Expressive Desire in Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu

Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu configures the emergence of homosexuality in contemporary China far beyond its validation in recognizably Western identitarian terms: the affirmation of an existing but misrecognized minority population; the defense of sexual "perversion"; the positing of sexual...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRevista de estudios sociales (Bogotá, Colombia) no. 28; pp. 104 - 117
Main Author Eng, David L
Format Journal Article
LanguageSpanish
Published 01.12.2007
Subjects
Capitalism
Homosexuality
Humanism
Modernity
Neoliberalism
Peoples Republic of China
Rights
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Summary:Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu configures the emergence of homosexuality in contemporary China far beyond its validation in recognizably Western identitarian terms: the affirmation of an existing but misrecognized minority population; the defense of sexual "perversion"; the positing of sexual freedom, legal recognition, & political rights; the justification of a bourgeois consumer lifestyle, or even the expression of a universalizing & binding love bringing together two abstract individuals. Instead, in Kwan's film, homosexuality & its expressive desire mark the emergence of a new humanism in (post)socialist China under the shadows of global capitalism & neoliberal development. Gays & lesbians, that is, are harbingers of a new modernity, helping to situate China in its proper place within a cosmopolitan globalized world. From this perspective, homosexuality functions as a critical tool for organizing & evaluating the historical continuities & ruptures among China's (semi)colonial past, its revolutionary aspirations for a socialist modernity & its present investments in a neoliberal capitalist world order. References. Adapted from the source document.
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ISSN:0123-885X