new global cultural economy and probes dynamic interplay between cinematic representations and societal changes regarding in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The main body of book consists of five chapters, devoted to critical readings of seven Chinese-language films since 1990s. Chapter 2 examines burden of for Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet as first in contemporary Particularly intriguing is its nuanced political reading of three characters in film and significances of their backgrounds: man from Taiwan, white American gay and girl student from mainland. Chapter 3 on two mainland films, Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine and Zhang Yuan's East Palace, West Palace. Once again, Lim employs political reading strategies and relates femininity in two films with the self-exiled artist-intellectual's relationship to his nation (p. 88). The discussion also touches upon cross-dressing in operas and feminized space for intellectuals/ministers in Confucian tradition. Chapter 4 reads Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together as political allegory of subtle and complex relationship between Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland against backdrop of Hong Kong's return to China in 1997. The desire to start over and to be happy together relates to this context. Lim also offers an analysis that focuses on negotiation of travelling sexualities in gobetween space created as site of tension between home and away (p. 108). Chapter 5 deals with Tsai Ming-liang's queer cinema, in particular Rebels of Neon God and The River. Lim on a poetics of desire that is deeply confessional and argues that Tsai problematizes act of representation itself and challenges an essentialist sexual identity. …
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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