Society for Cinema & Media Studies

Postmodern Double Cross: Reading David Cronenberg's "M. Butterfly" as a Horror Story
Author(s): Asuman Suner
Source: Cinema Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Winter, 1998), pp. 49-64
Published by: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225642
Accessed: 06-08-2015 11:02 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Texas Press and Society for Cinema & Media Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Cinema Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
PostmodernDoubleCross:ReadingDavid
Cronenberg'sM.Butterflyas a HorrorStory
by Asuman Suner

In light of recent developments infeminist and postcolonial theory, the genre con-
ventions of M. Butterfly remain consistent with David Cronenherg'searlier style
of horrorfilm.

David Cronenberg'scinema has received considerable critical attention in recent

years not only from film scholars but also from scholarsworking on contemporary
cultural theory, particularlytheories of postmodernism. For that latter group of
scholars, Cronenberg's films testify to the emergence of a "postmodern,""post-
gender," and "posthuman"subjectivity.In TerminalIdentity, for example, Scott
Bukatmanreads Cronenberg'scinema in relation to the coming out of a new "in-
formation/space age."' According to Bukatman, Cronenberg'sfilms stage a "ter-
minal identity,"which refers to a double articulation:"boththe end of the subject
and a new subjectivityconstructed at the computer station or television screen.'"•
All the protagonistsin Cronenberg'sfilms, according to Bukatman,signify a "slip-
page" in human definition: "the loss of power over the form of the human, the
visible sign of our being, combines with the absence of the moral certainties that
once guided that power.'
What is not sufficiently addressed in Bukatman'sanalysis is the fact that the
"double articulation of subjectivity"in Cronenberg's films, which refers to both
the end of the subject and the construction of a new postmodern mode of subjec-
tivity, is not a postgender or posthuman phenomenon but is deeply grounded in
gender. In Cronenberg'scinema, it is specifically the male subject whose unified,
coherent, and central status is disturbed and disarticulated.The new, decentered,
and fluid mode of subjectivitywhich signifies a "slippagein human definition"is
also unmistakably male. As Michael O'Pray puts it, "The Cronenberg mise-en-
scene of techno-phantasy upon which his reputation rests-the parasites, the
growths, the visceral invasions of the body-is male through and through."'
Cronenberg's1993 film M. Butterfly occupies a particularlyinteresting place
in the director'scinema, because for the first time he articulates the crisis of the
male subject not only in terms of the questions of gender and the crisis of moder-
nity but also in terms of the questions of race, ethnicity, and imperialism. Unlike
some well-known Cronenberg films such as Videodrome (1985), The Fly (1986),
Dead Ringers (1988), or Naked Lunch (1991), M. Butterfly cannot be categorized
within the confines of horror and/or science fiction genres. Instead, M. Butterfly

F. AsumanSuneris an assistantprofessorin the Departmentof Comparative

Literature,
Universityof Hong Kong. She is working on a book on contemnporary Turkishcinema.
0 1998 by the University of TexasPress, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

Cinema lournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998 49

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
is a "politicalmelodrama"set in postrevolutionaryChina.5There is a double sense
of politics in the term "politicalmelodrama,"since melodrama, as a genre explor-
ing the politics of desire and subjectivity in the private realm, is always already
political. Revolving around personal dramas that the characters undergo in the
periods of social upheaval and transformation,political melodrama reads a par-
ticular historical situation through the lens of the politics of desire and subjectiv-
ity.Since the mid-1980s,politicalmelodramahas been most effectivelyincorporated
by the Fifth Generation Chinese directors whose films have gained considerable
international attention. In the films like Army Nurse (Hu Mei, 1984), The Blue
Kite (TianZhuangZhuang,1993), and FarewellMy Concubine(Chen Kaige, 1994),
personal dramasat the foreground are grounded in the social and political context
of the CulturalRevolution takingplace in the background."Exploringthe issues of
subjectivity,desire, and sexualityagainst the backdropof the CulturalRevolution,
M. Butterfly has an interesting affinitywith contemporaryChinese cinema.
Because of the drastic shift of genre conventions from science fiction and/or
horrorstory to political melodrama,one can argue that M. Butterfly is at odds with
Cronenberg'searlier films. In this paper, I will try to show that M. Butterfly does
not represent a rupture from Cronenberg'sconventional style. M. Butterfly is in-
deed also a horrorstory, like the director'searlier films, but of a different sort.
In Cronenberg'scinema, horrorarises from the violation of the boundaries of
the male body and male subjectivity.Abjection of the male body, in other words, is
the primarysource of terror. Usually, it is the excessive desire for transcendence
and omnipotence on the part of the male protagonist that causes the ultimate
destruction of the male body. The impulsive male desire for omnipotence and
transcendence is connected with the modernist ideals of asserting full control
over nature through the means of scientific and geographical discovery which
would supposedly lead to the progress and emancipation of humanity. In films
like Videodrome,The Fly, and Dead Ringers, male protagonistsaggressivelypush
the boundaries of the human body to transcend its limits. In each case, however,
the desire to assert full control over nature results in total loss of control, the
desire to transcend the limits of the body results in getting stuck even deeper in
the flesh, the desire for omnipotence ends up in ruination. In these films, the
male protagonists over and over again experience metamorphosis, abjection, and
monstrosity.M. Butterfly, in this context, is also a horrorstory,since it is about the
violation of the boundaries defining and securing male subjectivity.Like the other
Cronenberg films, in M. Butterfly, the impossible male fantasy for omnipotence
eventually leads to the psychic and physical destruction of the male subject.
Reading M. Butterfly as an extension of the earlier Cronenberg films, how-
ever, is not to suggest that M. Butterfly is first and foremost a Cronenberg film,
carries the signature of its "auteur," and reflects solely Cronenberg's voice.
M. Butterfly obviously echoes multiple voices other than Cronenberg's,including
the voices of the Chinese American playwright Henry Hwang (whose play had
been originally staged on Broadwayand then adapted to cinema) and the actors
(particularlyJeremy Irons and John Lone). Moreover,the film, as a complex cul-
tural text, reflects the issues and sensibilities of its own time. It is not a coinci-

50 CinemaJournal 37,
No. 2,
Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
dence, for example, that M. Butterfly came out at a period when the issues of
transvestism,homoeroticism, and homosexualityhave become more and more ex-
plored even in the mainstreamcinema.; In this paper, my reading of M. Butterfly
in the context of Cronenberg'scinema obviously does not aim to preclude alterna-
tive readings of the film emphasizing other voices involved in the film text.

Feminizationof the Colonizedand Colonizationof the Feminine:Inter-

twined Modes of the Orientalist Discourse. The story of M. Butterflyis
inspired by a notorious "real-life"scandal: a French junior diplomat was driven
to spying during the course of an eighteen-year-long love affair with a Chinese
transvestite who he never realized was actually a man. Henry Hwang turned the
political scandal into a play and then a film scenario. Hwang organized the entire
story aroundPuccini'sfamous opera MadameButterfly,which contains, in Hwang's
terms, "awealth of sexist and racist clich6s."' Madame Butterfly, in other words,
is a showcase of the Western sexual/colonial fantasywhich is most vividlyembod-
ied in the opera through the stereotypical representation of the submissive and
obedient "Oriental"woman who falls in love with a Western, white man and sac-
rifices herself for him.' Hwang reads the text of Puccini'sopera against the grain
and creates a "deconstructivistMadame Butterfly":the story of a French diplo-
mat who falls in love with the image of an ideal Oriental woman which is created
by Western modernist/imperialist culture. What is "deconstructivist"in this story
is that the ideal Oriental woman is actually a man, and, at the end, the French
diplomat turns himself into "M. Butterfly."
Adapting Hwang'splay into film, Cronenberg emphasized an element which
is already strongly evident in the original text: the blatant banalityof the Western
sexual/colonial fantasy.Cronenberg'scamera in the film assumes the French dip-
lomat's dull and ignorant perspective, turning the entire historical complexity of
Chinese culture into a big cliche. In effect, what is offered by Cronenberg'sfilm is
not so much a critique but a caricatureof the old imperialist dream, the romance
with the Other. The blatant banality of the colonial fantasy is emphasized in M.
Butterfly on both narrativeand visual levels.
Two major discursive strategies can be delineated in modernist narrativesin
relation to the representationof the Western sexual/colonialfantasy:"colonization
of the feminine"and "feminizationof the colonized."Both strategiescenter around
the Western, white, male subject who is the main protagonistof a sexual/colonial
scenariothroughwhich he assuresthe unity and integrityof his own identity.In this
respect, there is a commonalityin the representationsof women and the colonized
(non-Western,nonwhite) cultures on the basis of the sharedstrategiesemployed by
Western modernist discourse in constructing them as Others with regard to the
Western, white, male subject. In both cases, Otherness is constituted as a fixed,
stereotypicalconstruct. Homi Bhabhaassertsthat "animportantfeature of colonial
discourse is its dependence on the concept of 'fixity'in the ideological construction
of otherness. Fixity as the sign of cultural/historical/racialdifference in the dis-
course of colonialism is a paradoxicalmode of representation:it connotes rigidity
and an unchangingorder as well as disorder,degeneracyand demonic repetition.""

Journal
Cincemna 37,
No. 2, Winter 1998 51
This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
In this regard, then, what gives the colonial stereotype its currency is its ambiva-
lence. The colonial stereotype connotes both a desire and an anxiety.It is simulta-
neouslyinscribedin the economy of pleasure/desireand domination/power.In turn,
the double articulationof the forms of sexual and racialdifference in the colonial
body marks it simultaneously as the object of desire and domination at once in
relationto the Western modernistproject and its central subject. The intertwining
discursiveformationsof racial/sexualdesire and dominationproduce and maintain
the statusof Western,white, male identity as the sovereignsubjectof the modernist
project. Paralleldiscursivestrategiesemployed in the constructionof Otherness on
the partof women and colonized people consistentlyinvest them with the attributes
of difference, disorderliness,chaos, mystery,enigma, irrationality,and so forth. Ex-
otic and erotic become intermingleddiscursivetropes in the modernist narratives,
justifyingthe discoveryand control of the female/colonized body.
At this point, it is important to note that the construction of Otherness on
the part of women and colonized people is constitutive for the centrality of the
Western, white, male subject in the hegemonic humanist discourse of moder-
nity. As Chandra Talpade Mohanty notes: "it is only insofar as 'woman/women'
and 'the East' are defined as Others, or as peripheral, that (Western) Man/Hu-
manism can represent him/itself as the center. It is not the center that deter-
mines the periphery, but the periphery that, in its boundedness, determines the
center."" Therefore, the very constitution of the Western, white, male subject
depends upon the construction of Otherness in a certain way. The intertwined
strategies of the colonization of the feminine and the feminization of the colo-
nized open up a discursive space in which the categories of self/other, male/
female, subject/object, West/non-West appear as binary oppositional constructs
that mutually define and determine each other. It is not only the first term that
defines, determines, and controls the meaning of the second, but it is also the
second term that gives definition to the first one.
M. Bttterfly overtly employs these two discursive strategies-colonization of
the feminine and feminization of the colonized-in its portrayalof Otherness. On
both narrativeand visual levels, the film highlights the interplay between the bi-
nary oppositional categories of male/female and West/East.
M. Butterfly consistently associates erotic desire with desire for domination
from the first encounter of its two protagonists, the French diplomat (Rene
Gallimard)and the Chinese opera singer (Song Liling). Gallimard(played by Jer-
emy Irons) first sees Song (played by John Lone) at an ambassador'sresidence in
Beijing where she performs the death scene from Madame Butterfly..'2 Deeply
moved by Puccini'sopera, Gallimardhas a chance to talk to Song after her perfor-
mance. Gallimardsays that Song'sperformance made him realize for the first time
the beauty of Madame Butterfly's story. What Gallimard finds beautiful in this
story, in his own words, is the "pure sacrifice" and the "death"of the Oriental
woman. Although Song belittles Gallimard'staste as a product of a colonialist men-
tality,the French diplomat still falls in love with the romanticimperialistfantasyin
Puccini's opera. The dominant/submissive pattern of the fantasy that Gallimard
falls in love with is vividly illustrated on the record cover of the opera that he

52 CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
orders the day after he meets with Song. On the record cover, we see a man stand-
ing in a white navy uniform and an Orientalwoman in a kimono kneeling down in
front of her lover. Gallimardlooks at this dull clich6 admiringly.What he is actu-
ally attracted to is the stereotypical image of the Oriental woman as passive, sub-
missive, and obedient. As Gallimardadmits at the end of the film, he in fact falls in
love with the image of an Oriental woman created by the Western man.
As their relationship develops, Gallimard'sdesire to restage the dominant/
submissive pattern of the colonial romance becomes more aggressive. Once he
gets Song'saffection, he startsto ignore her. Song'sdesperate letters, overt vulner-
ability,and passive obedience make him feel, for the firsttime, the "absolutepower
of a man."For Gallimard,this is an exciting experience. As in Puccini'sopera, what
is arousingis the experimentof catching a butterfly,piercing its heart with a needle,
and then leaving it to perish. The new masculine self-confidence that Gallimard
gains through his domination over Song makes him more successful in his diplo-
matic career, and he gets a promotion to vice-consul. Learning that he is pro-
moted, Gallimard goes to see Song after several weeks of not answering her
messages. Now, being flattered by his victory,he wants Song to say that she is his
butterfly. Behind Gallimard'sdeterminationto hear Song'ssubmission is the eroti-
cized imperialist desire to conquer and dominate the Other. In order to assure his
own "masculine"self-integrity and power, Gallimardneeds a declarationof "femi-
nine" submissiveness on the part of the Other. Once Song accepts being his blut-
terfly, Gallimardnever uses her name again;instead, he calls her "butterfly."The
metaphors that Gallimardchooses to name their relationshipare no less revealing
with regardto his desire to conquer and dominate. Theirs is a "master/slave"rela-
tionship. Song is an "obedient slave,"a little "schoolgirl"waiting for her lessons.
In the course of the years that Gallimardspent with Song as his mistress, the
last instance that his masculine potency is fully affirmed is when he learns that
Song is pregnantwith his child. In this way, all his suspicions about his own mascu-
line potency are happily resolved. The moment that Gallimardlearns that Song is
pregnant with his child marks the moment when the remaking of the Madame
Butterfly story is completed: just as in Puccini's opera, we have a Western man
having a child from his Oriental mistress. What happens next, however, is not the
tragic and "beautiful"death of the Oriental mistress.
The second majornarrativestrategyemployed by M. Butterflyis the feminiza-
tion of the colonized. In Woman and Chinese Modernity, Rey Chow analyzes
Bernardo Bertolucci'shighly acclaimed film The Last Emperor (1987) by employ-
ing the psychoanalyticmodel developed by LauraMulvey.': In "VisualPleasureand
NarrativeCinema,"Mulvey engages in a critique of the patriarchalregime of look-
ing embedded in the visual organizationand narrativestructureof mainstreamcin-
ema and suggests that in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking
has been split between active/male and passive/female. In this regard, the three
kinds of gaze involvedin the cinema (the gaze of the main character,the gaze of the
camera, and the gaze of the spectator) collapse into one masculine gaze. Whereas
the gaze in cinema is necessarilymasculine, the sexualizedimage on the screen has
to be feminine. Chow further complicates Mulvey'sargument in two ways. First,

Cinema Journal37, No. 2, Winter 1998 53

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
she extends the interpretationof "imageas woman"to "imageas feminized space"
which can be occupied by a male as well as a female character.In this way,"feminin-
ity"as a categoryis freed up to include fictionalconstructsthat may not be "women"
but that occupy a passive position in regardto the controllingsymbolic.'4Feminin-
ity, in other words, does not have to refer to a woman; it can be produced as a
feminized space and spectacle. Second, Chow assertsthat the "imageas feminized
space" raises questions as to what is involved in the representationof "other"cul-
tures. The categoryof Other is mostlyproduced in the dominantcinema as a "femi-
nized space." Accordingto Chow, in Bertolucci'sThe Last Emperor, for example,
China occupies the "feminizedspace"in the cinematicstructureof eroticism.Ideal-
izing China through the categoryof the feminine, The Last Emperorcounterposes
China to the West not only because the former is different but also because it is
"feminine"from the masculinizedperspective of the West. Through this feminiza-
tion, China is markedoff taxonomicallyfrom "our"time, and it is located within an
ahistoricalmode of existence in which it is allowed to play with its own rhythms.
Being defined as a mysterious,exotic, and spectacularculture, the entire social and
politicalcomplexityof Chinese society is reduced to a pure object of displayinvesti-
gated and colonized by the masculinizedWestern gaze.
Following a similarline of argumentation,I would like to suggest that China
is consistently depicted as a "feminized space/spectacle" in M. Butterfly. Within
the film'snarrative,Chinese society is portrayedfrom the perspectiveof the French
diplomats, especially that of Gallimard. In this view, China is romanticized and
eroticized as an Oriental culture whose exotic and mysterious quality makes its
controljustifiable.As EdwardSaid arguesin Orientalism,the Orient is constructed
as a distinct entity whose traditionalways and rhythms markit off from the mod-
ern Western culture.'5 Orientals live in their world, "we"live in ours. A certain
"freedom of intercourse,"however, is always the Westerner'sprivilege; because
his is the stronger culture, he can penetrate, he can wrestle with, and he can give
shape and meaning to the Orient.
In this framework,Gallimardhimself has a cherishingapproachto Chinawhich
benevolently acknowledgesthat "the Orientals are people too." For him, Chinese
people are willing to get the good things that the Westerners could give them; in-
deed, they find Western ways exciting, though they would never admit it. These
"feminine"attributeswhich portrayChinese people as naive, childish, and submis-
sive also imply that China requires Western control not in brutal but benevolent
terms. Ella Shohatsuggests that the "civilizingmission"of Europe is establishedin
colonial narrativesthrough two ostensibly opposite but actually connected con-
structsof the Other culture as feminine:the "invitingvirginallandscape"versusthe
"resisting libidinal nature." Shohat notes: "colonial discourse oscillates between
these two master tropes, alternativelypositioningthe colonized 'other' as blissfully
ignorant,pure and welcoming as well as an uncontrollablesavage,wild nativewhose
chaotic, hystericpresence requiresthe impositionof the law,i.e., the suppressionof
resistance.'""Given this split discourseof virginal/libidinal,Gallimard'sapproachto
China clearly falls into the first narrativetrope, which sees the Other culture in a
state of availability,that is, logically calling for Western penetration. In this sense,

54 CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Gallimard'sresponse after learning that Song is a virginis characteristicof his over-
all attitude to China as a feminized culture: "Then, I want to teach you gently!"A
similarchain of reasoningis also evident in Gallimard'srathernaive opinions about
the Vietnamwar which eventuallylead to his transferto France. Since "the Orien-
tals simplywant to be associatedwith whoever shows the most strengthand power,"
Gallimardsuggests that the Vietnamesepeople would welcome Americans.Relying
upon his own sexual/colonialfantasy,he envisionsthe "Orientalworld"as a shy but
in essence passionatevirgin, submissivelywelcoming Western "penetration."
Feminization of the colonized is a recurrentstrategyin M. Butterfly at the vi-
sual as well as the narrativelevel. Visually,the film offers a blatantlybanal and ro-
manticized image of China. In a sense, Cronenberg'scamera totally identifies with
Gallimard'sperspective and shows us how the French diplomat sees China as an
eroticized Oriental culture. Though it was shot on location, the China reflected in
M. Butterfly is unmistakablyartificialand visibly staged. The effect of staginess is
self-consciously created by the film at the very opening. The film begins with the
image of a white door opening from left to right.As the credits appearon the screen
one by one, we begin to see certainobjects moving from left to right againsta back-
ground composed of Chinese watercolorsand prints moving in the opposite direc-
tion. The slowly moving objects on the screen are supposed to represent the
traditionalChinese culture to a stranger,probablyto a Westerner.We see a mask
from the traditionalChinese theater, a little purple piece of flower made of tulle, a
globe-shaped object covered with yin and yang signs, a small Chinese umbrella,
a traditionalmusical instrument,a rice cup with Chinese prints on it, a blue stamp,
a little butterfly.These can easily be the souvenir objects that one can find in the
living room of a Westerntravelerwho has visited China.These small artifactsdo not
necessarilytell us anythingabout China, but they successfully reveal the common-
place image of China in the West. The opening of the film with the display of the
objects which supposedly symbolize the "authentic"Chinese culture gives the first
signal of the fact that Cronenberg'sreal concern in M. Butterfly is not Chinese
society but the image of China in Western imagery. In this sense, Cronenberg's
cameranever pretends to be a transparentmedium reflecting the realityof a differ-
ent culture. On the contrary,we are consistently reminded that what we see is an
artificiallyconstructedimage of China.The exaggeratedconstructednessof the film
is especially evident in the use of color and lighting. In the outdoor shooting, espe-
ciallywhen nighttime is represented, Cronenberguses an excessive purple lighting.
With the artificialcolor effect, Beijing'sdim and foggy streets appear exotic and
mysterious.In such a theatricalsetting and lighting,we see equally artificialimages
from Chinese culture: an old Chinese man hunting butterflies along the river, a
small handcartfading out in the darknessof the night. Every image contributes to
the artificiallyconstructedlook of the film, which is self-consciouslyignorantof the
cultural and historical complexity of China. In this regard, the political develop-
ments in Chinese society (the CulturalRevolution) are also reduced to a clich6.
The staginess of the film, however, is nowhere more evident than in the first
and the last images. As I mentioned above, the first image of the film is a white
door opening from left to right. The last image is also a white door (this time, the

CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998 55

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 door of the plane that is carrying Song back to China) closing in the opposite
direction: from right to left. The effect created by these two images that we see at
the beginning and at the end is that of a bracketing which emphasizes the con-
structedness of the events in the film. In a sense, these opening and closing doors
function like the opening and closing curtainsin a theater performance:both mark
the film/performanceof the "reality."The choice of the opening and closing doors
as the first and the last images of the film, in this respect, does not seem to be
coincidental; instead, it illustrates the film'spreoccupation with theatricalityand
staginess. This is a pull awayfrom the cinematic conventions of realist representa-
tion to an artificialconstruction of reality.In this regard, Cronenberg does not try
to give us a realistic representation of Chinese society, but he plays with the eroti-
cized imperialist fantasythat produces China as a feminized Other.
On the visual level, China is constructed as a "feminized space"in M. Butter-
fly most evidently through a strong emphasis on the spectacularaspect of the Chi-
nese culture, which is strikingly embodied in the Oriental theater. As Marjorie
Garber points out, makeup, costume, symbols, and stylization are the key ele-
ments of the Oriental theater as it is known by the West.'"In Western culture,
these are also the key elements of female impersonation.In M. Butterfly, China is
constructed as an enigmatic Oriental woman hidden behind a spectacular mask
represented by the traditionalChinese theater. The mask is a recurringfigure in
M. Butterfly and symbolizes the enigmatic and mysterious qualities of the femi-
nized China. The mask, just like the veil, covering the face of the non-Western
(and usually female) Other, has a special meaning in the Western sexual/colonial
imagination.It provokes curiosity and desire on the part of the Western subject to
discover the truth of the Other. On the one hand, it is seductive, since it invites an
intervention to solve the puzzle, to reveal the truth hiding behind it. On the other
hand, it indicates a "danger"because of its opaque structure that prevents the
Western male gaze from seeing throughit. Behind the mask,there is the unknown,
the enigma, the trap. This double function of the mask as a seductive and danger-
ous figure is undertaken by the heavy makeup that Song puts on when she per-
forms in the Oriental theater. Her costume, makeup, and hairstyle function as a
deceptive cover which provokes Gallimard (as well as the audience) to see her
truth. Ratherthan reinforcingit, however,M. Butterflysubvertsthe Westernsexual/
colonial fantasy by suggesting that there is no "truth"behind the mask. The film
never attempts to capture the "truth"of the Orient. On the contrary,at the end,
the maskis finallyput on by the Western,white, male subject through a subversive
role reversal.

Cultural Identity as Performance. Whatmakesa film whichsimultaneously

reveals and reproduces the blatant banalityof the Western sexual/colonial fantasy
subversive?Adapting MarjorieGarber'sargument, I would like to argue that the
subversivepotential of M. Butterfly lies in the border crossings that it invokes.'"In
this sense, it can be argued that the film is based on political, cultural, and sexual
acts of border crossing that revolve around the notions of spying, acting, and per-
forming. In each case, the act of border crossing is embodied by the figure of the

56 CinemaJoumnal37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 transvestite.Accordingto Garber,the transvestitefigure functions simultaneously
as a mark of gender undecidability and an indication of crisis. Here, crisis means
"a failure of definitional distinction, a borderline that becomes permeable, that
permits border crossings from one (apparently distinct) category to another."'9
The borders between male/female and West/East are crossed twice in M. Butter-
fly, first by Song and then by Gallimard.
Song's presence in the film as a transvestite body is consistently contained
within the boundaries of performance. As an actress she performs on the stage,
and as a spy s/he performs off the stage. In each case, s/he crosses sexual, cultural,
and political borders. Through this constant shuttling between different positions
and roles, we never know Song's true identity. Her/his "reality"is circumscribed
by the different roles s/he performs. In her own terms, she alwaystries her best to
become someone else. And in each performancewhat we get is this someone else,
not Song's true identity. In this way, the identity of the transvestite figure in M.
Butterflyis deliberatelyconstructedas performative.Song'smultipleperformances,
as both female and male, put into question the very binaryoppositional categories
of male and female as ontological essences. To use Judith Butler'sargument about
the "performativeness"of gender, Song's impersonation of the Oriental woman
implicitly suggests that "genderis a kind of persistent impersonationthat passes as
the real."•20In imitating femininity so perfectly, the transvestite figure actually re-
veals the fabricatedstructure of gender itself. The transvestite body suggests that
gender is constituted through the stylizationof the body and through the stylized
repetitionof certainbodily movements, gestures, and acts.What is subversiveabout
the transvestite figure embodied by Song, then, is the way that transvestism ren-
ders the notion of "true"gender identity obsolete. As Butler notes: "If the inner
truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and
inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true
nor false."'' Similarly,at the end of the film, it is impossible to tell which perfor-
mance of Song (female or male) is "true"and which one is "false."All we have is
several border crossings; each passes as the real.
It is possible to identify four majorperformancesby Song in M. Butterfly.Each
performance is supported by the use of special costumes, hairstyles,and makeup.
First, Song has on-stage performancesin which she plays several roles from tradi-
tional Chinese theater as well as from Western opera. In these performances,she
usuallyputs on exaggeratedcostumes and makeup.
Second, Song playsthe ideal Orientalwomanin her relationshipwith Gallimard.
In this off-stage performance, her costumes are simple but elegant. The dark or
white silk tunics and slim pants she wears reflect her modesty and humility as a
traditionalChinese woman. (Indeed, her costume is nowhere more vital than in this
performance,since it hides his genitals.Even when Song makeslove with Gallimard,
she refuses to take off her clothes.) Similarly,her makeupand long, blackhair seem
quite plain and "natural."In performingthe ideal Orientalwoman, every single ges-
ture is carefullycalculated.Song usuallysits on her knees and looks down. There is
alwaysa sufferingexpressionon her face. Her voice is soft and low. All these details
build up the image of the obedient, submissive, and self-effacing Orientalwoman.

lournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

Cinema 57

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
After all, as Song herself puts it, she gives a perfect performance as the Oriental
woman, because "onlya man can know how a woman is supposed to act."
The third performance by Song is a more complicated one, that is, her/his
performance as a spy workingfor the Chinese government. In this case, s/he plays
a man who impersonates a woman for the sake of his country.The troubling aspect
of this performance is that Song continues to wear feminine clothes even when
s/he is giving reports to the Chinese officials. To justify his situation, he says that
he practices his deception as often as possible. In this statement, her/his identity is
even more obscure: what is Song's deception? Being a female or being a male,
being a lover or being a spy? The film does not allow us to know either her/his
"deception"or her/his "reality."All we have is a constant sense of ambivalence
between ever-changing roles and performances. Interestingly enough, Chin, the
Chinese official that Song contacts, gives another gender performance that fur-
ther complicates Song'sposition.22As a committed member of the Chinese Com-
munist Party,Chin stylizes her body in such a manner that she tries to efface all
signs of femininity. Hers is a performance of androgyny.Once again, gender ap-
pears as a performative construct, a truth effect which is produced through a cer-
tain stylizationof the body.The contrastbetween Song and Chin is strikinglyironic:
a man who tries to be feminine and a woman who tries not to be feminine.
The fourth performance by Song is that of a man. His performance of a Chi-
nese homosexualman being judged in a French court for spying againstthe French
governmentis againaccompaniedby a certainstylizationof the body. In this perfor-
mance, Song looks like a real man with his short hair, his masculine face without
makeup, and his dark-graysuit. Here, Cronenberg engages another small trick to
further unsettle the notion of a stable gender identity. In contrastto Song (the ho-
mosexual),who looks like a "normal"man with his plain appearance,the members
of the court (the supposedly regular,heterosexualFrench men) look quite "queer"
with the small red caps they wear as partof their embellished costumes. Once again,
gender is to be found operatingin the realm of stylizationand performance.
The most ambiguous moment in the film-and one which does not quite fit
into any of these performances-is when Song takes off her/his clothes for the first
time in front of Gallimardwhile they are brought to the jail in the same van. In this
scene, we see Song naked only from behind. By denying the sight of his frontal
nudity to the audience, Cronenbergonce againavoidsgiving us a final closure with
regard to the gender ambiguitysurroundingthe transvestitebody. We see Song's
naked body bent and kneeling in front of Gallimard.Song'sbody is markedby the
ambivalentsigns of both genders. Despite the short hair and masculine lines of the
body, s/he speaks with her/his soft female voice. Song wants Gallimardto look at
her/his body; after all, s/he says, "underthe robes, beneath everything, it was al-
ways me." The pronoun "me"escapes from any gender marker.Therefore, when
Song declares that under the "mask"there was alwaysthe same person, indeed he/
she does not reveal much about the truth of that person. As Homi Bhabhaarguesin
a different context, the most threatening aspect of mimicry is that it "concealsno
presence or identity behind its mask.""3 The ontology of gender/colonial mimicryin
this sense defeats the binary opposition between essence and appearance, inner

58 CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
truth and surface, and renders the notion of essence/inner truth of identity obso-
lete. At the end of Song'sfinalperformance,althoughwe know that it was alwaysthe
same person behind the mask, we are left not knowingwho this person really was
beyond the roles s/he played.

Abjection through the Appropriation of Otherness. UnlikeSong,whose

presence in the film is consistently framed as performative, Gallimard saves his
sole performance to the very end. This is an on-stage performance which is set in
a French prison where he was put after having been convicted of spying. In front
of an all-male audience, Gallimardtransforms his body into the body of an Ori-
ental woman: Madame Butterfly. As he puts makeup on his face, Gallimardbe-
gins to tell his story to his audience. With each item that he puts on his body (first
he wears a black kimono with a white belt, then he puts exaggerated, masklike
makeup on his face, and lastly he wears a black wig), he gradually becomes a
transvestite. Gallimard'sperformance is juxtaposed with the scene showing Song
in an airplane returning to China. By juxtaposing these two scenes, the film radi-
cally switches the gender and ethnic stereotypes that it had presented at the
beginning: now we have Song in a suit and Gallimard in a kimono, Song as a
male, Gallimardas a transvestite. Towardthe end of his performance, Gallimard
remarks:"I have a vision ... Of the Orient ... that, deep within its almond eyes,
there are still women. Women willing to sacrifice themselves for the love of a
man. Even a man whose love is completely without worth." With a spectacular
twist at the end of the film, Gallimardbecomes one of these women, while Song
becomes the man whose love is worthless. Gallimard'sfinal words are "Myname
is Rene Gallimard, also known as Madame Butterfly."Once again, the pronoun
"me" escapes from a gender marker. Mirroring Song's final statement ("under
the robes, beneath everything, it was always me"), Gallimard'sself-definition at
the end also embodies a gender ambiguity ("My name is Rene Gallimard, also
known as Madame Butterfly").As the audience applauds him, Gallimardcuts his
throat with a small mirror that he used when he applied his makeup. After he
collapses, we can see Gallimard'sbloody face reflected in the mirror as he dies.
The horror in this scene arises from the disjuncture between fantasy and the
real, "body-as-experience"and "body-as-spectacle."At fantasy level, Gallimard
identifies with "Madame Butterfly"and experiences the "graceful"self-sacrifice
of the Oriental woman for pure love. The smooth and lyrical tone of his voice
speaks the seamless elegance of Madame Butterfly. The spectacle of his body,
however, reflects the grotesque image of a composite being who transgresses the
conventional boundaries of gender and ethnic identity. Like Cronenberg'sother
films, monstrosity occurs at the borderline, at an undecidable and composite
space. The incompatibility of "body-as-experience"(Cronenberg'smale protago-
nists alwaysexperience empowerment and liberation at the beginning of the pro-
cess of monstroustransformation)with "body-as-spectacle"(the male protagonists'
lack of awareness about the monstrosity of their look makes them even more
horrifying) is the locus of abjection in M. Butterfly.
In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva develops the concept of "abjection"in

CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998 59

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
relation to the notion of a self-integratedand unified body.24Accordingto Kristeva,
subjectivity is organized around an awareness of the boundaries that separate in-
side and outside and, in this way, around the sense of the body as a unified whole.
In this regard, the constitution of acceptable forms of subjectivity demands the
expulsion of those things that are defined as improper and unclean, that do not
respect borler.s."25Those expelled things that disturb identity and order are consti-
tuted as the abject. What causes abjection, then, are the things that disturb iden-
tity, system, and order.In other words, the abject is "whatdoes not respect borders,
positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite.""2 According to
Kristeva, the boundary between the subject and the abject can never be com-
pletely secured. The abject continuouslythreatens the borders of subjectivity.The
subject'srelation to the abject, however, should not be conceived only as fear and
repulsion. Besides being threatened by the abject, the subject is also fascinated
and enticed by it.
Cronenberg'sfilms are predicated on the pleasures and terrors of abjection.
The male protagonists in Cronenberg's films usually experience abjection quite
literallythrough a monstroustransformationwhich includes the dissolution of the
boundaries defining and securing the body as a unified and integratedwhole. Bor-
ders of the male body and male subjectivityare radicallydecomposed in a way that
the inside and the outside of the body, the self and the other, human and nonhu-
man are no longer identifiable as separate entities.";M. Butterfly is consistent with
Cronenberg'searlier films in the sense that its white, male protagonistexperiences
abjection at the end of the film as a result of his desire to enact the Western sexual/
colonial fantasy. Gallimard pursues a romantic ideal to reach omnipotence. He
wants to play the part of the white hero in Western sexual/colonial fantasy who
would enjoy absolute domination over the Other. His desire for fullness and om-
nipotence, however, only brings a complete loss of unity and self-integrity.Cross-
ing the bordersbetween male and female, West and East, life and death, Gallimard's
self-destructive performance ends up in an excessive and wasteful spectacle. His
body becomes abject through a confusion over the limits of identity and the ap-
propriationof Otherness.

The Limits of Postmodern Transgression. M. Butterflyovertlyemploysa

postmodern mode of representation at several interconnected levels. Postmod-
ernism in cinema complicates the transparencyand smoothness of the very pro-
cess of representation by denying the audience a sense of having direct access to
the "real."Pastiche is one of the strategies through which the assumption of the
transparencyof representationis disrupted.AdoptingFredricJameson'swell-known
definition, pastiche is a "neutralpractice of mimicry,"that is, the imitation of a
peculiar style without a satirical impulse.2sUnlike parody, pastiche does not in-
voke a sense of comic irony, because it does not have a notion of "normal"com-
pared to which what is imitated would become comic. In M. Butterfly, pastiche is
incorporatedin the representation of the recent history.The film stages history as
an empty signifier which does not connote any "real"referent. As I discussed
above, from the credit sequence to the end, postrevolutionaryChinese society in

60 Journal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

Cine•,ma

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
M. Butterfly is reduced to an exotic backdrop. Mise-en-scene produces a sense of
unrealness and artificialitywhich does not necessarily create a critical distance or
comic effect. The cultural signs that supposedly reflect the "essence" of China
appear in the credits only to reinvoke the clich6 image of the exotic Orient in
Western imagination. Given these characteristics,M. Butterfly is actually consis-
tent with a particularform of pastiche in contemporarycinema that Jameson calls
"nostalgiafilm."Unlike conventional period films, which reinvent a "pictureof the
past in its lived totality,"the nostalgiafilm reinvents the "feel and shape of charac-
teristic art objects of an older period," and therefore it seeks to reawaken a sense
of the past associated with these objects.29 In this framework,M. is con-
sistent with some aspects of the "imperialnostalgia film,"which seeks Butteryfl
to reinvent
the feel of the past by reinvoking the commonplace figures and images of the
Orientalistfantasy.Unlike mainstreamexamples of imperial nostalgiafilms,"?? how-
in
ever, M. Butterfly nostalgia takes a catastrophicrather than a celebratory tone.
When historybecomes pastiche in the film, it is impossibleto maintaina coher-
ent and centered narrativesubjectwho advancesthe story.Like earlierCronenberg
films, M. Butterfly testifies to the disappearanceof a fixed, unified, and coherent
mode of male subjectivity.Instead, male subjectivitybecomes a fluid, unstable, and
insecure construct which cannot be located within a cohesive narrative.Blurring
the boundariesbetween the self and the other,the male and the female, the hetero-
sexualand the homosexual,the Western and the Oriental,M. Butterflypositions its
narrativesubject at a postmoderndouble-cross.Here, "double-cross"refers to what
Scott Bukatmancalls the "double articulationof subjectivity"in Cronenberg'scin-
ema, that is, both the end of a modernist construction of sovereign subject who is
capable of knowing himself and the world surroundinghim from a detached and
controllingstandpoint,and also the emergence of a postmodern subjectwho is con-
stituted as an effect of variousdiscourses, images, and narratives.
Returning to the question that I began with, what is the significance of ac-
knowledging the gender and cultural identity of the disintegrating subject in the
postmodern film text? In other words, why is it important to acknowledge that
the subject of "double articulation"in Cronenberg's cinema is specifically the
Western, white, male subject? In a discussion of Cronenberg'sM. Butterfly, Rey
Chow indicates that in Western sexual/colonial fantasy,the Orient is often asso-
ciated with femininity itself.3: In Orientalist representations, therefore, both the
Orient and woman function as the support for the white man's fantasy. What
distinguishes M. Butterfly from these Orientalist representations, according to
Chow, "is precisely the manner in which the lavish visible painting of fantasy
finally takes place not on the female, feminized body of the other, but on the
white male body, so that enlightenment coincides with suicide, while the woman,
the other escapes."'" Following Chow's argument, I want to suggest that M.
Butterfly is a horror story, since it is about the undoing of the Western sexual/
colonial fantasy-one of the prominent sites of the modernist discourse-and the
psychic and physical destruction of the central protagonist of the modernist/im-
perialistnarrative.The process of disintegrationand self-destructionthat Gallimard
goes through, however, is not presented in moralistic terms, in the form of a

CinemaJournal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998 61

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
punishment. Instead, Gallimard's abject body at the end-a composite being who
is both male and female, both Western and Oriental-signals the emergence of a
new, composite, fluid subject position which is constituted through the very act
of crossing the borders of gender and cultural identity. The narrative death of
Gallimard is not a closure but a beginning. Having said that, however, it is also
crucial to acknowledge that Gallimard's transformation, which takes place in in-
teraction with the Other, cannot speak for Song and the transformation that he/
she goes through. The voice of the Other subject, in other words, whose pres-
ence radically unsettles the sovereign, self-integrated, and unified status attrib-
uted to the Western, white, male subject, is unspoken in M. Butterfly. Gallimard's
transgression tells us only half the story. The Other half is yet to be told.

Notes
1. Scott Bukatman,TerminalIdentity: The Virtual Subjectin PostmodernScience Fiction
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1993).
2. Ibid., 9.
3. Ibid., 17.
4. Michael O'Pray,"Fatal Knowledge," Sight and Sound 1, no. 11 (March 1992): 10-11.
5. M. Butterfly is different from Cronenberg's earlier films not only in terms of its ge-
neric structurebut also in terms of its productionconditions.Besides being Cronenberg's
first film to be wholly financed by a Hollywood studio (Warners)and first to be made
outside Canada,M. Butterfly is also atypicalin that Cronenberg himself does not have
a writing credit on it.
6. For more discussion on the melodramaticstructureof the contemporaryChinese films,
see E. Ann Kaplan,"Melodrama/Subjectivity/Ideology:Western MelodramaTheories
and Their Relevance to Recent Chinese Cinema," East-West Film Journal 5, no. 1
(January1991): 6-27.
7. It is interesting to note that M. Butterfly came out almost at the same time as Neil
Jordan's 1994 film The Crying Game, which explores similar issues like the con-
struction of the cultural, national, and ethnic identity; the fine line between homo-
sexuality and heterosexuality; the scandal of the transvestite identity; and so forth.
For more discussion about The Crying Game, see, for example, Kristin Handler,
"Sexing The Crying Game: Difference, Identity, Ethics," Film Quarterly 47, no. 3
(Spring 1994): 31-42.
8. David Henry Hwang, Afterword,in M. Butterfly(New York:Penguin Books, 1989), 95.
9. In an extensive analysis of the representation of Asian people in Hollywood cinema,
Gina Marchetti points out that "MadameButterfly"stories have had quite a legacy in
Hollywood since the 1920s. Though allowing a possibility of the resolution of the racial
tensions on an emotional level, those interracialromance stories almost alwaysend up
with the elimination of the Asian, female Other. See Gina Marchetti,Romanceand the
"YellowPeril":Race, Sex and DiscutrsiveStrategies in Hollywood Fiction (Berkeley:
University of CaliforniaPress, 1993).
10. Homi Bhabha,"The Other Question: The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse,"in John
Caughie and Annette Kuhn, eds., The Sexual Subject:A Screen Reader in Sexuality
(New York:Routledge, 1992), 312.
11. ChandraTalpade Mohanty,"UnderWestern Eyes: Feminist Scholarshipand Colonial

62 Cinema Journal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Discourses,"in ChandraTalpade Mohanty,Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres,eds., Third
World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991),73-74.
12. In discussing a transvestite performance, the use of gender pronouns becomes inevita-
bly confusing. As a way of coping with this confusion, I will adapt Marjorie Garber's
strategy and use the pronouns "she" and "her"to describe the Chinese actor (John
Lone) when dressed as a woman and the pronouns "he"and "him"when the actor is
dressed as a man. See MarjorieGarber,"The Occidental Tourist:M. Butterfly and the
Scandal of Transvestism,"in Andrew Parker et al., eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities
(New York:Routledge, 1992).
13. Rey Chow, Womanand Chinese Modernity:The Politics of Reading between West and
East (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
14. Ibid., 18.
15. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York:Vintage Books, 1979), 44.
16. Ella Shohat, "ImagingTerraIncognita: The DisciplinaryGaze of Empire,"Public Cul-
ture 3, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 55.
17. Garber,"The Occidental Tourist,"135.
18. Ibid., 125.
19. Ibid.
20. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1990), vii.
21. Ibid., 136.
22. James Moy makes an interesting analysis of this character in his discussion of Henry
Hwang'splay in the context of the representation of Asian identities on the American
stage. Moy argues that though Hwang seeks to criticize the stereotypical representa-
tions of Asianness in American theater, Comrade Chin is more stereotypical and
cartoonishthan the worst of the nineteenth-century stereotypes. For Moy, Chin serves
as a stereotype whose "jarring"language alienates while fixing a provisional position
for this traditional view of the Orient. For more discussion, see James Moy, "David
Henry Hwang'sM. Butterfly and Philip Kan Gotanda'sYankeeDawg YouDie: Reposi-
tioning Chinese-American Marginalityon the American Stage,"in Janelle G. Reinelt
and Joseph R. Roach, eds., Critical Theory and Performance(Michigan: University of
Michigan Press, 1992). In Cronenberg'sfilm, Chin is represented in a similar way as a
one-dimensional stereotype. Actually,in Chin'spersonality,the entire political system
of communist China is reduced to a clich6.
23. Homi Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man,"in The Location of Culture (New York:Rout-
ledge, 1994), 88.
24. Julia Kristeva,Powers of Horror:An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New
York:Columbia University Press, 1982).
25. For Kristeva, the maternal (female) body is most closely affiliated with the abject.
The major source of abjection in relation to the female/maternal body is menstrual
blood. The female/maternal body is conceptualized in opposition to the phallic/pa-
ternal body, which represents the symbolic order. The female/maternal body lacks
"corporealintegrity."Its bordersare constantlyviolated by fluids and substancescoming
in and out of the body. It secretes blood (menstruation) and milk (nursing). Its size
and shape change through the process of pregnancy, its borders are decomposed.
And finally, giving birth is the ultimate violation of the borders of the body.
26. Kristeva,Powers of Horror, 4.

Cinema Journal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998 63

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
27. Several feminist film scholars applied the concept of"abjection"to earlier Cronenberg
films. For more discussion, see BarbaraCreed, "DarkDesires: Male Masochismin the
Horror Film"and Helen W. Robbins, "More Human Than I Am Alone: Womb Envy in
David Cronenberg'sThe Fly and Dead Ritngers."Both are published in Steven Cohan
and Ina Rae Hark, eds., Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinitie.sin HollLwood
Cinema (New York:Routledge, 1993).
28. Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," in Hal Foster, ed., The
Anti-Aesthetic:E.s.sayson Po.stmodernCulture (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983), 114.
29. Ibid., 116.
30. A commonplace example of "imperialnostalgia film"would be Steven Spielberg'sIn-
diana Jones series. For more discussion about the contemporary "imperialnostalgia
film," see Ella Shohat and Robert Starn, Uthinkilng (New York:
Eurocentri.s'm
Routledge, 1994).
31. Rey Chow, "The Dream of a Butterfly,"in Diana Fuss, ed., Humalln,All Too Humall
(New York:Routledge, 1996).
32. Ibid., 86.

64 Cinema Journal 37, No. 2, Winter 1998

This content downloaded from 137.248.1.6 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:02:06 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions