Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies - Softcover

Shimizu, Celine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804773017 ISBN 13: 9780804773010

Verlag: STANFORD UNIV PR, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Depictions of Asian American men as effeminate or asexual pervade popular movies. Hollywood has made clear that Asian American men lack the qualities inherent to the heroic heterosexual male. This restricting, circumscribed vision of masculinity—a straitjacketing, according to author Celine Parreñas Shimizu—aggravates Asian American male sexual problems both on and off screen.

Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies looks to cinematic history to reveal the dynamic ways Asian American men, from Bruce Lee to Long Duk Dong, create and claim a variety of masculinities. Representations of love, romance, desire, and lovemaking show how Asian American men fashion manhoods that negotiate the dynamics of self and other, expanding our ideas of sexuality. The unique ways in which Asian American men express intimacy is powerfully represented onscreen, offering distinct portraits of individuals struggling with group identities. Rejecting "macho" men, these movies stake Asian American manhood on the notion of caring for, rather than dominating, others.

Straitjacket Sexualities identifies a number of moments in the movies wherein masculinity is figured anew. By looking at intimate relations on screen, power as sexual prowess and brute masculinity is redefined, giving primacy to the diverse ways Asian American men experience complex, ambiguous, and ambivalent genders and sexualities.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a filmmaker and film scholar. She is the author of The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene (2007), winner of the 2009 Cultural Studies Book Prize from the Association for Asian American Studies.

Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a filmmaker and film scholar. She is the author of The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene (2007), winner of the 2009 Cultural Studies Book Prize from the Association for Asian American Studies.

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Straitjacket Sexualities

UNBINDING ASIAN AMERICAN MANHOODS IN THE MOVIESBy Celine Parreñas Shimizu

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-7301-0

Contents

Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................xiIntroduction: Ethics and Responsibility: The Sexual Problems of Asian American Men in the Movies The Slanted Screen (2006), Transgressions (2002) and Some Questions for 28 Kisses (1994)...................................................................................................................11. With Vulnerable Strength: Re-Signifying the Sexual Manhood of Bruce Lee The Big Boss or Fists of Fury (1971), The Chinese Connection or Fist of Fury (1972), The Way of the Dragon or Return of the Dragon (1972), and Enter the Dragon (1973)...........................................................332. On the Grounds of Shame, New Relations: Asian American Manhoods in Hollywood Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Sixteen Candles (1984)............................................................................................................................................823. The Marvelous Plenty of Asian American Men: Independent Film as a Technology of Ethics The Debut (2000), Charlotte Sometimes (2002), and Better Luck Tomorrow (2003).....................................................................................................................................1234. Assembling Asian American Men in Pornography: Shattering the Self toward Ethical Manhoods Yellowcaust: A Patriot Act (2003), Masters of the Pillow (2003), Dick Ho: Asian Male Porn Star (2005), Asian Pride Porn (2000), Forever Bottom! (1999), and the blog of Keni Styles (2010).....................1655. Unbinding Straitjacket Sexualities: The Calm Manhoods of Asian American Male Hollywood Stars The Crimson Kimono (1959), Map of the Human Heart (1993), Rapa Nui (1994), and The Jungle Book (1994).......................................................................................................201Epilogue: Claiming the Power of Lack in the Face of Macho: Asian American Manhoods in the Movies Gran Torino (2008).........................................................................................................................................................................................233Notes........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................245Bibliography and Suggested Readings..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................257Index........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................269

Chapter One

With Vulnerable Strength Re-Signifying the Sexual Manhood of Bruce Lee

Iconic images of Bruce Lee, one of the most celebrated martial artists and movie stars from the last century, continue to circulate today, most frequently with clothes falling off his bare chest. Big, black, bushy hair tops his handsome face, with lips pursed together and eyes intent in a confident look as the rippling texture of his torso reveals adherence to a disciplined physical regimen and the chiseled, muscled arms affirm his reputation of brute strength made famous by his one-inch punch. With a body on the verge of exploding in its expression of strength and power, this man seems to exemplify a magnificent exception to the supposed problem of Asian American male lack by possessing traits of hegemonic masculinity of strength and power. In protecting the Green Hornet as Kato on television and in beating multitudes of men to death in films that established a new action genre across the world, his image combated the Hollywood tradition of representing Asian men as weak—but did he kiss, love, or possess sexuality? Is he sexy, or does he have sex? These questions seem crucial to the problem of assessing Asian and Asian American men as entrenched in cinematic lack, far away from masculine power.

Most critics say Bruce Lee possesses gender power while lacking sexual prowess. Jachinson Chan, who claims Lee's sexuality reads ambiguously, asserts we can't tell if he's homosexual or heterosexual since he occupies an alternative masculinity. But such an ambiguity may deepen the image of lack and its attendant lowly stature in male hierarchies when we recall that Richard Fung points to the Asian male's sexual illegibility on screen. David Henry Hwang celebrates Bruce Lee's refutation of weakness that dominates the history of Asian and Asian American male representations, but questions why Bruce Lee "never appeared in a love scene though it would seem almost obligatory for heroes in the action and adventure genre." What criteria do these critics use to diagnose asexuality? I will argue that the limited definition of male power does not do justice to its subject's struggles with forging an ethical manhood. Along with his work on screen, Bruce Lee's letters and interviews chronicle the formation of an Asian American male subject wrestling with racial stereotypes, attributions of senseless violence and asexuality, as well as a commitment to acting and the thoughtful interrogation of his choices. Most importantly, he expands our measure of both masculinity and sexuality—beyond gender hierarchy and male power over women.

This chapter studies how Bruce Lee expanded our understanding of sexuality beyond the conflation of the penis and the phallus where the on-screen appearance of a biological man needs to signify power over others. Between ferocity and tenderness, vulnerability and strength, and caring not only for the self but others—especially friends, family, and women—Bruce Lee formulates an ethical manhood not aligned with patriarchy alone but with a larger field of social relations. Unlike the literature that emphasizes Bruce Lee's invincibility as one that secures nationalist pride or what Vijay Prashad calls antiracist polyculturalism, I instead highlight his specific theorization of racialized gender and sexuality through performances of violence and sex. I argue that Bruce Lee's expressions of vulnerability disclose the emotional costs of violence, and the performances of intimacy that bookend the explosion of his body in committing violence captures his formation of gender and sex as both exposure of self and confrontation with others. His definition of sexuality in film and beyond is powerful in making legible sexualities beyond sexual intercourse or promiscuity. He expands available standards for recognizing viable masculinity. Bruce Lee's performances of sex and violence are moments for the making of ethical manhoods that acknowledge the power one holds in...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: STANFORD UNIV PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804773017
• ISBN 13: 9780804773010
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 277
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande