How did our society set the rules on whether or not something is deemed to be “normal”? Prior to the 1970 feminism movement, many individuals believed that sexual preference has to be of the opposing gender in order for it to be “normal”. However, these misconceptions pertaining to heteronormativity is challenged by both the authors of Twelfth Night scripted by William Shakespeare and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly. Judith Butler, an American gender theorist believes gender is constructed through one's own performance of gender. Butler thinks that a woman who is identifying themselves as a woman is a culturally enforced effect and vice versa with a man. In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1601) and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly (1988) both protagonists, Viola and Song Liling, challenge heteronormative expectations of gender and sexuality because they are not following …show more content…
butterfly by Henry Hwang, the Protagonists Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera performer by the name of Song Liling. Gallimard is a French diplomat who is telling his story from his prison cell to the audience. However, Gallimard lets us know that the women he loved all along, turned out to be a man. Similar to Viola who takes on the identity of Cesario, Song takes on the identity of a female opera singer who goes by the reference butterfly. Song is capable of luring the attention of Gallimard through his Butterfly performance on stage. Characteristics such as makeup and clothing are a part of why Gallimard falls in love with song. Hwang even writes in a part of his play “...Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act,” (Hwang 49). Songs ability to replicates the female persona gave him the capability to fool Gallimard for over 20 years into thinking he is a female. In fact Songs, performance was so believable that Gallimard refused to believe that Song was male. He only believed it after Song showcased his genital parts right before Gallimard's
In the Western world, Butterfly represents a stereotype of the Oriental woman. The stereotype of an obedient, submissive, and domestic Asian woman appeals to Westerners through other media beside the opera; for example, the “mail-order bride trade” catalogues and TV spots. The story of the white devil Pinkerton and a sub-missive Asian girl Cio-Cio-San has become a cultural myth in Western world. In M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang parodies and deconstructs this myth. In his play, a French diplomat Rene Gallimard fantasizes that he is Pinkerton and his Chinese lover Song is his Butterfly. However, as Hwang says in the “Afterword” of the play, Gallimard “realizes that it is he who has been But...
Gallimard’s supposed ignorance of Song’s sex in M. Butterfly illustrates how an individual’s desire for something or someone can create a fantasy that masks the truth. Ignorance is bliss. Desire allows an individual to create their own truth which can, in turn, be damaging. The theme of desire in the play is seen through Song and Gallimard’s relationship. Gallimard longs to be desired. He associates being desired with power and masculinity, and this desire to be desired makes him ignorant of Song’s true identity. He experiments in testing Song’s desire for him throughout the play. Because Gallimard associated women desiring him as “power”, he did not see through Song’s feminine mask, or perhaps he did not want to. Desire allows Gallimard to believe he is the masculine form dominating a relationship when, in fact, he is being dominated by his own desire which Song is using against him. Gallimard is unaware, or chooses to remain unaware of Song’s masculinity, looking at the world through rose colored glasses of desire. In the final scene of M. Butterfly, we see Gallimard succumb to his own desire. He realizes what he desired was a lie and refuses to accept the truth.
The movie, She’s the Man uses Shakespeare’s storyline and turns it into a modern day version of Twelfth Night. The Duke is now a soccer captain named Duke Orsino and Viola and Sebastian are twins of a very wealthy family. Olivia is just a popular girl at Sebastian’s school, which is called Illyria. The same love triangle between the three exists, but Viola pretends to be her brother Sebastian. She goes to his school pretending to be him with the intentions of playing on his school’s soccer team to prove girls play just as good as boys. The movie uses sex appeal to grab the attention of its
David Henry Hwang, the author of M. Butterfly, copiously uses the term “Oriental” to show an imperialistic interpretation of the East. The concept of Orientalism, in which Europeans and Americans typically brand Asian cultures as weak, feminine, and submissive, plays a significant role in Gallimard and Liling’s, the primary characters, unique relationship. Rene Gallimard is a French diplomat in China, who has an affair with a Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. Not known to Gallimard, Liling is a communist male agent masquerading as a ladylike, obedient Asian woman on a mission to manipulate and obtain government information out of Gallimard. When the French government accuses Gallimard of treason, he discovers Liling’s scheme and deception.
Queer theory cheats, by focusing on cultural texts (rather than real life) where it is easier to find sexual or gender ambiguities. Some have taken this to be an account of real social life. Fans of Judith Butler often ignore real-life oppression and instead support their optimistic worldview by gazing at gender-blending movies and photography. Discrimination at home and at work, for everyday queer people, are forgotten about in this approach. Butler 's argument that gender exists at the level of discourse ignores its significance as 'an institutionalised social practice '. It is important to capture real-life statistics of people who don’t fit the “norm” in either traditional gender or sex categories. If we stop identifying people who may not fit the “norms” of the binary, then we mask the structural and individual oppression they will experience. By celebrating difference, queer politics makes the 'gay ' or 'lesbian ' identity to be what some consider too important. Queer theory celebrates pleasure and therefore puts a lot of emphasis on sex. It also puts a lot of emphasis on the visual, as well as a lot of emphasis on the young and trendy ("Queer Theory:
The movie She's the Man shows much of the general idea of the original Shakespearean book, the twelfth night. It also, illustrates the change in feminine roles in the community and society at large, the main theme of the movie being feminism. In Shakespearean era and time, the important, recognizable and powerful positions in the society were taken by men and therefore Viola in the twelfth night disguises herself as a eunuch in order to get close to the Olivia, the countess and the
Since the beginning of mankind, the human species has been able to populate and cover the planet through reproduction. The natural reproduction is between a man and women, so heterosexuality is seen as the popular form of sexuality. However, many people believe that not only is heterosexuality not natural, but is constructed by society. Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, believes that heterosexuality is a construct of cultural norms. Society creates expectations for how sexuality should be presented and performed, but down to the root of human nature heterosexuality is much more prevalent than any other form of sexuality. I disagree with professor Schwartz, and I believe that
Even before the moment we are born, models of gender and sexual expression are pressed into us. The colors "pink" and "blue" identify what gender a newborn baby will be, placing these two genders into a type of "box" or "category". The idea that young girls should stay inside to play will dolls and young boys should go outside to be adventurous, also puts these two genders under limitations. Society places these gender roles upon us, in hopes of us acting a particular way to display our gender in the "correct" manner. Society makes us act, speak, dress, groom, and love in a specific way. However, in today's day and age, we are thankfully straying away from these defined roles, and are allowing ourselves to fully express our own view on our
In relation to how sexual minorities like lesbians are marginalized by the power elite in society, Judith Butler explains the politicization of sexuality through the performance of sexual identity by constantly rearticulating and re-establishing heterosexuality as the norm. Ironically, the term “heterosexual” cannot claim authority as ...
are even made in the same way and from the same fabrics that were used
The contrast in western and eastern culture are very noticeable and allowed us to see the differences. The obsession Gallimard has in finding that perfect woman when it fact was a man is ironic and humorous. I still just don’t understand how he would not have notice that Song is a man. Maybe he was so lost in his delusion of what he found to be the perfect woman made it what see Song as a woman even when he found out that Song is indeed a man. I had a lot of fun watching and reading Madame Butterfly and M. Butterfly. The play in stark contrast to what I usually read. The differences between Madame Butterfly and M. Butterfly give me a unique senses of the struggle that Madame Butterfly and Gallimard had toward their idea of
Judith Butler believes that gender should be seen as a fluid variable which shifts and changes in different contexts and at different times theory.org. Gender is something that should describe you as a person it shouldn’t be something that we aim to fit into. If you don't like manly things like “football”, “fighting”, and “hunting” you’re not any less of a man you just have different opinions towards things. If you don’t like wearing dresses and cleaning the house you’re no less womanly it’s just how you feel about it and that is something that we shouldn’t use in society to define people stereotyping people into enjoying and being better in certain tasks can lead to many harmful things for society. For over hundreds of years we lived with the idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote or even have regular jobs and now today women are still only making 73 cents to every dollar a man makes aauw.org. That can be attributed to the many years of believing women shouldn’t even go to school and have a proper education that’s something that set our whole nation back hundreds of years think about how much progress could be obtained if the smart women of our time were allowed to work with great men and share their ideas there’s no way to tell but we could be far ahead in the research we have
Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon, and how acceptable one’s relationship is determined by society’s view of gender roles. Because the majority of the population is characterized as heterosexual, those who deviate from that path are ...
who dresses as a man so she can be a servant to Orsino. During the
The play The Twelfth Night and the movie She’s the Man are both similar and different in many ways. One of the biggest ideas is the fact that the play takes place in the late 1500’s where as She’s the Man takes place the same time it was filmed, 2006. As well, the modern version has new characters that were added in for the film to make sense that were not needed in the play. Finally, the movie had two rather large changes from the play.