The Wedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair - Movie Review Example

The Wedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair The Wedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair The film Wedding Banquet starring Wai-Tung, his parents, Simon, Wei Wei, and other characters, it is about cultural family relationships. Most existing analysis of the film Wedding Banquet mainly focuses on politics. However, this analysis is going to consider Wedding Banquet in the context of family melodrama. Talking about family melodrama usually means American family melodrama; this analysis of the Wedding Banquet challenges the assumptions that the American or Hollywood family is general or a defaulting category. The wedding Banquet draws attention to family and familial relationship in Chinese culture of the late 20th and early 21st century. The character of Wai-Tung and Simon who are happy gay couples living together in Manhattan depicts this. Wai-Tung is in his late 20s, and his traditional minded parents are longing to see him marry, and bear children to continue the family line. However, for those who are used to watching Hollywood films may see the Wedding Banquet film as family pattern variant. In the Wedding Banquet, the Taiwanese migrant proprietor enjoys a happy life together with his boyfriend, Simon. Wai-Tung’s long-distance parents insist that he should marry and have children for continuity of the family line hence interrupting their happy relationship. Tai-Wung’s parents are, therefore, putting efforts of finding him a Taiwanese bride to marry. Tai-Wung and Simon try to defend this by giving out some impossible demands that the bride should be an opera singer though they knew very well that all Chinese opera singers are men. They also insist that she must be 5’9”, having PhD’s, and be able to speak five languages (Hamamoto, 2000). Simon further suggests a temporary marriage to Wei-Wei to enable him receive a green card. The family melodrama, however, gets underway when the Wai-Tung’s parents (Gaos) insist on visiting him and give out a lavish wedding banquet. Fearing that his parents will realize that he lives with a gay, Wai-Tung and Simon requests Wei-Wei to move in, and Simon pretends to be a Landlord as well as a friend. After the night of the banquet, it is realized that Wei-Wei has become pregnant (Hamamoto, 2000). Unfortunately, Wai-Tung father’s illness delays their departure to go back home. This provokes Wai-Tung to reveal the truth to his mother who urges him not tell his father about the situation. However, Wai-Tung’s father reveals the pregnancy to Mr. Simon and promises him to secrecy too. Simon wonders why this should be secret and Mr. Gao answers, “Otherwise, how would I have gotten my grandson?” This symbolically shows how marrying, and children bearing was so valuable in Chinese family relationships and culture. Many viewers respond to Wedding Banquet by judging it according to their hopes and expectations for demonstrations of various identities, which include not only the Chinese gay but also Asian-American, and Chinese Women. For instance, gay relationships must portray cooperation and adhere to the traditional values and family cultural structures. Wedding Banquet challenges gay relationships by disrespecting set categories in racial, sexual, and cultural identities. Wedding Banquet portrays Mrs. Gao as a little stupid and that Wei-Wei fully utilizes her independence to take on the most traditionalists of female roles in the Chinese culture. Travesty is one the themes portrayed in the film and it is also one main genre is Chinese cultural family relationships (Hamamoto, 2000). The film portrays the primary characteristics of a Hollywood family. In the familial cultural relationship theme, one can discover a personality trait such as homosexuality in dramatic conflict with Chinese cultural family relationship. This influences men to leave their blood relatives and seek chosen families such as gay and lesbian relationship. Wedding Banquet supports this since it tells a story of a Wai-Tung who leaves his family to go and live with a gay friend Simon. However, Homosexuality is an unethical practice in the Chinese family culture. Wedding Banquet depicts this when Simon poses as a property owner and a friend of Wai-Tung to prevent Wai-Tung’s traditional-minded parents from realizing that they are living together as gays. They further request Wei-Wei to move in so that Wai-Tung can convince his parents that he is already married. Here, the drama is driven by Wai-Tung’s difficulties of being unable to bear a grandson to ensure continuity of the family line. A grandson in Chinese family culture is one of the most fundamental aspects expected from a son. Wai-Tung’s parents are putting a lot of pressure to him about marrying and bearing a grandson since he is the only son in the family (Hamamoto, 2000). Wai-Tung’s discussion on homosexuality with Simon in the beginning of the movie shows that such practice is illegal, and this brings lots of confusion to Wai-Tung on whether to reveal the truth to his parents. In addition to this, when Wai-Tung’s parents send a potential match to inform him about his father’s stroke, she also informs him of his father’s words that he would be glad to see his grandson before he dies. This further adds confusion of the situation. This symbolically shows that homosexuality is illegal according to the Chinese cultural family relationships. Additionally, one of the main responsibilities of the Chinese family parents on the kinship relationship is to ensure that the family has a grandson who will continue the family line. Wedding Banquet portrays this in many parts of the whole action. For example, Wai-Tung’s father is a retired career army officer whom many people know by the name “the commander” (Hamamoto, 2000). After his arrival to New York, he narrates his story to his son about how he joined the army forces in order to escape an arranged marriage. After all, he later got married after realizing that his family and relatives in mainland had died and thus he was left with the accountability of continuing the family line. Since Wai-Tung is the only son in the family, the ethical parallels are clear that he must bear a baby boy who shall lead to the continuity of the family line. After the revelation of the truth about Wai-Tung’s and Wei-Wei’s sexual involvement and her subsequent pregnancy, Wei-Wei decides to return the wedding presents, which she received from the Gaos. Unfortunately, Mrs. Gao refuses to accept them and insists that what she want is only her grandson. Wei-Wei responds to Mrs. Gao by asking her, “what about my future?” After these arguments between a kinship commitment and self-defense, Wai-Tung’s mother tells Wei-Wei that she hates women who are self-depended and their education. Wei-Wei tells her that she only regards them as her parents because she is so lonely in America. This shows that availability of a grandson in a family assured the family members that the kinship relationship continuity would be fulfilled. Moreover, Simon finds it difficult to stay under this cultural obligation situation. He tries so much to fulfill daughter in law responsibilities of cooking and doing cleaning for Wai-Tung and his parents. Although the aim of his suggestion of Wei-Wei’s marriage was only to get Wai-Tung’s parents off their backs, this action portrays ideal behavior of a barren daughter in law suggesting a second wife for his husband to enable him bear a son. However, after the situation worsens, Simon begins to go out with friends and tells her husband that he plans to leave because the current situation is not satisfying his needs (Hamamoto, 2000). At the end of Wedding Banquet, Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei finally decide to keep the baby and request Simon to be a co-parent. When he nods, Wai-Tung asks him hesitantly “so you will stay?” The irony here is Wei-Wei’s incantation of the American equivalent of kinship relationship: “You must, because of the child.” The presence of the two types of focus influence viewers from dissimilar backgrounds to have an interest of viewing the Wedding Banquet. This portrays that the Hollywood and Chinese family melodrama are bound to a clear sense of rights and values. In conclusion, Wedding Banquet draws attention to family and familial relationship in Chinese culture of the late 20th and early 21st century. Chinese parents of the 20th century had a responsibility of ensuring that they have a grandson who will continue the family line. Wai-Tung’s parents plan for marriage arrangement for their son who is in his late 20s while his traditional-minded parents are eager to see him marry and bear a grandson for them. Homosexuality is also illegal according to Chinese family kinship. Wai-Tung and Simon ask Wei-Wei to move in order to get off his parent’s back. In real life, many people view the concept of marrying and bearing children as less important and traditionally based. It is however, arguable that marrying and having children is of positive effects because the children will take care of the family’s property after their parent’s death. References Hamamoto, D. Y., & Liu, S. (2000). Counter visions: Asian American film criticism. 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