How Production Affects the Racial Representation in the Film The Joy Luck Club

这篇report主要是分析《Joy Luck Club》这部电影，由谭恩美的畅销书改编，轴承相同的名称。这部影片是由香港导演王颖执导，联合出品的Oliver Stone 和 Janet Yang，和Walt Disney Studios融资定向。Ronald Bass 和 Amy Tan谱写合作的脚本。本文旨在讨论如何制作电影的影响表示影片的比赛，将重点放在如何制作的背景影响的两个女性角色和男性角色在电影的写照。

  The movie The Joy Luck Club is an adaption from Amy Tan's best-selling book, bearing the same name. The film is directed by Wayne Wang, a Hong Kong-born director, co-produced by Oliver Stone and Janet Yang, and financed by Walt Disney Studios. Ronald Bass and Amy Tan write the script in collaboration. The paper aims to discuss how the production of the movie affects the film's race of representation and will focus on how the background of the producers influence the portrayal of both the female characters and the male characters in the movie.
  Although it is a movie mainly talking about the lives of female characters, what strikes me most is the portrayal of male characters. Five heroines' husbands are given detailed description in the movie, among who two husbands are white while three husbands are Chinese or Asian-American. It's very interesting that all the Asian husbands appear villainous, either take women as sex objects or subordinate beings. Back in China, all the ex-husbands are villains but even in America, Lena's Chinese-looking husband(there is no way to tell whether he is a Chinese or not, so I will just take him as an Asian-American) is also an asshole and shows Lena no respect at all. Moreover, his appearance is also not appealing with a half-bald head. By contrast, all the white men are handsome in appearance and gentle in attitude. Rose's white husband is the only one being described as not good to his wife. However, the reason lies not in him but in Rose because she doesn't think she is worthy of his love and never tells him what she wants. In the end, Rose reconciles with his husband after she makes a change, and the other maltreated wives take courage to leave their villain husbands. Lena leads a happy life with a new white boyfriend, who is very caring for her. The portrayal of white men sets exactly to the stereotype of Disney’s animated movies. There is obvious white superiority shown in this film. “in each animated narrative, heroes and heroines are invariably good, attractive, capable, worthy, and ultimately powerful, while in service to the narrative's social orders(Artz 384)”. “Soon the hero will save the day and the hierarchy. 'As evil is expelled, the world is left nice and clean,' and well ordered. Thus, zebras bow, faceless Chinese cheer, and, in general, the working masses rejoice (and happily resume their subservience) upon the triumphant defense of the hierarchy (Artz 385)”. The world in The Joy Luck Club is just like the animated world. White men come to the miserable wives' rescue, villain Chinese or Asian men are expelled, and here comes the harmonious husband-wife world. White husbands are like the powerful rulers, setting rightful norms in the new society.
  Wayne Wang said to Amy Tan during one of their conversations that "But still, I told her this would be a complicated movie and that we somehow had to do it through Hollywood, but we'd try to keep it as faithful and truthful as we could(Clifford)". Though the story is about Chinese- American, the writer and the director are both Chinese origin, the film is set for Hollywood audience. “ So to some degree, the movie has to go with the western style, or Disney style. "Though these films are by Chinese directors who are seeking to take control of what Chow calls 'imaginary productions', the cultural and material means of productions, and, to a lesser extent, their 'codes of fantasy' are nevertheless shaped by the West(Eleanor 61)”. Chong-suk Han also states white supremacy in the article "Sexy Like a Girl and Horny Like a Boy" that "It is clear taken as a whole, these stereotypical images have worked to construct Asian men(and women) as fundamentally foreign, threatening, and perhaps most importantly, as inferior to men(and women) (Chong-suk 163)".
  The polarization of describing the female characters either too aggressive or too obedient have much to do with all the crew. First I think the overaggressiveness has much to do with Amy Tan's personal life. In "The Big Read" program, Tan talks about her mother's influence on writing the book. Her mother is a very strict person and seldom gives her credit. She is never happy with what Tan does. When Tan describes her mother, she employs the word “violent” and says that her mother always says violent words. ("A conversation with Amy Tan by Lawrence Bridge"). So based on Tan’s experience, Chinese mothers are critical and aggressive. It's true that Chinese parents often set too much hope upon their kids. Nevertheless, but there is a Chinese idiom, Strict father and loving mother, which means that the father often plays the tough parent while the mother is the tender one. Even when the director talks about the film, he takes his father as the example. "Connected to that our parents had a difficult time coming here as immigrants, and they put so much expectation on the next generation in the name of a better life. It puts a lot of pressure on the kids. ‘I grew up with a lot that from my father, and I'm still dealing with it. I mean, he's not so happy with me because I've been gone so much and I haven't called him much’(Clifford)”.
  The mothers are described as overaggressive while the grandmothers and the daughters are often submissive and obedient. In China, they are taken as sex objects while in America, they are submissive and do all the house chores. Asian women's status in the society is often exaggerated or overemphasized by the western world. The oppressiveness of Chinese women also conform to the stereotypes in Disney movies. In “Fa Mulan”, Mulan's destiny resides in the family life even if she has done a much better job then men in the battle.
   “In every situation, the Chinese woman is almost always the subordinate, whether she is the abused spouse of the Chinese man, or the loyal lover of the white man. This sort of sexual domination may serve to reinforce labor exploitation as well as embody white male supremacy(Said 1979) (Rachel 12.)”. Said's words well summarizes the portrayal of both the male and female characters in The Joy Luck Club. Even if the director and the writer are Chinese American, the film is still a Disney commodity and the eventual aim for that movie is to arouse the public's interest. Part of the story may be based on the experience of Tan's mother and grandmother, but it's inevitable that most of the stories are exaggerated a little bit to make the stories more exciting and exotic. So there is obvious misrepresentation of Chinese race. 
                                                                                                        Bibliography
Clifford Terry and Chicago Tribune.1993. "Joy's Director Says Story is Universal". ProQuest: Journal of Las Vegas Review. http://search.proquest.com/docview/260014530?accountid=14784
Chong-suk Han, 2008 ." Sexy Like a Girl and Horny Like a Boy". In Gender, Race, and Class in Media: a critical reader. 3rd ed., edited by Dines, Gail, Jean McMahon Humez, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE
Publications, 2011. 163.
Eleanor Ty."Exoticism Repositioned:Old and New world pleasures in Wang's Joy Luck Club and Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman". In Changing Representations of Minorities East and West, Selected Essays volume 11, ed. Larry E. Smith and John Rieder. page 61.
https://books.google.com/books?id=7i9TCyoXankC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=exoticism+repositioned&source=bl&ots=T9NOteBiLM&sig=DPzFUbTfX8oupUkBMbaomkt58l4&hl=zh-CN&sa=X&ei=haTmVPyTF4utogT32oHYDg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=exoticism%20repositioned&f=false
Lawrence Bridge.A conversation with Amy Tan by Lawrence Bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuRO4M6D_Y
Lee Artz, 2005 ." Monarchs, Monsters, and Multiculturalism: Disney's Menu for Global Hierachy". In Gender, Race, and Class in Media: a critical reader. 3rd ed., edited by Dines, Gail, Jean McMahon Humez, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE
Publications, 2011. 384-385.
Rachel Leng, “:Calling All “Dragon Ladies,” “China Dolls,” and “Lotus Blossoms” THE NEED FOR ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINISM”. Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. In The Duke Joural of Gender and Sexuality ed. Rachel Bangle, et al. http://sites.duke.edu/unzipped/files/2013/04/Unzipped_4.pdf#page=12
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