ABSTRACT
This repetitive pattern also suggests that the narrative formula initially worked. The theme in early tongzhi cinema of discovering one’s sexual identity was part of the discourse of the tongzhi rights movement based on identity politics. While the trope of the search for identity in these films found resonance with spectators who had embarked, or were embarking, on a quest for sexual identity, tongzhi-identified spectators helped to secure a place in the market for tongzhi cinema. Moreover, the discourse of tongzhi cinema in Taiwan was thought to subtly mirror the concerns of the bourgeoning tongzhi rights movement. Lesbian activist Ping Wang once said in a panel discussion that there was a rapport between tongzhi cinema and the tongzhi rights movement, as they shared a similar trajectory of development from being closeted and underground to being open and confrontational, from being alternative and marginal to negotiating with and intervening in the mainstream culture (Yang 2012, 196). This parallel that Wang drew illuminates the symbiotic dynamics between tongzhi cinema and tongzhi activism, and tongzhi-themed films are often mentioned alongside important literary works in the cultural history of the tongzhi community. Yet it is worth noting that her remark on tongzhi cinema was limited to films made by activist filmmakers, such as Zero Chou and Mickey Chen, who explicitly consider filmmaking to be a form of advocacy. What about other films that have a direct bearing on gayness and lesbianism, but neither make an explicit association with tongzhi activism nor are recognized by tongzhi activists? Can we say that this once codependent relationship has been further deteriorated due to tongzhi cinema’s obsession with the theme of identity struggle? To what degree has tongzhi cinema’s impotence to respond to the radical appeals of ku’er1 activism of late likely caused it to lose its singularity and become vulnerable to dissolution into the conservative mainstream? This chapter delineates the development of tongzhi cinema in conjunction with the tongzhi movement and argues that the former, unlike the latter that confronts the hegemony of heteronormativity, adopts the strategy of “seeking common ground” with the values of hetero-society. It functions like a cultural lubricant that redirects confrontation into negotiation by addressing tongzhi issues without offending the heterosexual mainstream. Therefore, tongzhi cinema does help tongzhi, who are traditionally labeled as deviants, gain societal acceptance; yet they achieve this acceptance through reproducing heteronormative sentiments in a tongzhi story. Emphatically representing similarities between tongzhi and heterosexual people allows the hetero-identified spectators to identify with the tongzhi characters, and the broadened audience secures the screen visibility of tongzhi stories. Nevertheless, this trope jeopardizes the representation of tongzhi to be subordinated to heteronormative values. This chapter argues that, although tongzhi cinema has deepened the social understanding and increased the visibility of homosexuality, its representation of tongzhi stories ironically contributed to forming homonormativity, defined by Lisa Duggan as “a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions but upholds and sustains them while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay
culture anchored in domesticity and consumption” (Duggan 2002, 179). Seeking acceptance, the romance genre has been adopted to address homosexuality, and the representational strategy of tongzhi cinema took a turn from the invisibility and unspeakability of homosexuality to a promising future associated with monogamy. This approach to social acceptance reflects homonormativity’s neoliberal-minded governance of life that relies on the traditional form of marriage and family. Hence, this merits a revisit to some of the once condemned tongzhi films of the 1980s and their denigrating stereotypes to rethink the politics of queer representation. The emergence of tongzhi cinema was a cultural yarning triggered by the festival screenings of foreign gay and lesbian films, especially American ones, starting with New Queer Cinema. The first systematic introduction was made at the Golden Horse International Film Festival in 1992 by Hong Kong theater director Edward Lam, who curated a series of New Queer Cinema and named the program tongzhi cinema (tongzhi daiying). It is widely agreed that the term tongzhi-which means “comrades” in a revolutionary context-was adopted thereafter to refer to gays and lesbians in Taiwan. The New Queer Cinema program, featuring films by Tom Kalin, Su Friedrich, Derek Jarman, among others, was surprisingly popular, with support from mostly closeted tongzhi festivalgoers. Its success subsequently made gay and lesbian films frequent selections for major international films festivals in Taiwan, and it further encouraged some small-scale agents to carry more independent Euro-American gay, lesbian, and queer films across a variety of genres to be presented in a mini-festival format. Yet the gay and lesbian theme only partially contributed to the wide popularity of these foreign films in the metropolitan capital city, Taipei. What is more important is how the screenings of these films constituted a semi-open social space for closeted audiences. For example, in a special issue of a cinephile magazine Image Keeper devoted to tongzhi cinema, several articles vividly described the communal sense that tongzhi-identified festivalgoers felt when attending festival screenings of gay, lesbian, and queer films.2
