“I LOVE YOU, WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?:” READING UTOPIA IN CHINESE QUEER FEATURES
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Authors
Cai, Amy
Date
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Queer Cinema , Chinese films , Queer utopia
Alternative Title
Abstract
This paper discusses queer utopianism in Chinese narrative films Farewell My Concubine (1993, dir. Chen Kaige), East Palace, West Palace (1996, dir. Zhang Yuan) and Lan Yu (2001, dir. Stanley Kwan). While they are stories about trauma and loss, there are ways to read them optimistically. And this kind of utopian reading, as Dina Georgis examines in her book The Better Story, allows for a better collective survival (Georgis 13). Using these films as examples and the scholarly works by Jose Muñoz and Petrus Liu as methods, I exhibit three different ways to explore the utopian qualities within each film and argue that they each provide gateways to an imagined queer future. For Farwell, I discuss how the film invites a queer spectator and looks at moments in film that are utopic for a queer audience. For East Palace, West Palace, I argue that the film stages a queer utopia with the portrayal of the main character A Lan and Xiao Shi, and that the film challenges the heteropatriarchal social structure and imagines an expansive queer future. For Lan Yu, I argue that director Stanley Kwan’s adaptation of the film from literature illustrate a brighter, more idealized space for queer people. My readings of the films show that they secure an access to the queer memories and spaces that are lost in mainstream history, and they help managing the loss to anticipate a better future.
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Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
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This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States