Spencer Lazzari
10/13/2013
CHI 321-001
Dr. Luo
Woman
Demon Human: A Case for Gender Equality
Woman
Demon Human showcases the life of a young opera singer in pre-revolution China.
As you can imagine, life for the young-girl-turned-actress, Qiu Yun, is not
easy in the beginning. Due to how China, historically, has dealt with women,
she had a bit of a rough time from friends, family members, and others.
However, I believe that in the end she defied all stereotypes, paid no
attention to naysayers, overcame it all, and became wildly successful as a
female playing a male role; which is something that was very rarely done in
China.
First,
I believe it is important to establish, and let the record show, the pattern of
disrespect with which women were treated. This can pattern can be immediately
seen in the movie through the way that the male characters treat Qiu Yun. There
are several cases in the movie in which the male characters and actors look
down upon the females. One of the most prominent scenes that this happens in is
the scene where the little boys are poking fun at Qiu Yun (20:32).But first, at
the beginning of the movie, there is a scene (4:40) in which the children are
all playing nicely together before the scene starts. They are putting make up
on the young Qiu Yun. After they are done putting makeup on her, she stands up
and they all complement her and call her pretty. Originally, you might think of
this as the children being kind to her, while in all actuality they are simply
reinforcing the standards that society has put into place that women are
supposed to be beautiful, and are not supposed to do anything but that. Common
knowledge that children learn by observation tells us that these children
learned to treat women this way by observing other, older, members of their
social groups. Now, back to the first scene in which this idea is mainly
portrayed in; in which the young children are playing in the marsh area (20:32).
The other children start picking on Qiu Yun for her mother running away, and
there is even a small fight that breaks out. If they would’ve picked on the
brother as well, then you could say that they were simply “being kids.”
However, being that they singled out Qiu Yun as the only girl, and then started
to make fun of her, and in a way make her feel responsible for her mother’s
leaving, it just goes to show how biased Chinese society was; even for someone
at a child’s age.
Flash
forward to when she is a teenager, the pattern of disrespect continues. One of
the most prominent instances of this is during the scene where Qiu Yun and her
friends are anxiously navigating the bazaar, exploring the various goods that
it has to offer (around 42:00). You notice since the beginning that the
villagers are acting kind of strange with her, and sometimes avoiding
conversation. And then, a major event occurs (at forty-two minutes and
forty-five seconds in). Qiu Yun is caught by a girl in the women’s restroom who
thought that Qiu Yun was a boy. Qiu Yun was then dragged out into a center
court in the bazaar and quickly surrounded by all of the villagers. They start
to interrogate her and assume that she is not a girl, simply by looking at the
short length of her hair. Suddenly, a strange man approaches (whom we have not
seen before) and starts to vouch for her. He then hands one of the angry
villagers a document (presumably an ID of sorts) that states the fact that she
is in fact a girl (even though it is most likely an ID that belongs to someone
else; this is never disclosed to the viewer, though). The stranger and Qiu Yun
then walk away from the mob, and away from the villagers and their lingering
questions and comments. Qiu Yun’s friends and her are then reunited and they
take off. This situation is a clear and obvious example of using societal norms
and stereotypes to judge others, something that the villagers in this town were
used to doing, clearly.
Regardless
of intention, these stereotypes and others were employed in pre-revolution
China for whatever reason (for control and power reasons maybe). One of the
more strange examples of this is one of gender segregation. In Ying Jin Zhang’s
historical work titled “Chinese National
Cinema,” he slightly hinted on this idea of segregation when he talked
about how a figure in the film industry “divided Beijing audiences into four
groups: (1) the majority liked exciting stories with convoluted plots; (2)
women liked sentimental tales and tear-jerkers; (3) more senior, experienced
audiences liked characterization in depth; (4) a minority of intellectuals
liked to study meaning in a film” (Zhang 19). Although you could simply state
that this was just a tactic in order split up the audience and make sure that
they get to see films that they prefer, you could also view it in a more
“biased light.” You could view it as the person singling out women, and
grouping them by one not-necessarily-true assumption.
However,
despite all of this, Qiu Yun still becomes very successful, even though she is
a woman. Around the middle of the movie, you can see that she is already
starting to attain success, as she seems to be the head actress in the group of
girls (52:15). In the scene around 1:24:30, though, her success really starts to become apparent. She is
flipping through the magazine looking at an article about herself, which is an
obvious sign of success; for if she was not famous, then why would she be
written about in what is a seemingly popular magazine. After she is done
flipping through the magazine, the man that came to her apartment with these things
hands her a stack of papers, one can only assume that these are letters that
have been written to her. After this, the scene that starts at 1:24:46 also
shows her great success. There is a large dinner thrown, and as she walks into
the room filled with Chinese and foreigners alike, she is greeted with
enthusiasm and has candid photos taken of her. She is even presented with a
contract that invites her to do something with France. All these things make it
clear that she is a success story in China, as a woman.
From
the beginning where she was discriminated against, to the end where she was
essentially famous, Qiu Yun went on a long journey. However, at the end of the
journey she became wildly successful, and very well known. Towards the end of
the movie, you notice how males are less judgmental towards her, and accept her
as an equal, not basing anything on gender; which for a woman in China (back
then), recognition like that could be a sign of success in its own right. As
stated in the beginning, this demonstrates that she overcame everything, as a
woman in China, and became a success.
Works
Cited
Zhang, Yingjin. Chinese National
Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment