Reconstruction Vol. 16, No. 2
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Shi, Liang. Chinese Lesbian Cinema: Mirror Rubbing, Lala and Les. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. ISBN: 139780739188477 (hbk). viii + 208 pp. / Rujie Wang
<1> The topic of lesbianism in Chinese cinema or rather the question whether there exists a Chinese lesbian cinema is a daunting task for anyone working in the field of Chinese Studies, East Asian Studies or Comparative Literature. In the age of globalization in which it is almost impossible to live comfortably in the bubble of a monolithic cultural context or tradition, even seemingly simple and straightforward cultural constructs cannot to be taken for granted, let alone something as controversial and obscure as lesbianism whose expressions are poorly documented at best in history. The difficulty here is one we would appreciate when we realize how diverse and uneven cultural developments have been in the world over, and when those of us dealing with world literature like critic Andrew Plaks realizes, "… the fact that, despite our easy acceptance of the commonsense premise that narrative is that branch of literature which relates a sequence of human events, it is precisely in the area of defining the 'event' as an existential unit that we find a wide divergence of conceptual models from culture to culture." This thoughtful remark by Plaks on Chinese narrative tradition comes to the foreground when we attempt to talk about lesbianism in Chinese cinema in the vortex of different cultural temporalities and discursive trajectories. What is most challenging to scholarship on Chinese lesbianism, lesbian identity, and lesbian cinema is to isolate and chronicle a cultural/socialoccurrence with what the continental philosopher HansGeorg Gadamer calls in his Truth and Method an "effective historical consciousness," identifying the moments in which it emerges and becomes possible discursively and historically, as well as those literary and historical events in which lesbianism is something very different from what it is as historicized in the progressive and totalizing narrative of Western civilization. And this is precisely how Liang Shi approaches the topic in his book, Chinese Lesbian Cinema: Mirror Rubbing, Lala and Les.
<2> The book is useful because it tells us not only which Chinese films fall into the category of "lesbian cinema" but also what the term of lesbianism signifies, if anything, at different times in Chinese literary history. The research and findings identify literary works, however fragmentary and marginal, that are elaborations of lesbianism and at the same time, negotiate the universal/global with the particular/local, which is why the book may not necessarily interest people with its special subject matter but nonetheless appeal to the average reader because of its delicate and comparative approach to broad and complex cultural and historical issues. His discussion of Freudian psychoanalysis connects the dots between various cultural literary manifestations of lesbian same sex love with the basic arguments by Lacan's understanding of meanings of the phallus. In phallocentric societies, culture confers much importance to the phallus as a symbolic order, with the consequences that impotence in men is a lot harder to bear than female sexual frigidity. The discussion of Confucianism that patrilinealizes every aspect of Chinese society elucidates the point that the phallus is a signifier through and in which a woman's life becomes signified or significant. What also becomes clear against the backdrop of Freudian theory of penis envy and fear of castration is why lesbian love cannot be well tolerated in Confucian China, as it would circumvent the signifier and the symbolic order.
<3> Liang Shi's scholarship is sound, both in terms of Chinese literary history, philosophy and religion on the one hand, and Western cultural theories such as psychoanalysis, structuralism, and postmodernism on the other. Shi is familiar with existing scholarships concerning the body of works, film and literary, that scholars tend to associate with the study of homosexuality. What becomes clear in his discussions is the fact that whether something is lesbianism depends not so much on what people do exactly but the space and name in which literary authors and film directors imagine same sex love. Content is as important as form. In other words, the question of when female same sex love becomes an instance of lesbianism is really an exercise of historicism. There is only a myriad of literary phenomena that later became associated with the term lesbianism. In this sense, the book contributes greatly to the existing scholarship, validating the issue of lesbianism within the confines of gender studies, film studies, and Chinese studies, and providing a number of talking points for scholars interested in interdisciplinary studies.
<4> Shi is quite original in his approach to the issue of lesbian cinema; his argument that it did not exist in China until the 21 st century helps preserve the integrity and truth of what Chinese society was like as far as its discursive conditions are concerned. Shi redefines the genre as would make sense within Chinese intellectual and art history. By tracing the gradual and subtle developments from which there finally emerges what can be viewed as lesbian love, the author manages to identify the mosaic or matrix of that love in all of its premodern and classical forms. His discussion of social and historical practices in premodern China that lend themselves to the gay and lesbian discourse sends one to thinking of all obscure traditions and practices of female same sex relations in premodern China. It is important that while arguing that lesbian cinema did not exist until 21 st century in China, the author also familiarizes the reader with Adriane Rich's rejection of the term "lesbianism" as limiting and inadequate. The "mirror rubbing" tradition goes on in premodern China and it is one of many forms of the "female same sex relation" that becomes distinctively and uniquely "lesbian love" in the four films produced in this century. In a way the reader is made aware of the validity or relevance of taxonomy or categories of sexuality (sexual orientation) as well as their limits. For this reason, Shi limits the scope of his intellectual inquiry to just the four films produced in the 21 st century, not to be confused with either films made in the Republic Era and socialist era in which there are instances of female same sex relation, or with such Western classic lesbian movies as Snow Flaks and the Secret Fan, Saving Face, Blue Is the Warmest Color, Boys Don't Cry, and A Room in Rome that also deal with the hegemony and dominance of heterosexual discourse.
<5> Shi's masterful take on the topic and Chinese material exemplifies the critical skills of an interlingual critic as James J.Y. Liu defines the role in his book The Interlingual Critic.
The problems of interpretation facing an intralingual critic are formidable enough: they become doubly so for the interlingual critic, since to the problems due to differences between historical periods are added those due to cultural and linguistic differences. The interlingual critic has to make a decision as to what basic attitude he should take toward such differences, and the decision will determine the kind of interpretation that he will offer. It is not an easy decision to make, for even within a single cultural and literary tradition there can be conflicting schools of hermeneutics. […] With regard to the interpretation of Chinese literature, the critic has a similar set of attitudes to choose from: Sinocentrism, Eurocentrism, cultural relativism, cultural perspectivism and transculturism. I am avoiding the term "cultural chauvinism" or "ethnocentrism" so that the critic's own cultural and ethnic identity need not be called into question.
Choose Shi does, but not any one of these critical positions at the expense or to the exclusion of the others; rather he keeps his eyes constantly on the tension between these differing and conflicting cultural traditions that offer dramatic elaborations of female same sex love. His approach as an interlingual critic to this global and transnational subject matter allows him to bring to bear a cluster of intellectual preoccupations that shape our worldview in general.
<6> Lesbian love, as is discussed in this book, exercises us keenly as we learn to understand complex cultural issues through a variety of critical lenses. It is an exercise of intellectual inquiry in which one must choose, historicize and rethink topics, like female same sex love, that are grounded in time, language and culture. It is not important when lesbian cinema begins in China. What is important is the type of factors, concerns, foci, interests, and perspectives people bring to this topic. We would read with the same critical alertness if someone is to argue, in real likelihood, that lesbianism has existed since the Republic Era or even in Chinese antiquity.
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