Gay or Asian?

I don’t know if anyone remembers this spread in the magazine Details a while back, but I thought it’d be interesting to bring up, considering our discussion about the Asian male body, and especially the homosexual Asian male.

One interesting thing about this spread (aside from the horrendous stereotypes it employs) is the question “Gay or Asian?”, which implies that Asianness and homosexuality are mutually exclusive, two distinct spheres that cannot overlap. As Chiang’s article suggests, this supports the idea that alternative sexualities are associated with Western cultures and that queer Asians have been somehow influenced (even infected) by the American homosexual, as when Wai-Tung’s mother asks him if Simon “led him astray.”

One implicit rephrasing of the question of the spread is: “Gay, or Just Asian?” It equates characteristics that would, in white men, normally be read as particularly effeminate with those of Asian men (regardless of sexuality). While at first glance this seems to relate back to the representations of Asian men that we discussed a few weeks ago, that body was portrayed as impotent and asexual rather than homosexual. The article uses stylishness as a point of comparison here. Interesting.

I really enjoyed the Wedding Banquet, and especially liked using the varying degrees of specificity to imagine the same story being taken place in other settings. Chiang mentioned how it could have taken place in any city in the world, as there were few specific (and significant) references to Manhattan. I think because the film does follow a fairly standard structure, the arc of the story would have been remained pretty much the same had Wai-Tung’s parents been a conservative couple from another part of the U.S. The Gaos’ Chinese ethnicity is what fills in the details. I don’t think this necessarily downplays the Asian-American theme of The Wedding Banquet; rather, it’s what makes the bulk of the movie, what separates it from every other he’s-marrying-the-wrong-girl comedy (for example, the awful The Wedding Planner). So, in answer to the question raised in class, I would qualify The Wedding Banquet as a gay movie with an Asian twist, and not the other way around.

from banquet to brokeback

a couple things crossed my mind as i was watching the wedding banquet. i felt everyone had some interesting comments to say about the film itself; i dont know if its just me, but i couldnt help but compare and contrast this movie to brokeback mountain all teh way through.

i dont know if ang lee directed any other movies with protagonists struggling with gay identity issues but it seemed interesting to me how these two pieces completely clash. i dont know why but it keeps coming back to that question that we asked on the first day -- is brokeback mountain authentic asian american art?

the two movies differ most obviously in the sense that wedding banquet is about a naturalized chinese man and brokemtn is about a couple midwestern cowboys. the second important difference is that ang lee wrote and directed wedding banquet whereas he only directed brokemtn, but i think comparing the two movies really reveals how ang uses the concepts of homosexuality intersecting with politics of race and ethnicity in Wedding Banquet.

when chiang quotes Ang in a movie review, Chiang explains how Ang describes The Wedding Banquet as a "comedy about identity." However, Chiang afterwards points out that "in Lee's remarks, sexuality is conspicuously absent from teh various categories of identity, an inidication that homosexuality is a sign for the very confusions of idenity that the film seeks to resolve" (279). This suggestion supports a feeling I had throughout watching Wedding Banquet that the movie almost uses homosexuality as a supplementary factor/issue that together with gender politics and american racial conflicts paints a picture showing what Chiang calls the modern transnational postmodern identity politics of the chinese family. in other words, wai tung's homosexuality is just a side element that further shows how confusing and messed up his life is in this postmodern capitalist world, whatever that's supposed to mean egh.

i'm not hating on Ang for not 'giving enough credit' or researching enough into queer studies and objectives in wedding banquet, because like other's have already pointed out, there were some things that seemed kind of lukewarm in terms of taking a queer activist stance in wai tung's character. he is deemed still pretty 'manly,' with very limited scenes of intimacy (his one hot kiss is mostly covered with an angle of the back of his head) with simon and in the end, triumphing through biology as a man that (though accidentally) overcomes wei wei's resistance and becomes a father. the film is a great work in terms of showing modern transnational identity dynamics, showing the complications in identity formation of a man who has deep historicaly roots in china and taiwan but struggles to come out as a man also deeply entrenched in middle class white american values (he is referred to as a yuppie by simon in the film).
My only deal was that since I have seen brokeback mountain first, and seen how powerful the message was about queerness and queer struggles in that, i felt wedding banquet almost didnt do enough or shied away from making too strong a statement about homosexuality.

but then again, i enjoyed the film as is and i cant imagine lee providing all that context plus all the stuff about asianness, the banquet, transnational identity, etc. all within a 2 hour film that was under a 400K budget.

props

Gay Asian: Gaysian?

Ang Lee's films often work within a well-defined genre but with a nearly contradictory twist. In Brokeback Mountain, Lee made the Western, gay. In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the martial arts film, feminist. And in the case of The Wedding Banquet, it can be argued that Lee made a queer film, Asian. The basic plot/plot devices are reminiscent of the 1978 film La Cage aux folles, but with an Asian twist. In this manner, Lee seems to be solidifying queer cinema as a genre, giving queerness an added significance in The Wedding Banquet.

However, throughout the film, Wei Tung's Asian identity challenges his identity as a gay man. Why is the banquet, a decidedly Chinese event, so prominently featured in the film? The banquet represents ritualized heteronormativity and patriarchy to the highest degree; the bride is kissed by every male in the room, a little boy jumps around on the marriage bed to promote the conception of a male heir, etc... In this manner, the queerness is nearly displaced, cast aside by the film. Indeed, the homosexual relationship in the movie is marginalized--Simon is a comparatively thin role.

Thus, can Wei Tung's struggle with his Asian and Queer identities can be read at the meta level? Is his struggle mirrored by the film's struggle to be a certain type of cinema?

A Culture of Facades?

After watching several of the movies for the class this semester, I've realized that one of the strange phenomenons I felt growing up in a traditional Asian (well, Chinese, but I'm going to make some leaps based on the comments of people who I just asked about this) household, is not an anomaly. The phenomenon I refer to is the mystery of the open secret, that tacit piece of information that everyone knows, but that nobody else is sure someone else knows, and everyone is too ashamed or afraid to talk about it. In the Wedding Banquet, it was Wai Tung's homosexuality, but from my own experiences with the people I grew up with, many things can end up as these sort of unmentionable but acknowledged secrets. Whenever issues that defy tradition or regular social convention, I always feel like instead of dealing with it, it is more likely to be ignored in the culture that I grew up in, especially sexual issues, but also not limited to them as well. For Wai, his homosexuality is something that, as we find out, everyone knows about, but not everyone knows that the other people know. Ultimately, at the end, I got the feeling that everyone had a sense of what was happening, but again, it could not be voiced out loud. For example, in my family, there are people on my father's side of the family that cannot stand people on my mother's side and vice versa, but we continue to gather for festivals and holidays every year, exchanging forced smiles and faked conversations. There's something about Asian cultures and values that make the people of those cultures almost less willing to accept change. That of course, is a generalization, but it also explains why one of the stereotypes about Asian Americans is that they cannot integrate into American society.

Ultimately, what I'm getting at with the point about secrets is that it's actually a big part of being Asian American sometimes, especially when cultures clash. Remaining connected or at least seeming connected to one's roots as an Asian when one is not in Asia is as much about following substantive traditions as it is about keeping up a strong image that tradition is being followed. As a result, I think a lot of families, especially ones who try to keep up tradition, have difficulty accepting ideas that are more open to dialogue in the west, such as issues of gender and sexuality. Even issues such as divorce or even career choice can be awkward if there is a generational gap in understanding. Instead, they are often ignored, with active ignorance taking its place. I felt while watching the movie, that my parents would act really similarly to Wai's parents when they found out he was gay. While they might accept or are forced to accept it on some level, outwardly they both act like it's not true. I feel that the parents are only able to accept the fact that their son is gay because they still ultimately get what they wanted from Wai (though not exactly how they envisioned it would happen): a daughter in law for the mother, and a grandchild for the father. Even at the end of the movie, it is an awkward detente of tacit understandings that hold the family together, not a real understanding and acceptance of one another. Wai never gets to formally tell his father that he is gay, while the mother only halfheartedly accepts it. His mother accepts Wei Wei as a daughter in law, but essentially cannot acknowledge Simon. Wai's father acknowledges Simon, but only sees Wei Wei as the mother of his grandchild and nothing more. Simon and Wei Wei must feel awkward, as strange players in the life of a gay man who cannot quite reconcile his culture and his sexuality. These are issues that were, and continue to be ambiguous today, leaving secrets as the only certainty.

Wedding Banquet: Cross-Cultural Confusion/Collusion

The Wedding Banquet presents a different take on generational relations than most films involving Asian families that I've seen. The classic nagging mother, and the wise, quiet father appear in this movie, but in the end, their roles are somewhat out of the ordinary.

Wai Tung, a Taiwanese queer businessman living in Manhattan with his white lover, Simon, is cajoled by his parents on a regular basis about getting married and producing an heir. His parents, back in Taiwan, are so eager for him to marry that they enroll him in various dating services to find his "perfect woman". However, he chooses instead a "marriage of convenience", to give one of his tenants, Wei-Wei, a greencard, and to get his parents off his back. Everyone seems to think that this is a great idea. However, once Wai Tung's parents decide to come visit him and witness the wedding, things get out of hand.

After reading Chiang's "Coming Out in the Global System", my opinion of the film changed significantly. The nexus of the banquet as a point of change from comedy to melodrama makes the film more complex and less fluffy, and I appreciate how the characters grow and change over the course of Wai Tung's parents' visit. The women in this film are both empowered and weak; Sister Mao and Wei-Wei have both been "Westernized", each is accomplished in her own way: Sister Mao speaks five languages, has a PhD, and is a classically trained opera singer, while Wei Wei is a struggling but talented artist. However, they are both forced to marry; Sister Mao by her parents, and Wei Wei by her need for a greencard. They want to be modern, but are constrained by tradition and/or family loyalty.

The wedding banquet itself was quite interesting to me. I've been to a Chinese wedding before, but the one portrayed in the film was notable for its melding of Chinese/Western elements. Wei Wei wears a long, white, American-style bridal gown, and there are white guests at the wedding (I kept waiting for one of them to get drunk enough to announce Wai Tung's sexuality, but fortunately, that did not occur); the rituals, however, are mostly Chinese: the lotus flower soup, the invasion of the newlywed suite. At the end of the wedding, we even meet two Chinese male wedding crashers. As Wai Tung's friend, The Law says, "This is a cross-cultural event -- everything goes!"

At the end of the movie, I was both pleased and dismayed. Wai Tung's father, ever the sagacious paternal figure, confesses to Simon that "if [he] didn't let them lie, [he'd] never have gotten [his] grandchild". The joke, then, is on the audience. However, the fact that Wai Tung's sexuality is never openly discussed among all the members of the family is rather dismaying to me, even though they're all aware of it. It only serves to promote a culture of silence around homosexuality in the Asian community; even though Wai Tung's parents are accepting, it is only because he has already complied with their wishes and given them what they wanted. I suppose this compromise is the best possible outcome for the family, but I'm not sure if I find it "right".

The Wedding Banquet- Secrecy

Similar to much of life, The Wedding Banquet does not progress in any singular direction. At its beginning, the film is composed of primarily comedic elements; many of these later result in serious consequences, such as Wei-Wei's pregnancy and Wai-Tung's eventual coming out to his mother (which, heavily contrasting with the comedic path earlier in the film, is almost heartbreaking). Perhaps it is because of the film's constant shift between family drama and comedy that the movie is not so concerned with many of the loose ends that are a result of the three young protagonists' scheme.

Secrecy plays a large role in many of the movie's unanswered questions. Wai-Tung, out of fear of his father's health, keeps his sexual identity hidden from him. Yet his father knows of this secret and in turn hides from his son his knowledge. Once the credits roled, it was as though no one completely knew what the other was thinking or what was going on within the family. It was as though the idea of a connected family became shattered and disjointed. I wonder if Ang Lee is trying, in some manner, to relate secrecy and homosexuality together. Another point that plays off on this relationship is the contrast between the wedding banquet and the wedding at city hall. In the latter scene, it almost felt as though Wai-Tung knew of no other friends that Simon. However as one can see, there were many guests at his wedding banquet-many of whom were clueless about Wai-Tung's sexuality. So not only did his sexual orientation clash with his parents and their expectations of his lifestyle, it also was hidden from his asian friends. Does this indicate something about asian culture in the 90's? The guests, as one partygoer suggested, are not in any way sexually repressed; however, are they progressive enough to embrace and accept Wai-Tung's lifestyle. It kind of seems unlikely. Even Wei Wei, one of Wai-Tung's few asian confidantes who knows of his orientation, claims (while they are in bed that) she is liberating him- perhaps from his need to form a secretive barrier from those around him.

Reading Wei Wei in The Wedding Banquet

I want to focus my post on an earlier point Melissa brought up in her post.
I also think that much of the “happiness” and keeping together of the family are dependent on Wei Wei’s procreation and ultimate decision to have her baby. Her body is, in many ways, placed at the center of the narrative. How much agency does the character of Wei Wei have?

I agree that in the beginning of the film she is depicted as this independent, “starving” artist.
It would be helpful to quote Clarissa’s earlier post about Wei Wei and her artist lifestyle:
“As for Wei Wei, avant-garde artists’ lifestyles have frequently been associated with challenges to the dominant social order. Women artists in particular were seen as deviant because their creative energies were channeled away from baby-making into the “selfish” pursuit of individual expression. Thus, they were castigated as being loose or somehow degraded women.”
By agreeing to marry Wai Tung and undergoing the wedding banquet process and tradition, Wei Wei is summoned for domestic patriarchal control and domination by all parties involved.

Simon attempts to teach Wai-Wai how to cook in the efforts that she quickly learns her role as a “domestic servant” in the household. “Wei Wei you don’t know how to cook eggs?!” This question is based on the expectation that Wei Wei knows how to cook because she is a woman.
Wai Tung parents expect Wei Wei to play multiple roles as the female in the relationship. From taking care of Wai Tung, to domestic servititude, to procreating, many burdens are placed upon Wei Wei in her entrance into (heterosexual) marriage.

Wai Tung’s intensions for his relationship with Wai Tung are driven by his parents need for him to marry a woman and start a family/have children, Wai Tung’s control over Wei Wei is also demonstrated outside of the domestic sphere as her landlord. Not only does Wai Tung have control over her through marriage, but through her money. He, in essence, controls her physical space. Also, at the Wedding Banquet specifically, Wai Tung controls the kiss. He first kisses her on the cheek, and because the audience is not pleased with such a non-aggressive, friendly peck, he goes in a longer, more aggressive smack on the lips. Mark Chiang contends, “The transformation of Wai Tung into a patriarch, the declared project of the film, can be seen as fundamentally dependent not so much upon the reconciliation with his father as upon the solicitation of ideological consent from Wei Wei and her submission to his hegemonic dominance” (282).

By the end of the film, our early encounters with Wei Wei’s somewhat “sexual aggressiveness” is controlled. All parties in the film play a central role in confining Wei Wei to the domestic sphere, her sexuality, and essentially her submission to the patriarch.

The Wedding Banquet: "I'm liberating you"

Contrary to some opinions that the fairy-tale ending of The Wedding Banquet is unrealistic, I felt that the movie closed on a happy note true to the realities of family conflicts and struggle for acceptance. There were more tears in the last scene than there were smiles and I was left a little unsettled for this reason. However, in spite of all the tears the movie ends with an optimism for the future; that Mrs. Gao will gradually become more accepting of the relationship, Wei Wei will have her baby, who will be raised by two loving fathers in addition to its birth mother, and that Mr. Gao was granted his wish of a grandchild. While I agree that Mr. Gao's deceit is selfish and creates somewhat of a wall in between him and his son as well as his wife, I don't see how else the situation would have played out. After all, it would be more unrealistic if he had whole-heartedly accepted Wai Tung's sexual orientation and foregone his dream of seeing a grand wedding banquet (which was the entire premise of the movie). Watching the scenes of the wedding banquet and how enjoyable it was for everyone involved, I can see why Wai Tung's parents were so disappointed with the initially simple wedding ceremony. For traditional Chinese parents who believe that the point of marriage is to please them through procreation, I find the Gaos' reaction to Wai Tung's homosexuality quite progressive, and anything more than that would have been unbelievable.

Not only was The Wedding Banquet refreshing in its portrayal of romantic relationships, but it also shed a new light on women, and Asian American women at that. I loved Wei-wei's character for her independent spirit devoid of stereotypes (especially those involving Asian American women). One line I found interesting was of hers when she tells Wai Tung, "I'm liberating you," as she practically forces herself upon him on their fake wedding night. While Wei-wei's actions could be (wrongly) interpreted as a stereotype for an Asian American seductress forcing a man to sway from his "good" and "right" path, I found the irony of her statement very refreshing. It erases the line between what has come to be normal (that is, straight), and not normal (or gay) because in this line of thinking one would consider a homosexual person more "liberated" than one that is repressed and in denial. Instead Wei-wei liberates us as the audience by rejecting the stereotypes that plague gay relationships, Asian American relationships, and so on. Like all of his other work, this Ang Lee film (which I believe was one of his earlier ones?) is laudable in its realistic portrayal of unconventional and quite ground-breaking stories and relationships.

“This is a cross cultural event. Everything goes!”

Everybody wants to kiss the bride. Except the groom.

Based on a synopsis of the plot of “The Wedding Banquet,” this film seems pretty ridiculous. An interracial gay couple tries to hide their marriage from unsuspecting Asian parents by planning a faux marriage to an illegal Chinese immigrant. While it seems like this would be a recipe for a disaster, despite all of the deceit, in the end the expecting illegal Chinese immigrant and gay couple decide to raise the child amongst the three of them. Despite the twisted plot, I really enjoyed the film. Watching a group of radically different characters attempt to resolve a constantly detoriating dilemma.

I was intrigued by the treatment of Chinese tradition in the film. From one side you had Wai-Tung’s conflict between obeying the wishes of his parents and his relationship with Simon. On the other side you had the Americanization and modernization of Chinese traditions. Several scenes in the film showed this conflict. One scene was the comical transformation of Simon and Wai-Tung’s home before his parents come to visit. Their pictures and iconic gay artwork comes down and is replaced by Wai-Tung’s family photographs and scrolls of Chinese calligraphy. The life that Wai-Tung has chosen to live in America does not include Chinese tradition and for him it is only an occasional annoyance (filling a questionnaire for a dating service and a middle-of-the-night phone call from his parents).

The wedding banquet scene also provides some interesting commentary on Chinese tradition. Taking place in a hotel owned by one of Mr. Gao’s former soldiers (a link to old Chinese tradition), the banquet is attended by upper class Chinese/Taiwanese Americans who engage in lots of heavy drinking and marriage games. At the banquet, a shocked white party-goer comments: “God, I thought the Chinese were meek, quiet math whizzes.” The Chinese party-goer (who is actually Ang Lee) replies: “You are witnessing the results of 5,000 years of sexual repression.” At the banquet, the first and second generation party-goers attempt to Americanize Chinese tradition and engage in what Mark Chiang calls a “masquerade of tradition.”

In the end of the film, the tradition is reduced to nothing but a formality. Building layers of lies on top of each other, even though all of the family members know about Simon and Wai-Tung’s relationship, the Chinese tradition prevents it from being out in the open. When Simon asks Mr. Gao why the web of lies needs to continue, he doesn’t know either and replies at least it will produce him a grandchild. Wrestling with questions of assimilation and adaptation of traditions, “The Wedding Banquet” creates a space to analyze the evolving attitudes towards Chinese tradition of younger generations in America.

Some ruminations on The Wedding Banquet

Before I begin, I have to confess that I had watched this movie before taking this class and I love it; the first time I saw it was on Bravo (before the Project Runway era, so whatever that means as far as analyzing The Wedding Banquet). In fact, I actually own the movie so I’ve been looking forward to this week for awhile. For the most part, I agree with Mark Chiang’s “Coming Out into the Global System: Postmodern Patriarchies and Transnational Sexualities in The Wedding Banquet”. Nevertheless, I would like to use this blog entry as a vehicle to discuss the points that I either disagreed with him or found to be weak.

Where I differ from Chiang’s reading of the film is that the film cannot be only just understood in a national/Global scale but also at the human level. I found Chiang’s insistence of the generic-ness of the film to be a shallow reading. I found the film to be very individualized since the film is imbued with not only just the story of Ang Lee’s friend but also that in this film, Pushing Hand, and Eat Drink Man Woman, Lee has woven in his relationship with his father, according to the special feature “A Forbidden Passion” on the movie. If I may inject the subject into this analysis, I believe the scene between Wai Tung’s father and Simon in which the father gives Simon the envelopment is a very touching scene and demands that you understand the film not on Taiwanese-Chinese/East-West or other transnational relationships but rather a scene between two human beings. By being so individualized, the film is able speak to a larger audience and is able to become national/transnational.

Nevertheless, my biggest problem with the movie is the development of Wei Wei’s character. In this respect, I agree with Chiang’s reading of the film that Wei Wei represents women and labor that are subordinated in the hybridity of the transnational and the national. Furthermore, the movie upholds patriarchy on both the global and human level. But, Lee makes a very interesting point at the end of “A Forbidden Passion” in which he says, “You relate to the other horizontally, and vertically you come from somewhere.” Therefore, may suggest that Wei Wei’s character may be looking to make a connection by keeping the baby. I still found, however, her submission into being an object to be used by the patriarchy (note the scene when Wai Tung’s father says goodbye to her). A quick note, I also found the movie to be a little disjointed in that the first half up to the actual banquet did not sync with the second half.

If I may deviate for a second, this same reassertion of patriarchy is what I found most disturbing about Enter the Dragon. Looking over the titles of the blog entries others made for the movie, many dealt with remasculating the Asian male or some variation. By giving (back?) the Asian male “masculinity” assumes that femininity (or the Other) is somehow less.

Returning back to The Wedding Banquet, let us examine the film more on the personal level. For me, these are the questions that arise from watching the film: What does it mean when ethnicity or race intersects sexuality? What would have happened if Simon were not an American or at least not white? What is the significance of this movie being nominated for an Academy Award (even winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival)? Who watches (consumes) this movie? I defer once more to the great Roger Ebert when he says, “What makes the film work is the underlying validity of the story, the way the filmmakers don't simply go for melodrama and laughs, but pay these characters their due. At the end of the film, I was a little surprised how much I cared for them.” Ultimately, the film works on both levels since it is really the story of the five people interacting with each other but by its insistence on Taiwan through the multiple references the movie opens itself to a larger examination of transnationalism.

-Christopher Huynh