The Orientalist Veil of Homosexuality - Research Paper Example

The Orientalist Veil of Homosexuality: The Cultural and Sexual Domination in M. Butterfly David Henry Hwang’s award winning play M. Butterfly, which was premiered in 1988, parodied and reversed Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly. The play tells a queer love story between French diplomat Rene Gallimard and Chinese spy Song Liling. It is based on the true story of Bernard Bouriscot who had fallen in love with a Chinese actress, who turned out to be a man. Since the play has played with the gender roles and blurred the West-East dichotomy, it received ambivalent and mutually exclusive criticisms. While a number of critics argued that the play was subversive, others asserted that it reproduced the very Orientalism and sexism that it attempted to debunk. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize the relationship between cultural and sexual domination in Hwang’s M. Butterfly while discussing the criticisms in regard to the play. Edward W. Said defines Orientalism as “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’” (2). However, this is not an innocent distinction, since it implied a power relationship and domination. For Said, Orientalism is a political doctrine “which elided the Orients difference with its weakness” (204). Edward W. Said, also stresses Foucauldian power-knowledge relationship as the West utilized the Oriental knowledge provided by Orientalism, which originally referred to the academic Oriental Studies, in order to dominate the East. In line with Orientalism, sexism can be defined as a style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Man and the Woman, a political doctrine which elided the Woman’s difference with its weakness. According to Sheng-Mei Ma, Hwang’s M. Butterfly is the best example of the proximity of Orientalism and sexism (116). The intertwinement of the colonial and sexual discourses paints a picture of a macho Western man dominates a submissive Eastern woman, as the West colonizes the East, which is the very theme of the Opera that Hwang made several allusions. A number of critics like Sheng-Mei Ma refer to the discourse of gender in order to prove anti-Orientalist streak of the play. Sheng-Mei Ma argues that Chinese American Writers, including David Henry Hwang, adopt an Orientalist view in order to smash it (105). For him, Hwang uses the myth of Oriental woman and pidgin in order to debunk Orientalism. Moreover, according to Dorinne K. Kondo, Hwang moves from “of fixed, essentialist identities in Madama Butterfly to the subversion of those conventions in M. Butterfly” (14). For her the shifting figuration of gender also projects the mobility of international power relations (7). In that sense, for Dorinne K. Kondo, M. Butterfly is a subversive text, which questions the Orientalism of Madama Butterfly opera, with its theme of gender ambiguity. Nevertheless, it is open to debate whether the gender roles in the play are constructed as fluid and mobile as Kondo claims to be. The theme of travestism is apparent in the play, but it does not automatically mean that the gender roles are ambiguous in terms of performance; the biological sex of the performer (Song) is not congruent with the traditional male-female roles, but he still performs a stereotypical feminine role and his performance is not ambiguous, ambivalent or fluid. The only thing remains ambiguous is his biological sex to the confused Gallimard, not the gender roles, till the end of the play. In fact, the play plays with the very difference of performance of the gender roles and the actual biological sex and actually allows that a man to play a stereotypical feminine role defined by men. In fact, Hwang mimics the traditional and in a sense homoerotic Chinese theater in which female roles are played by men. However, any hybridity or mobility of gender roles is denied in the play and illustrated by Gallimard’s resistance to Song’s offer. Thus, it is difficult to regard the play as subversive in terms of gender roles, but it might be regarded as queer-friendly since it depicts a man performing a feminine role. On the other hand, several critics questioned whether the play provided a genuine criticism to the Orientalist discourse. In fact, John J. Deeney’s a reader response project revealed that American responses to Hwang’s play “have been positive and readers have not been unduly upset by the deliberate aberrations from conventional thinking and acting. On the other hand, Chinese readers have been largely negative, contrary to what one might have thought ” (29). The difference in reception between the Western and the Eastern readers shows that the portrayal of the East in Hwang’s play is still disturbing for the Asian readers. In Hwang’s play, the East is represented by a cunning travesty instead of a submissive Eastern woman, while the relationship between the West and the East is depicted as homosexual instead of heterosexual. Even though Hwang changes the sex of the protagonist and the East still has to pretend to be a woman in order to sustain Western male fantasy. Furthermore, Rey Chow, points out the success of the play in the West and considers it as a sign of its Orientalism: “But this success—this approval received by an Asian American playwright in the West for correctly reprimanding Western imperialist fantasies—is it not itself a sign and a warning, not of how the West has finally learned its lessons, but rather once again of the very Orientalism which Hwang intends to criticize, and to which non‐ Western peoples nonetheless continue to be subjected today?” (76). Alhough Rey Chow’s question is significant and valid, nevertheless, I think the reception and success of the play are not sufficient to label the play as Orientalist and the text must be critically analyzed in order to come to this conclusion. Criticisms of critics like James Moy seem to be more literary and centered on the text. According to Moy, Hwang’s deconstruction fails as the characters of the play are reproducing new Orientalist stereotypes and Asian characters who are “laughable and grossly disfigured. . . now doubly displaced into the new order of stereotypical representations created by Asian-Americans” (cited by Shin 181). Moy, interprets Gallimard’s suicide as an Asian death and argues that only through its death Asia becomes real for Western audiences (181). While Andrew Shin agrees with Moy in regard to the play’s Orientalism, he interprets Gallimard’s suicide differently. For Shin, Gallimard kills himself since he cannot defend his homosexuality in the homophobic West (187). Following the lead of Quentin Lee and Eng, Andrew Shin interprets M. Butterfly as a narrative of repressed homosexuality and argues that a gay man, Gallimard, constructs his sexual identity through an Orientalist fantasy (188). Andrew Shin’s analysis highlights the cues of his repressed homosexuality. He points out that Gallimard has assumed very feminine role in his first sexual encounter interpret it as a sign of his latent homosexuality: “Gallimard clearly occupies the feminine position in this parody of a womans sexual initiation as the passive, sexually disenfranchised partner; however, not only are the partners respective posi-tions important, but also the material reality of their bodies: copu-lating with a woman stimulates Gallimards homosexual fantasy because it so completely disguises it, even from himself” (185). Indeed the following passage in the play depicts Gallimard’s passive position in two senses, firstly he does not initiate it but his friend Marc arranges it for him, he also remains inactive during the sexual intercourse: Gallimard: I looked up, and there was this woman... bouncing up and down on my loins. Marc: Screaming right? Gallimard: Screaming...and pounding my butt up and down into the dirt.... And in the middle of this, the leaves were getting into my mouth, my legs were losing circulation. I, thought,’ God. So this is it? (33) As it can clearly be seen from the above passage, his partner leads the sexual intercourse, while he remains totally passive. Legs losing circulation may also be indicating a possible impotence or dysfunction. However, with Song, he does not only satisfy his repressed homoerotic desires, but he also constructs a dominating- masculine identity for himself. Indeed, Gallimard, becomes more confident and successful at work after his relationship with Song. It seems that the critics took mainly three critical stances in regard to interrelationship between culture and sexuality in the play: the play subverted the gender roles and thus Orientalism, the play reproduced the gender roles and Orientalism that it tried to rebuke, the play used the Oriental fantasy in order to create/mask a homosexual identity and criticized the homophobic heterosexism of the West. Herewith, the narrative of the play must be closely examined so that we can come to a conclusion in regard to the intricate relationship between sexual and cultural domination in the play. The play begins with Gallimard who is making fun of himself. Other part of the stage is occupied with people who laughs at him and are surprised by his ignorance of his partner’s sex. Man 1 thinks that it is impossible that he could not know. Man 2 thinks that Gallimard is just stupid and he simply “misidentified the equipment” (Hwang 3). He also makes an ironic comment that “it is a compelling case for sex education” (3). Actually, these dialogues exemplify the initial and natural response to the play: how could he not know? Although, the play makes a compelling case out of Orientalism and Oriental fantasy as the main reason of his misunderstanding, the readers still remain puzzled. Man 2, interprets the case as follows “It seems Monsieur Gallimard was overly anxious to live up to his national reputation” (3). His interpretation reveals the truth in a sense that Gallimard is a narcissistic man occupied with appearances and reputation. As a person, who is fooled by appearances, he might have over-anxiously tried to save his appearance as ladies’ men. Although it might be true that people project their stereotypes to those who are sexually and culturally different from themselves and Gallimard indeed projects his sexist and Orientalist fantasies to Song, whom he refers as “the Perfect Woman” or his “butterfly”, but not with his own name until the end of the play; one could still hardly believe that Gallimard succumbs to his own Oriental fantasy to an extent that he does not recognize the sex of his partner for 20 years. Kondo notes that “the story intrigues through its sheer improbability” (6), while fantasy-driven Gallimard once again twists the truth. The Act One, recreates the story of Madama Butterfly as Gallimard compares himself with Pinkerton and Song with Butterfly. In fact, he first saw her singing Madama Butterfly. As he confuses the fantasy with reality, he also confuses the role with the actor and mistook Song as Butterfly. In fact, he is a very superficial character, who only focuses on appearances. When they first met, Gallimard says to Song that “he usually don’t like Butterfly” since “it played by huge women in so much bad makeup” (17), but he finds Song’s version “convincing” even though she is Chinese. Song points out the Orientalist and imperialist aspect of the play by reversing the story, however Gallimard seems to be appropriating and even proud of the masculinist/ imperialist streak of the opera. Indeed, Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly creates the Western stereotypical Japanase female image of “gheisa” through the character of Butterfly, while Pinkerton represents the dominating West. As Kondo notes in Western eyes, “Japanese women are meant to be sacrificed, and Butterfly sacrifices her ‘husband,’ her religion, her people, her son, and, ultimately, her very life” (10). Gallimard mis-identifies himself with cocky Pinkerton and Song with Butterfly in an attempt to continue the masculinist/imperialist streak of the opera. Hwang’s play alludes to Edward W. Said’s Orientalism, which is published in 1978, examining power-knowledge relationship in respect to the colonialism, as imperialism goes in hands with the Oriental studies. In M. Butterfly Song asks Gallimard playfully: “So, you are an adventurous imperialist?” (21). Gallimard responds: “I…thought it would further my education” (21). The West used knowledge about the East as a means of domination and as a part of the imperialist policy. However, Hwang reverses this relationship; in his play the East uses its knowledge about the West as a tool for domination. It is puzzling that Hwang uses the knowledge of very Orientalism as a way of Occidentalist manipulation. While Song utilizes White Man’s illusion of superiority and his main weakness, pride, in order to dominate him and get information, he also uses feminine vulnerability as a weapon. Thus, what Orientalism has contemplated as weakness becomes a powerful tool and the West’s strength becomes a weakness in Hwang’s twisted interpretation. While Hwang turns the West’s weapon to itself and reverses the roles, he cannot manage to escape the very Orientalism he aimed to shoot, since reversal is not the equivalent of being subversive. Nevertheless, he keeps the ontological and epistemological distinction between the East and the West intact, and hence helps the Orientalism to perpetuate. As Hwang keeps the Orientalism intact, Gallimard insists upon the fantasy of domination and cherishes it at the expense of his love, his gender role and even his own life. At the end of the play, he even prefers to perform the role of butterfly and kills himself rather than giving up on his fantasy of the White Man’s domination over the Oriental woman. According to Hadicke “His rejection of Song as a man and of his own relational homosexuality, betrays his love—and renders suspect all love—as a representation of the gaze, an illusion of the reconciliation of opposites which reinscribes opposition” (39). In that sense, Gallimard is fixated at dualities and he is very rigid. Both Gallimard and Song, evoke the dichotomies, especially of the East and the West, the feminine and masculine. Gallimard falsely believed that “The orientals simply want to be associated with whoever shows the most strength and power” (45) and they “will always submit to a greater force” (46). In fact Song, who is an Oriental himself, also believed in that as an Oriental “I could never be a completely man” (83). The basic flexibility of the play is that men are allowed to play feminine roles, since both Song and Gallimard perform the role of butterfly respectively. However, both men cannot play the feminine roles at the same time. Only after Song switches to a masculine role, Gallimard assumes a feminine role. Thus, the play keeps the polarity of gender roles intact too. To sum up, while it is possible to say the play is “reversive” since it shoots the Orientalism with its own gun, it is difficult to call it subversive since it keeps the distinctions between the East/feminine and the West/masculine inviolate. However, the multi-layered structure of M. Butterfly, which plays with the illusions and appearances, and evokes superficial stereotypes, makes it difficult to unveil it. However, I agree with Andrew Shin that M. Butterfly is a narrative of repressed homoerotic desire. It seems that both Gallimard and also the play employ an intricate fantasy world to veil a latent homosexuality. Gallimard uses the Oriental fantasy as an excuse of his homosexual behavior. Gallimard’s ignorance of his partners’ sex is simply unbelievable, and thus the Oriental fantasy that he makes up is to cover his homosexuality. Hence, the play contrives the Orientalist and sexist domination fantasies in order to camouflage a latent homosexuality. Nevertheless, Gallimard clings to his sexual domination fantasy of the submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man as his favorite to his bitter end. Works Cited Chow, Rey. Ethics after Idealism: Theory, Culture, Ethnicity, Reading. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1998. Print. Deeney, John J. “Of Monkeys and Butterflies: Transformation in M. H. Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey and D. H. Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” Melus 18.4 (Winter 1993): 21-39. Print. Hadicke, Janet V. “David Henry Hwangs M. Butterfly: The Eye on the Wing”. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (Fall 1992): 27-44. Print. Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York: New American Library, 1989. Print. Kondo, Dorinne K. “‘M. Butterfly’: Orientalism, Gender, and a Critique of Essentialist Identity”. Cultural Critique 16 (Autumn 1990): 5-29. Print. Ma, Sheng-Mei. “Orientalism in Chinese American Discourse: Body and Pidgin”. Modern Language Studies 23.4 (Autumn 1993): 104-117. Print. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1978. Print. Read More