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Abstract Taiwanese Identity and Transnational Families

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Abstract Taiwanese Identity and Transnational Families ABSTRACT TAIWANESE IDENTITY AND TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES IN THE CINEMA OF ANG LEE Ting-Ting Chan, Ph.D. Department of English Northern Illinois University, 2017 Scott Balcerzak, Director This dissertation argues that acclaimed filmmaker Ang Lee should be regarded as a Taiwanese transnational filmmaker. Thus, to best understand his work, a Taiwanese sociopolitical context should be employed to consider his complicated national identity as it is reflected in his films across genres and cultures. Previous Ang Lee studies see him merely as a transnational Taiwanese-American or diasporic Chinese filmmaker and situate his works into a broader spectrum of either Asian-American culture or Chinese national cinema. In contrast, this dissertation argues his films are best understood through a direct reference to Taiwan’s history, politics, and society. The chapters examine eight of Lee’s films that best explain his Taiwanese national identity through different cultural considerations: Pushing Hands (1992) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) are about maternity; The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Brokeback Mountain (2005) consider homosexuality; The Ice Storm (1997) and Taking Woodstock (2009) represent a collective Taiwanese view of America; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Lust, Caution (2007) reflect and challenge traditions of Taiwan Cinema. The eight films share three central leitmotifs: family, a sympathetic view of cultural outsiders, and a sympathy for the losing side. Through portraying various domestic relations, Lee presents archetypal families based in filial piety, yet at the same time also gives possible challenges represented by a modern era of equal rights, liberalism, and individualism – which confront traditional Taiwanese-Chinese family views. Incorporating many Taiwanese interviews with Lee that underscore the nationalistic essences of his films, this dissertation suggests that Lee’s national identity denotes a triple-fold significance: as homeland, as the nurturing place where he began his enthusiasm for cinema, and as the country to which he still dedicates himself. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS MAY 2017 TAIWANESE IDENTITY AND TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES IN THE CINEMA OF ANG LEE BY TING-TING CHAN © 2017 TING-TING CHAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH Doctoral Director: Scott Balcerzak TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 Reconsidering Ang Lee’s Film Career: Taiwanese Identity and Transnationalism .... 1 A Certain Taiwanese Identity ...................................................................................... 4 Critical Framework: Globalization, Diaspora, and Cultural Identity ............................ 7 Chinese Centrism and the Problem of “Greater China” .............................................. 14 "Roots" and "Routes" in the Career of Ang Lee ........................................................... 19 Ang Lee’s Taiwanese Identity and Transnational Cinema .......................................... 26 1. “WE DON’T THINK ABOUT THEM”: SEARCHING FOR MATERNITY/MODERNITY IN PUSHING HANDS (1992) AND EAT DRINK MAN WOWAN (1994) .............................................................................................................. 35 Fatherhood, Patriarchy, and Chinese-Taiwanese Family ............................................ 38 Mother, Modernity and Traditional Chinese Family Values in Pushing Hands ......... 43 Old Mothers and New Mothers in Eat Drink Man Woman ......................................... 50 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 58 2. SEXUALITY, MASCULINITY, AND ETHNICITY: THE WEDDING BANQUET (1993) AND BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005) ........................................................... 61 Queerness and Homosexuality in Taiwan.................................................................... 62 Queerness and Transnationality: Critical Responses to The Wedding Banquet .......... 69 Transnational Family: Shifting Masculinity and Traveling Patriarchy ....................... 75 Transnational Patriarchy, Masculinity, and Homosexuality in The Wedding Banquet 80 iii Chapter Page Brokeback Mountain and Debates of Genre and Sexuality ......................................... 91 Class, Queer, Masculinity in Brokeback Mountain ..................................................... 96 “Dining Table Politics” and Father-in-Crisis in Brokeback Mountain ....................... 101 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 106 3. PORTRAITS OF AMERICAN FAMILY: TAKING WOODSTOCK (2009) AND THE ICE STORM (1997)....................................................................................................... 108 The United States and the ROC/Taiwan’s Relations in the 1960s and 1970s ........... 111 An Americanized Taiwan ........................................................................................... 115 Taking Woodstock to (Taiwanese) Heart .................................................................... 119 A Utopia…Still Bound by Family.............................................................................. 123 “A Hangover Taking Woodstock”: The Ice Storm ...................................................... 132 The Ice Storm: What Family Means in Dark Times .................................................. 135 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 142 4. TRANSNATIONAL RE-IMAGINATION OF HOME: CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) AND LUST, CAUTION (2007) ....................................... 144 What’s Happening at Home? Postwar Taiwan Cinema Since 1949 .......................... 145 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Wuxia Cinema and Critical Response ................ 155 A Debate of Family and Individual Freedom ............................................................ 160 Swordswomen, Swordsmen, and Compulsory Domesticity ...................................... 164 National Identity, Nationality, and Nationalism in Lust, Caution .............................. 167 Broken Family, Betraying Fathers ............................................................................. 171 The Individual, Gender and Nationalism ................................................................... 174 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 179 iv Chapter Page CONCLUSION: A TRANSNATIONAL TAIWANESE IDENTITY .................... 181 WORKS CITED ....................................................................................................................... 191 INTRODUCTION Reconsidering Ang Lee’s Film Career: Taiwanese Identity and Transnationalism One of the few East Asian directors who have been acclaimed by the American film industry, Taiwanese-American film director Ang Lee attracted the spotlight on the night that he received the Oscar for Best Achievement in Directing for Brokeback Mountain (2005) at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 as well as the same award again for Life of Pi (2012) at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013. With such accolades, Lee has been seen as one of Taiwan’s most successful national icons on the international stage. Lee was born in Pingtung, Taiwan in 1954, but his parents are first generation Mainlanders who came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in 1949, when Chiang’s army was defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communist Party of China (CPC) in the Chinese Civil War. Lee graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts (now National Taiwan University of Arts) in Taipei, and in 1978 he came to resume a study of film at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theater-Theater Direction in 1980. He then went to New York University for a Master’s degree in Film Production. At NYU, Lee met Spike Lee, an Academy Honorary Award recipient in 2015, who was pursuing a master’s degree in film at NYU in the early eighties as well and helped him make his student film Joe's Bed-Story, Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) by serving as an assistant director. While Lee was still in school, his films brought him good appraisals as well as awards. His I Wish I Was by That Dim 2 Lake (1982) won him a Best Short Film award at the 6th Golden Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films (Taiwan) in 1983 and a scholarship at NYU. His master thesis, A Fine Line (1984), won Best Director and Best film in the New York University Film Festival in 1985 and a contract with William Morris, a prominent talent agency in the United States. Generally speaking, Lee’s film career can be divided into two phases. In the earlier phase, encompassing Pushing Hands (1992), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), he worked with Taiwan’s Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC), the then government-owned film production company. Lee’s talent for filmmaking continued to garner him numerous awards in this Taiwanese period. Pushing Hands won CMPC’s Special Jury Award and Best Film; Best Director in the 28th Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan’s most prominent annual film awards; Best Film in the 37th Asia-Pacific Film
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