Stereotypes In Ju Dou

The Tragedy of Ju Dou

The subordination of women in Chinese culture belongs to the traditional or pre-communist period. Indeed, women in Chinese civilization, or at least in the very past, were considered merely as wives and housekeepers; their education, in fact, was focused on preparing them for the future roles of mothers and wives (Patt-Shamir, 2010, 246). Before the Chinese revolution, males worshiped the Confucian doctrine: “obedience” and “respect” were at the basis of their assumption, as they recognized Confucianism as law (Cook and Powell, 2006, 279). The protagonist of the dramatic movie Ju Dou is the young woman named Ju Dou as well as the personification of different themes through the color red that shows up several times during the movie and which identifies itself with the main problems in an oppressed rural village. Furthermore, due to erotic context, the Chinese government banned the movie for two years. However, the sexual scenes are not scandalous, but how the movie depicts and denunciates the traditional position of women could have reached popularity in every part of the country. The movie Ju Dou is a considerable manifestation of gender stereotypes and of the Chinese patriarchal

society in the 1920s. However, even if sexual equality is different from the past, it is still an important issue that interests China and that might be changed, since today baby boys are still preferred to girls. In Ju Dou there is not even an intention of equality.
The woman is condemned by her destiny: the owner of a dyeing fabric, Jinshan, buys himself a wife, Ju Dou. Because of his impotency, he will blame and torture her for not giving him a son, which means no future generation. Since the most sacrilegious behavior in the Confucianism philosophy is having descendants, not having any is just morally wrong. Besides, the struggle of the woman, merely finds a moment of escapism with her lover; however, she will suffer forever since her social position is not supposed to progress. From the end of the movie, one can understand that Chinese women are intended to possess more power with a son, but when the husband dies, they will go under the jurisdiction of their son (Cook and Powell, 200, 279). Thus, women would never live without constrains. Ju Dou experienced the authority of her son because he killed her lover Tianqing, so that her destiny seems to be dependent on his son as well. However, the movie ends and it is uncertain of what will happen after. Her young son will probably oppress her.
In this sense, men are acknowledged as oppressive patriarch and strict educators as well as productive companions (Cook and Powell, 2006, 280). Thus, gender stereotypes play an important role in Chinese culture. Nonetheless, one cannot only think of social environments, but even of sexual situations. By objectifying Ju Dou’s body through the male gaze, she is classified by her relationships with men; she feels more comfortable with her lover than her husband (fig.1), so that she needs support and help before the patriarchal husband tortures her to death.
This dramatic situation belongs to what Confucianism professes about sexual equality, which concept, in this doctrine, does not even exist. For instance, polygamy and foot binding are two effective examples of how women are treated and considered different and inferior in Chinese culture. Indeed, they don’t participate actively in the household and somehow in the past, they were not supposed to sit at the same table with the guests or relatives, but just constricted to be their servers and sit somewhere else. According to Confucianism, women are less successful than men and that explains why women have been so subjugated. Confucius says: “Only women and petty men are hard to be with. If you are close to them, they become disrespectful; if you keep a distance, they become resentful” (Jiang, 2009, 228-230). Confucius’ opinion on women is stereotypical, which are a set of negative beliefs that will transform in prejudice, attitudes toward a group, in this case toward women. To this extent, men discriminate against women; they assume a certain type of behavior with them, caused by the conscious stereotypes set by the Chinese philosopher. This knowledge explains why Jinshan abused Ju Dou every night in bed. In fact, she shows bruises on her body and a permanent exhausted face (fig. 2-3).
Related to the narration of the movie is the color red, which matches perfectly in this intolerance settings, full of strong emotions; red represents violence and murder as well as passion and eroticism. Draperies hanged to dry create a suggestive atmosphere during shooting the scenes. Red can represent the aggressive patriarch against Ju Dou and her violated life. Similarly red becomes crime when the son kills both the intended and the real father, who is Ju Dou’s lover; when he was really young he killed the patriarch by mistake while he was playing (fig. 4). However, he assassinated the real father probably because he was jealous of her mother or because he found out who his real father was (fig. 5). In fact, Ju Dou had hidden it to him. Finally, red can be depicted as love when Ju Dou finds herself free and thoughtless with Tianqing. They have a sexual adventure and strong feelings that soon will turn into love.
As this “oppression and subjugation of women” (Nü, 2008, 3) is typical in the traditional Chinese culture, Ju Dou will cheat on her husband and she will have a baby from Tianqing, who is actually the employee of the patriarch. However, they will never kill Jinshan because he still has more power than them and because he is Tianqing’s uncle so that there is still a little affection for him, or rather compassion.
This movie creates meaning, especially meanings about the genders. It is a movie that shapes and portrays gender roles and behaviors as well as where the space of women finish and that of men start; they have divergent positions that must remain distinct. Jou Dou may be seen as a heroine, however, she did not kill the husband with her hands and she is probably condemned to find herself in the same condition, somewhere in the future. Even though, at the end of the movie she seems facing a new start, she will be probably trapped anyway for all her life. She is still a weak woman in a very conservative Chinese village.
The male gaze (fig. 6) in Ju Dou is a very important feature in order to study the meaning of the movie. Usually the look of the male is active, while the female is passive: according to Laura Mulvey, when talking about the gaze, she is referring to “looking and being looked at”, besides, in Ju Dou, the gaze is more about the conflict between individual sexuality and social position. (H. Lu and Lu, 1997, 310-311) Hiding from social position while escaping into sexuality is definitely how the plot is trying to help the woman; Ju Dou is forgetting her own socio-political position and her duties.
Curiously, one can notice that the women in the Chinese culture, in this case Ju Dou, has a double role in the society and in the family; if at first she is the submissive and exploited member of the family, subsequently she is the one who gives the pleasure to men, so that she should be more precious. This is probably a big contradiction that belongs to many cultures, not only to the Chinese assumption. Besides, Ju Dou’s lover is the patriarch’s nephew; since, Ju Dou and Tianqing are relatives in the social structure of the family, the cinematic flow gives us a sense of perverse relationship between the two.
The central force is power. Indeed, this game of powers exists in each relationship between the characters. By making eye contact with Tianqing, Ju Dou destroyed the power that she owns over him. Power in this case turns into sexuality and then into passion. Another conflicting aspect about power is that the patriarch is sexually impotent while Tianqing is socially impotent; he is under the power of the patriarch and he should not even know how Jinshan treats her new wife (H. Lu and Lu, 1997, 312). However, even if power is destroyed and Ju Dou seems to find her happiness with Tianqing, they both are still oppressed from the patriarch who will use his powerful position until his death.
One of the most suggestive and depressive scenes of the movie is one of the very last scenes where Ju Dou if eventually alone with her son. She is still full of pain and thoughts, she unleashes by crying until she decides to set fire to the building, where she had lived for so many years, as a way to destroy the place that gave her so much suffering.
This final scenery represents for her the hope; her hope to go forward trying to forget the past injustices and perhaps to live away from everyone, even if the child will always be a possible threat. The message of the movie is that this social structure will eventually change and women can regain their life and the respect of others.
According to patriarchal society, Ju Dou represents a good example of the social position of the various members in the family. In the movie, since the patriarch and the lover die, the son seems to be willing to escape from the tradition by murdering them and restart a new life with her young mother. However, the son is a bad kid and from his personality depicted in the narration, one interprets that he will be ruling, commanding and at the same time protecting his mother for the rest of her life. Thus, he will be probably the next patriarchal husband of a new family. In this way, this oppressive structure is circular, which ends and starts over again with another generation.
Fortunately, today women do not live in these shameful conditions anymore; they probably have their traditional duties and their men’s conservative assumptions living with them, but things are really different. However, something should be pointed out: infanticide with ultrasound.
Nowadays, baby males are wished much more than baby girls; the desire of having sons torments couples, so that many mothers abort, knowing that their baby will be a female.

Especially in the rural parts of China, people believe that males are more important because they are more active economically. To this extent, in China whether the cause is the gender, aborting is illegal. Every year about 120 males are born to every 100 females. Thus, doctors cannot tell to future parents, whether the fetus will be a baby boy or a baby girl (“China: Where are the girl babies”). There is not gender that deserves to live more than another or that deserves a different treatment. Thus, this gender discrimination is serious since some cultures may not see it as an

abnormality.
Sadly, today, there is so much violence in every part of the world, from West to East, from North to South. It is important to speak about it, especially talk about women in the countries where they still are undervalued. By giving more power to women, men can gain even more respect for giving dignity to the weaker gender. Thus, not only baby girls in China are at risk, rather all women who are more likely to be affectable and sensitive. But since, the desicion to abort baby girls comes from women, often forced by men, the situation seems more difficult to solve.