1. Revisionist History
Historical revisionism is the reexamination of the accepted "facts" and interpretations of history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and less biased information. Broadly, it is a skeptical approach, that history as it has been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate.
While reinterpreting past events in light of new facts is the essence of good scholarship, corrupt history may distort these facts as a means of influencing readers' beliefs and actions for politically motivated reasons.

2. Farewell My Concubine Historical Reading (Scar, Root-Seeking)
Revisionist history
Farewell My Concubine
Historical Reading (Scar, Root-Seeking)
The film as revisionist history; a statement against the Communist -Marxist metanarrative (rooted in Legalism)
Homosexuality depicted as a perversion
State suppression of individuality, creativity, traditions, mythologies
8 Model Plays (under Mao)
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

3. 7 Periods of Chinese History in FMC
First Empire: 200 BC: Chu-Han Wars, legend of King Yu
1925: Beginning of Nationalism
1937: Japanese invasion
1949: Communists takeover (PRC est.)
: Cultural Revolution
1977: Economic and social reforms (11 years after CR, when film begins)
1993: After Tiananmen Square (1989) (when film was made)

4. Chinese Legalism
School of Law: Warring States Period (475 BC to 221 AD) (Seven warring states, including Chu, Qin and Han)
Written laws with clear and strict punishments
Iron-fist rule, with no exceptions
Punishments must be heavy to maintain order and ensure no one challenges authority
Pragmatism takes precedence over custom and tradition
Families divided if they became too large’
Strict order and structure

5. Chinese Legalism Man is inherently selfish and evil
The emperor is the son of heaven
It is his mandate to rule
All subjects to the emperor must know and keep his place in order to maintain harmony in the cosmos
Dissent violates the order of the cosmos
To maintain order, Legalism advocated burying dissenters alive, burning books, secret police and encourage neighbors to inform on each other
Women were owned by men

6. Legacy of Mao? Founder of the People’s Republic of China
The Long March ( ), retreat from Chinese Nationalist Part
Repelled Japanese ( )
Defeated Chiang Kai Shek (1949)
Great Leap Forward: Rapid industrialization and collective agriculture (resulted in death of 15 to 40 million)
Cultural Revolution
Destroyed and prohibited traditional Chinese art, traditions and religious icons and temples

7. Legacy of Mao? Detractors
Responsible for the deaths of 40 million to 70 million people
“Three-Anti” and “Five-Anti” campaigns (against corruption, waste, bureaucracy, bribery, theft of state property, tax evasion, cheating on government contracts and espionage) resulted in tens of thousands of executions and suicides
Era of fear, in which family members and neighbors spied and reported on each other
Damaged and destroyed much of Chinese’s culture, traditions, and religious treasures

8. Legacy of Mao? Supporters Laid the foundation for modern China
Brought stability to a large complex nation
Improved education, housing and health care
Reduced crime and corruption
Eliminated unemployment and inflation
Opened trade with the West
Savior of the nation and visionary

9. The Gang of Four Leaders of Cultural Revolution
Arrested one month after Mao’s death (1976)
Accused of being counter-revolutionaries
Blamed for “the worst excesses of the societal chaos” during the revolution
Viewed by many as a “show trial”
Scapegoats for the new government
Mao’s wife only one who remained defiant and defended herself; said she was a true revolutionary, loyal to Mao’s orders and vision
She committed suicide in 1991

10. Chen Kaige Born in 1952 (now lives in New York)
Graduated from Beijing Film School
Influenced by “scar literature” movement (during the Hundred Flower Movement)
Father was a well-known director
Became a member of the Red Guard and denounced his father
Only Chinese film to win the Palme d’Or
Hong Kong film-goers rated it the “Chinese film of the century”
Initially banned in China
Available via black market DVDs

11. A Feminist Reading of Farewell My Concubine
SOUND BORING?

12. PostModern Attack on Metanarratives
Reconstructing identity
PostModern Attack on Metanarratives
Feminist films challenge dominant cultural metanarratives
Farewell My Concubine:
Legalism and communism (Mao Marxism)
The state is the answer
Fire:
Patriarchial-based myths and legends
White western male--at least reduced to only one of many possibilities
The white Western male view of the world is dead
New Criticism & Structuralism are flawed
We now have a new set of “lenses” to view the world
We understand the importance of being suspicious (literature is not necessarily sincere)
Hidden texts, ideologies, gender bias, philo. Bia
wary of grand narratives--K&K--know it alls
We recognize that truth, identity, gender, etc. are social constructs, contingent and local
We recognize the power of discourse
How we are all shaped by language, pop culture, advertising, education, films, TV, music

13. Feminism A challenge to patriarchial / phallocentric metanarratives
Deconstructing icons
Feminism
A challenge to patriarchial / phallocentric metanarratives
Political/social
Psychological
Mythic/literary
Based upon concept that identity is a culturally based social construction (not “natural”)

14. Feminist Literary Theory
The Second Sex
Feminist Literary Theory
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR ( )
The Second Sex
Questioned the “othering” of women by Western philosophy
Rediscovery of forgotten women’s literature
Revolutionary advocacy of sexual politics
Questioning of underlying phallocentric, Western, rational ideologies
Celebration of pluralism: gender, sexual, cultural, ethnicity, postcolonial perspectives
Another important movement of PM
No longer male-centric world
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

15. Feminist Literary Theory
Gender As a Social Construct
Feminist Literary Theory
Exorcise the male mind
Deconstructs logocentricism of male discourse
Sees gender as a cultural construct
So are stereotypes
Focus on unique problems of feminism:
History and themes of women literature
Female language
Psycho-dynamics of female creativity
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

16. Feminist Literary Theory
Feminizing Freud
Feminist Literary Theory
JULIA KRISTEVA (1941-)
Psychologist, linguist & novelist
Influenced by Barthes, Freud & Lacan
“Dismantles all ideologies”
Disagrees with “patriarchal” views of Freud and Lacan
Pre-Oedipal maternal body source of semiotic aspect of language
Columbia U, lives in France
Written on theology, semiotics, philosophy, politics, 2 novels
Difficult to read
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

17. Feminist Literary Theory
Madness, Holiness & Poetry
Feminist Literary Theory
Masculine symbolic order represses feminine semiotic order
Semiotic open to men and women writers
Semiotic is “creative”--marginal discourse of the avant garde
Raw material of signification from pre-Oedipal drives (linked to mother)
Realm of the subversive forces of madness, holiness and poetry
Creative, unrepressed energy
Columbia U, lives in France
Written on theology, semiotics, philosophy, politics, 2 novels
Difficult to read
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

18. Feminist Literary Theory
Binary Equals
Feminist Literary Theory as
ALICE JARDINE, Gynesis (1982)
Woman as a binary opposition
Man/woman
Rational/irrational
Good/evil
Implied male logocentricism
The concept of jouissance
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

19. Helene Cixcous as The Joy of Jouissance Critic, novelist, playwright
Picks up where Lacan leaves off
Denounces patriarchal binary oppositions
Women enter into the Symbolic Order differently
Deconstructs patriarchal Greek myths
Femininity (jouissance) unrepresentable in phallocentric scheme of things
Favors a “bisexual” view
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

20. Deconstructing Sigmund
Helene Cixcous as
Women are closer to the Imaginary
Women more fluid, less fixed
The individual woman must write herself
Feminine literature: not objective; erase differences between order and chaos, text and speech; inherently deconstructive
Admires Joyce and Poe
Men can produce feminist literature
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

21. Queer Theory as Queer Ideas
Gender and sexuality not “essential” to identity
Socially constructed
Mutable and changeable
Self shaped by language, signs and signifiers.
Self becomes a subject in language, with more multiplicity of meaning.
Western ideas of sexual identity come from science, religion, economics and politics and were constructed as binary oppositions
About spin off from feminist studies
Humanist view--identity and self are unique to you
Feminist theory deconstructed the idea of the essential self Gay and lesbian studies
Gender bending--Michael Jackson, Boy George, Dennis Rodman--men with earings, women with tatoos
Politics: China--one child today. Many concubines before. Mormons--multiple wives. Roman eunuchs.
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

22. Queer Theory as Deconstructing Sex
Queer theory deconstructs all binary oppositions about human sexuality.
Encourages the examination of the world from an alternative view.
Allows for the inclusion of gender, sexuality, race and other areas of identity by noticing the distinctions between identities, communities, and cultures.
Challenges heterosexism and homophobia, in addition to racism, misogyny and other oppressive discourses while celebrating diversity.
Some argue for separation of all forms of sexual behavior of any kind of moral judgment.
But what if not consensual, hurts someone else
POSTSTRUCTURALISM

23. Different Ways to “Read” a Film/Novel
Archetypal
Freudian / Lacanian
Ideological
Deconstructionist
Feminist
Queer
Post-colonial

24. Internal Battle of the Sexes PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM
Jacques Lacan ( )
IMAGINARY (feminine)
Mother
Plentitude
Creative
Dreams & fantasies
Illogical
Madness
Holiness
Freedom
Rebellion
Ideal
Individual expression
SYMBOLIC (masculine)
Father
Lack and desire
Restrictive authority
Ordered reality
Logic
Controlled sanity
Ritual
Repression
Social conformity
Accepted imperfection
Social conformance
PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM

25. Farewell My Concubine Historical Reading (Scar, Root-Seeking)
Revisionist history
Farewell My Concubine
Historical Reading (Scar, Root-Seeking)
The film as revisionist history; a statement against the Communist -Marxist metanarrative (rooted in Legalism)
Homosexuality depicted as a perversion
State suppression of individuality, creativity, traditions, mythologies
8 Model Plays (under Mao)
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

26. Farewell My Concubine You are who you love Psychological reading
Love and and identity
The other defines us
Lack of the other frustrates our desire for fulfillment
Yin/yang (hermaphrodite)
Douxi: idealized image of Xialou
Juan: idealized image of Douxi
Frustrated, broken relationships
Pressure of state leads to betrayals
Psychological neuroses
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

27. Farewell My Concubine A Lacanian twist Psychological reading
Social construction of identity
We all have female side that is repressed by the patriarchal symbolic order (language and laws)
Plot driven by ironic twist of Lacan theory
Douxi forced to become “girl”
Douxi lives in Kristeva’s world of “poetry, holiness and madness”
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

28. Farewell My Concubine Freudian slip-ups Freudian reading
All people are bisexual
Bisexuality/Oedipal complex resolved by presence of father figure (order/rules)
Douxi’s is never resolved
Master becomes his father / superego (the authoritarian gaze)
Ego is battleground between id and superego
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

29. Displacing our anxieties
Farewell My Concubine
Freudian reading
Desires frustrated; develops neuroses and employs defense mechanisms
Depression
Repression
Paranoia
Displacement
Projection
Transfers/displaces unresolved conflicts and aggressions onto substitute object (Xialou and opera)--cathexisis
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

30. Farewell My Concubine Language speaks us Lacanian reading
Douxi’s identity constructed outside himself
Language used to construct his identity
Remains in the imaginary stage
Never adjusts to the patriarchial symbolic order
Searches for the ideal (maternal state of plentitude); experiences “perennial lack”
Existential hero of the feminist order (creativity, beauty, holiness, poetry, loyal to the ideal)
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

31. Farewell My Concubine The yin and the yang Metaphysical reading
Yin/yang
Incompleteness in this life
Yearn for perfection
Desire for harmony with all nature
Adoration of enlightenment (the bodhisattva )
Suffering is the result of desire
There is foulness in men and women
Karmic retribution
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

32. Farewell My Concubine Karma Metaphysical reading
“Calamity and misfortune cannot gain entrance of their own into a person’s life. It is the individual who calls them in.”
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities

33. Farewell My Concubine Great films can be “read” on many levels:
Historical /social
Psychological
Metaphysical
The encyclopedia Web
Architecture of NY LA and Vegas
Phallic order Queer sexual identities