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Macau Periodical Index (澳門期刊論文索引)
- Author
- Li, Yufeng
- Title
- The matter of images: a post-colonial review of Chinese women in Hollywood cinema
- Journal Name
- 中西文化研究(停刊)
- Pub. Info
- Jun. 2010, 總第17期, 第1期, pp. 33-47
- Keyword
- Post-colonialism；Cinema；Representation；Orientalism；Otherness
- Abstract
- Abstract : Taking Hollywood cinema as the most typical semiotic discourse among various culture forms, this paper aims to decode the cinematic depictions of Chinese women in three typical Hollywood narratives: May-May in Taipan(Daryl Duke, 1986), Tracy Tzu in Year of the Dragon(Michael Cimino, 1985), and Song Liling in M. Butterfly(David Cronenberg, 1993). By examining the romances in the above films, this paper demonstrates that from a postcolonial perspective, the Hollywood narratives of Taipan and Year could be read as part of what Edward Said has described in Orientalism as 'a western style for dominating, restructuring, and haveing authority over the Orient.' Nervertheless, the narrative of M. Butterfly could be deconstructed as one of the anti-Orientalist discourses against the Hollywood mainstream. By adopting Bhabha's reinforcement about the significance of the 'Other', this paper concludes that to challenge the hegemonic discoures of Hollywood cinema, it is necessary for the cultural critics to keep thinking within the framework of the theory of difference.