Different Strokes
The Chinese Male Subject inThe Chickencoop ChinamanandM. Butterfly
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3852359 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ashis Sengupta (North Bengal University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 63-77 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative American Studies An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1477-5700 • E-ISSN: 1741-2676 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1179/1477570011z.0000000004 |
| OpenAlex | W2051643729 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
By reading The Chickencoop Chinaman and M. Butterfly together, this paper argues that they construct the Chinese male subject in pronouncedly different if not opposed ways – one by overplaying ‘masculinity’ to comic proportions out of an anxiety of desexualization and the other by overplaying ‘effeminacy’ to the point of female impersonation that questions the ‘intrinsic truth’ of gender itself – thus articulating the divided reaction of a raced and gendered community to a historic condition it had long been mired in. I would also argue that both plays are fraught with inner contradictions in their conceptualiza- tion of the subject. In Chickencoop, the male subject becomes a prisoner of normative Western manhood, which has simultaneously been challenged by black as well as Chinese conceptions of masculinity, and therefore remains inconsistent in its perception of its own maleness. And in M. Butterfly male subjectivity fails ultimately to transcend the framework of normative hetero- sexuality that it had played with all along. Yet, when it comes to the castrating impact of hegemonic Western masculinity on the Chinese/Oriental man, it is M. Butterfly which self-reflexively suggests greater possibilities for him to move beyond the restrictive boundaries of gender/sexuality and experiment with alternative masculinities. The paper examines in the process the relationship of homosociality and effeminacy to homosexuality in Chinese culture in China as well as in the Westthe Westthe West
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Femininity · Hegemony · Human sexuality · Masculinity · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subjectivity · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Philosophy
Asian American literature, an introduction to the writings and their social context
A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory
The Chickencoop Chinaman and the Year of the Dragon
Negotiating New Asian-American Masculinities
Projected Bodies in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly and Golden Gate
Performing Asian America
Bruce Lee's Fictional Models of Masculinity
Lives at the Center of the Periphery, Lives at the Periphery of the Center
| Highly cited | No |
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