Analysis of the Construction of Gender Roles of Male Characters in The Wedding Banquet

Abstract

Ang Lee is a successful director who has won the Oscar for the best director of the film Life of Pi, the Golden Bear for the film Brokeback Mountain and the Oscar for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is no doubt that Ang Lee is a milestone-like director throughout the history of Chinese film. Having been born in China and graduated from the apartment of director in New York University, Ang Lee has been deeply influenced by both Chinese and American culture. Therefore, his works creatively integrate East and West, Chinese-speaking world and Hollywood tradition, combine Chinese traditional aesthetic style with Hollywood classic expression, and show strong cross-cultural ability. Gender has always been one of the most important dimensions of Ang Lee’s films. His films often put marginal gender identities-women and homosexuals-at the core of narrative. In the film, The Wedding Banquet, Ang Lee has told a story in which the homosexual son has finally made a compromise. However, due to Ang Lee’s living environment and educational background, he wants to solve this problem of gender duality with a mild and non-confrontational way.

The Theory of Gender Performativity has first been raised by Judith Bulter in the 1980s. It is one of the most important theories of Feminism. This theory holds the view that gender is regulated by the society. Gender itself isn’t expressive, but it requires people to be performative, thus forming the stereotype of men and women.

This paper will be divided into four parts. It will get started with the introduction part-the introduction of Ang Lee and his film The Wedding Banquet and literature review. The second part is theoretical framework. In this part, the author will introduce the Theory of Performativity raised by Judith Bulter and the possibility to use this theory to analyze the construction of gender roles of male characters in The Wedding Banquet. The third part discusses the construction of gender roles of three male characters Gao, Gao Weitong’s father and Simon in The Wedding Banquet to show Ang Lee’s rebellion and compromise against the patriarchal society. Complex and diverse male images in this film appear in this film, which are full of personal characteristics and show rebellion against tradition.What’s more, the construction of female characters will also be mentioned to illustrate that women have undergone the oppression of the patriarchal society. The last part is the conclusion part. Through the analysis of the construction of gender roles of male characters, this paper will state the truth that although the director Ang Lee has tried his best to show his inclusiveness of homosexuals, the special gender group, he has still compromised to the patriarchal tradition due to his educational background and cultural background. Ang Lee has attached great importance to family issue and talked about the gender trouble which bothered both men and women, thus eliminating the difference between men and women and criticizing heterosexual hegemony in the patriarchal society.