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Mustache as Resistance: Representation and Reception of Mei Lanfang’s Masculinity
- TDR: The Drama Review
- The MIT Press
- Volume 60, Number 2, Summer 2016 (T230)
- pp. 122-138
- Article
- Additional Information
Mei Lanfang, the internationally renowned male player of female roles, astonished those who were concerned about his personal and professional well being during the Second Sino-Japanese War by growing a mustache. At the empirical level, the mustache signaled a dismissal of the androgynous glamour for which Mei’s body was best known. At the allegorical level, Mei’s wartime mustache foregrounded an unyielding and unmistakably masculine Chinese body.