In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet is generally regarded as the first gay film in contemporary Chinese cinemas. It premiered in February 1993 at the Berlin Film Festival, where it clinched the Golden Bear award (several months before Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May 1993).1 It was also the most profitable film in 1993, when it achieved phenomenal box-office records both in Taiwan and abroad.2 As a high-profile film and the first to openly problematize the relationship between homosexuality and the Chinese family, the film is also a victim of its own success as it has attracted enormous critical and popular attention, focusing particularly on identity politics relating to a gay liberationist discourse.3 It is my contention that among all the films discussed in this book, The Wedding Banquet has had to bear the brunt of the burden of representation, given its status as the first gay film in contemporary Chinese cinemas, its thematic exploration of the position of homosexuality in a Chinese family, and the timing of its release, which coincided with a heightened identity politics in an age of multiculturalism both within Taiwan and beyond. However, as I shall argue below, there has been a concomitant lack of (self-)reflection on the terms of criticism in 41 The Burden of Representation Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet If, after many years of struggle, you arrive at the threshold of enunciation and are “given” the right-to-speak and a limited space in which to tell your story, is it not the case that there will be an overwhelming pressure to try and tell the whole story all at once? If there is only one opportunity to make your voice heard, is it not the case that there will be an intolerable imperative to try and say everything there is to be said, all in one mouthful? —Kobena Mercer, “Black Art and the Burden of Representation” 2 these debates, and the premises underpinning such liberationist discourses and identity politics should in themselves be brought into question. The Wedding Banquet is the second installment of what has commonly been referred to as Lee’s “Father Knows Best” trilogy. The first, Pushing Hands, deals with cross-cultural and intergenerational conflicts as a Chinese son marries a white woman in the United States, posing difficulties for the retired father, who has come to live with them from mainland China. The third, Eat Drink Man Woman (Yinshi nannü, 1994), explores the changing relationships between a father and his three daughters in Taipei, using the tropes of food and sex alluded to in the title. Sandwiched between the two and set in New York, The Wedding Banquet examines how a father negotiates the issue of his son’s homosexuality vis-à-vis his own wish for patrilineal continuity, with the trope of cross-cultural communication reprised from Pushing Hands, as the son’s gay lover is a white American. In The Wedding Banquet, Gao Wai-Tung (Winston Chao/Zhao Wenxuan ) is a Taiwanese property developer who has been living in New York for ten years and has a green card as well as a white partner, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein). In an attempt to end the constant pestering of Wai-Tung’s parents (the late Lung Hsiung/Lang Xiong and Gua Ah-Leh/ Gui Yalei) that he should get married and produce grandchildren for them, Simon suggests a paper marriage between Wai-Tung and his tenant, WeiWei (May Chin/Jin Sumei), an artist from mainland China staying illegally in the United States. Trouble begins when Wai-Tung’s parents announce that they are coming to attend the wedding, leading to an elaborate wedding banquet. After the banquet, the guests indulge in ritual horseplay, forcing Wei-Wei and Wai-Tung into their hotel bed naked. In their drunken state, Wei-Wei throws herself on Wai-Tung and subsequently becomes pregnant, posing a threat to the relationship between the gay couple and resulting in Wai-Tung’s coming out to his mother. At the end of the film, Wei-Wei decides to keep the baby, Wai-Tung’s father tacitly acknowledges his son’s homosexuality, the parents return to Taiwan, and the gay couple and Wei-Wei agree to bring up the baby together. Representation as Mimetic, Performative, and Constitutive The term “representation” has multiple meanings. For the purpose of this book, I will engage its two major...

Share