Cross-Culturalism in Film - Essay Example

Cross-Cultural Female Identities in Joy Luck Club The idea behind what shapes and creates a person's identity has been discussed maybe even since the beginning of time. Even as early as the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, people were discussing how a person's identity, the way that they thought about themselves, was partly determined by internal ideas and partly the result of external expectations (Cohen, 2004). These internal and external forces constantly reshape each other in a never-ending cycle of change to the point that the identity is always redefining itself. The philosophers and scientists of the modern age have come up with a number of theories and models of how this process works, but it is still difficult for women, in particular, to break out of the expectations they have for themselves as they play against or in line with the expectations society has for them. A great deal of what society expects is framed within the messaging portrayed through media and film, such as in Hollywood's version of Joy Luck Club. Hollywood has a continued tendency to only feature idealized images of thin, young, blonde, and mostly obedient to someone images of the female and is mostly blamed for unhealthy attitudes, but scientific theories have indicated that the process of shaping female identity, like any other concept of belonging or 'right' social thought, is a reciprocal process (Yglesias, 2005). Even though films portray the idealized concept of what a woman should be, it is up to women in the 'real' world to define what they really are in order to help change the images they see in film to more accurately reflect reality. However, an examination of a film that focuses on women and female identity, such as Joy Luck Club, illustrates that issues of female identity are much bigger in reality than they are shown on screen. This is made even more complex when women must consider issues such as tradition and self-fulfillment as they transition between two different cultures, as they do in the American-made film Joy Luck Club. An important concept to understand in such a study of cross-cultural female identity in film is the idea of the sociological imagination. This term is used to discuss the process through which people internally determine their place within society and helps shape how we will behave in different situations (Mills, 2000). As we play this cyclical game of determining our place in society and determining how we should behave in relation to that idea, whether we decide to act according to what is expected of us or completely against it, will play a significant role in how we create our own identity. When we internally link our personal experience with what we understand of cultural expectations, we begin to classify ourselves and others into different social groups according to those beliefs. This sociological imagination builds upon three observable aspects of being which include class, race and gender (Mills, 2000). Race and gender are pretty self-explanatory, but class may need a bit more definition. According to Mills (2000), the person's profession, their income level, their education, and several other elements considered desirable by a given culture can factor into the concept of class. Within the Western European and American cultures, for example, class is given to people who have a high level of education, dress in expensive clothing, and who have a career conducted from within a private office are considered to have more class than people who don't dress well or who have trouble articulating their thoughts. Since it doesn't necessarily follow that people who dress well and speak clearly make more money or have more power than people who dress poorly and struggle to make their ideas clear, class is considered to be a highly flexible and imprecise measure. The idea of class plays a significant role in the forming of female identity, though, as can be seen in Joy Luck Club. On a micro-level, the many female characters in the film can be seen to stratify themselves within their small group based on what they know of each other. There is a clear hierarchy established among the older women of the film with two of them, Lindo and Suyuan battling with each other for the top spot. Suyuan was the original founder of the Joy Luck Club and should be its natural leader, but throughout their lives together, it was Lindo who had the 'better' daughter because she was a child prodigy chess player. In the 'present day' of the film, Lindo is also the only one still living and so naturally takes the highest position on the class scale. The daughters of these women have also established their own social hierarchy among themselves that is only partially based on their mothers' relationships. Waverly takes the lead which gives her mother an advantage over Suyuan, but Waverly's position among the younger set is not as strong as her mother's becomes. The reason for this is that the daughters are not as closely bound socially as their mothers have been. Where the mothers' class hierarchy is based more upon internal characteristics and behaviors established by their childhoods in China, the daughters' hierarchy is based on external factors of careers and success in marriage. This is a cross-cultural difference that the older women struggle to understand as the external factors weigh more heavily on their daughters than the internal factors do on themselves. Even though the concepts of race and gender seem pretty clear-cut and unchanging no matter what culture you are in, this is not necessarily true. Race is loosely defined as an element of physical features that associate a person with a specific area of the world (Mills, 2000). This definition already shows how the idea of race can be very imprecise. A Chinese person can be difficult to distinguish from a Korean person for example, and even within the vast area of China, cultures can be different from the north to the south or east to west. To clarify this concept, secondary judgments are made based on other ethnic characteristics that provide clues to the person's place of origin (Mills, 2000). An individual might have the epicanthic eyes, olive skin, and dark hair generally characteristic of the Asian race and thus be associated with the exotic, but her modern business suit, use of flawless unaccented English and her way of life might redefine her as completely American. For this reason, the concepts of race and ethnicity have come to mean two different things. "Race refers to a person's physical appearance, such as skin color, eye color, hair color, bone/jaw structure, etc. Ethnicity, on the other hand, relates to cultural factors such as nationality, culture, ancestry, language, and beliefs" ("Ethnicity vs. Race," 2013). Thus, ethnicity deals with the increasingly unclear question of race by acknowledging differences based on the person's place of origin, their native language, and their shared historical background. Where race is determined by the individual's genetic makeup and manifests in their skin color or eye shape, ethnicity reveals where they're from and, like other elements of identity, is in a constant state of change as the result of socialization and internal definition. Within the Joy Luck Club, all of the primary characters are of Asian descent as the older women all emigrated from different parts of China and their daughters were all raised in America. As a result, they all share similar characteristics of race. However, their ethnicity is very different from each other both as a result of their differing interactions within their American homes and as a result of their changing attitudes toward the traditional understanding they've internalized of what it means to be a 'good' woman. The older women in the film were raised under very strict traditional standards. These ideas come through as they describe their lives back in China. Within their recollections, we are able to see that there are long-standing traditions of arranged marriages for children, abandonment issues, the need to uphold family honor at all costs, and expectations of unquestioned obedience to any command given by an elder. These ideas were expected behaviors for this older set of women and they grew up with the understanding that they must be followed no matter the injustice suffered in order to not bring shame upon the family. Upon arriving in America and realizing these standards no longer held true, the women dropped several of these ideas, but they were not able to drop all. For example, they continued to speak their native language among themselves, honored many of their traditional beliefs regarding family, observed the same religious obligations, and maintained their traditional diets and activities. Individually, though, each of the women recognized the harm caused them by the strict observance of traditional values of family and honor at all costs and consciously made the decision to raise their daughters on more American, and thus more liberated, standards. As a result, the daughters of the film represent a lost, cross-cultural generation that was neither fully Chinese nor fully American, which causes them a lot of confusion as they struggle to decide which set of external instructions, Chinese or American, they should follow and/or internalize. Without the ability to tap into their mother's strength of history and background, they are uncertain of just how they should proceed in life. Once they learn of their mothers' pasts, they are more able to take confident action. In this way, the film argues for tradition tempered by evolving cultural standards. The final observable element of the sociological imagination is gender, the simple question of whether one is a boy or a girl, but this is another question that can be confused by sociological identification (Mills, 2000). Most societies hold some idea of the roles to be performed by each gender and those who take up roles outside of their gender are considered non-conformist. For example, in many cultures, the man is expected to be the providers and protectors while the women are expected to perform all the work that does not fall under these classifications. This might include raising children, maintaining a clean and attractive home, preparing the meals, and ensuring that the family accurately represents their place in society or slightly higher through their clothing, behavior, and adherence to expected norms. Women are typically considered to be concerned with frivolous matters that make little difference in life or death struggles while men are thought to be more concerned with important matters such as the survival of the community and supporting life. However, reality dictates that these lines must be crossed, and often are willingly and consciously as the individual's life situation and natural inclination dictates. To help distinguish between the physical properties of being male or female and the sociological concepts of gender roles, sociologists sometimes refer to these roles and behaviors as sexual identity (Mills, 2000), another concept explored within the film. Within the film, it seems both Chinese and American culture hold similar ideas regarding the role of the female; however, there is greater flexibility provided within the American culture. The older set of women in the film gained their strength and independence from their mothers as a result of knowing the difficulties their mothers experienced. They deeply identify with the abiding inner strength and fortitude it took to survive as a woman in old China. Their choices to remove the shackles of their home culture and move to America introduces a new difficulty, though, as they struggle to redefine what it means to be a successful woman in their new culture. Although their progressive and bold lifestyle changes are seen as such through the lens of Chinese culture, their lives in America are viewed by their daughters and others as backward and weak. The younger set of women in the film are not able to see the true strength of their mothers because they are seeing them through American eyes. They only see submission and doubt. While some of the daughters are able to learn the same kind of strength of character held by their mothers, and eventually come to recognize it in the older set, they do so through external channels of either rebelling against their mothers' ideals or by finding examples within the American culture, such as the instance when Lena realizes that fighting out loud and showing your anger can lead to deeper understanding between couples and a more open, loving, equal relationship. Looking at the film through the lens of sociological imagination, it can be seen that issues of cross-culturalism have a profound effect not just on the person who has moved from one culture to another, but also on those who follow and those who came before. Identity is based on an individual's understanding of where their place is in the world, both physically and sociologically (Anderson, 1994). The women of The Joy Luck Club find themselves in the center of great cultural shifts, not just as the older women move out of China to raise their daughters in America with American traditions, but also as women experiencing the great shift of thinking regarding women's roles in society. Traditional social stratifications even in America were changing drastically and navigating the chaotic waters of social change in addition to cultural change made it difficult for the younger women of the film to find their feet, and their position, within this shifting world. Eventually, they find it through their own interpretations of the traditional values and beliefs brought over from China by their mothers. While they continue to struggle with and against social expectations, they eventually discover their constraints are largely of their own making and are able to adjust their identities to achieve more satisfying results. Works Cited Anderson, B. “Imagined Communities.” Nationalism. J. Hutchinson & D. Smith (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994: 89-96. Print. Cohen, Mark S. "Identity, Persistence, and the Ship of Theseus." Washington State University Faculty, 2004. Web. http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.html "Ethnicity vs. Race." Diffen. (2013). Web. http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethnicity_vs_Race The Joy Luck Club. Dir. Wayne Wang, Perf. Ming-Na, Rosalind Chao, Lauren Tom, France Nuyen, Tamlyn Tomita, Kieu Chinh, Lisa Lu & Tsai Chin. Hollywood Pictures, 1993. Film. Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. Yglesias, Matthew. “The Theory of Ideology.” Weblog [online]. (2005). Web. http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/01/the_theory_of_i.html Read More