Kaleidoscope: An SCO
Journal of Graduate Student Research
Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2002, pp.
1-17
A Cultural Reading
Hong Wang
_____
Dr. Hong Wang is currently
an assistant professor in the department of Speech and
Theatre
Arts at
include semiotics,
international/intercultural communication, and philosophy and
culture of new media.
_____
Television
is a medium for transmitting the message of human values that is Culture per
se.
Richard L. Lanigan (1992:
29)
The
movie is threaded together through the narration of a teenage boy, Tietou. It
is heavily politically charged movie, telling how the powerless ordinary
Chinese people were persecuted and their hopes for better life repeatedly
smashed by one political movement after another launched by the Communist
Party. The story began with the boy’s parents’ wedding, not a grandiose one,
but cheerful and full of sweet memory. Then the Anti-rightist movement2
crashed the family peace, sending his father into exile in a remote forest
field, where the father died like dirt. Couple of years later, his mother
married a friend of his father’s, and lived a pacified life. Within a short
time, the stepfather died of hard work and malnutrition. The indirect cause, as
the film relates, was the three years’ Natural Disaster3, which
became aggravated by the bad leadership of the Party. Then, the mother,
thinking of the boy’s future, married again, this time to a veteran
revolutionary, who enjoyed numerous privileges denied to the ordinary people.
The mother was not really happy about the marriage, but at least she had time
to heal from the old wounds. Yet, politics would not leave them living in
peace. Soon the Cultural Revolution4 began, forcing a divorce
between the mother and the stepfather. The movie ended with the stepfather
dying of a heart attack caused by the torturing young Red Guards, and the
mother being sent into exile in the countryside. As the movie shows, tragedies
of such kind not only struck the core family; they extended to the boy’s uncles
and aunts and to millions of Chinese people like them.
To me, the power of the movie lies not merely in the accusation of the cruel politics as Andrew Sarris interpreted. A film critic, Sarris commented in the prelude that the film is “the most amazing act of political courage and defiance” he had ever seen. I would like to argue that it reflects, through retrospection, the cultural environment in which series of political movements were nurtured and encouraged. It poses the age-old question of how individual desire is suppressed or smashed in the name of collective interests, or, national interests in this case.
As E. Hall (1966) points out, a given society falls into one of the two categories: sociocentric and egocentric. A primary feature of sociocentric culture is its stress on the necessity of striving for collectivity, and in so doing, sacrifices individual hopes and desires in the name of collective interest. In other words, collective interests outbalance individual desires. This does not deny the fact that even in the most sociocentric culture, centrifugal forces exist side by side with centripetal forces. Just as the names indicate, a centripetal force is one that pulls a society together, like government, law, constitution, and mainstream ideology that work together to maintain the society as it is. Except for a drastically changing society, tradition also plays a big part in stabilizing the society. Centrifugal force, on the other hand, pulls away from the mainstream of the society, like individual desires that place personal interests above group’s interest, and “aberrant” ideologies that encourage people to behave otherwise. However, in a sociocentric culture, centrifugal attempts are often ignored and suppressed.
Another important feature of
distinguishing sociocentric from egocentric culture concerns people’s
perception of their self-identity. That is how one actually perceives
his/herself in relation to others.
Self Other
Same Different
(Lanigan, 1992: 110)
It is argued in theory that there are basically two
ways to obtain self -identity in a society. One, as suggested by Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, we get to know ourselves through negativity. That is, we define
our personality boundary by being different from others. We would say, for
example, that “I am not that person, nor the other people; I don’t do this like
that person, or I don’t do that as Mary does.” Michel Foucault, in contrast,
proposes that we get to know ourselves through positivity. I am myself because
I see myself as the same with other people, at least with the people I want to
identify with. In conforming to other people I know what I am supposed to do
and to think. In this way my self-identity is secured (
It should be recognized that each society has both types of the force and both kinds of people as mentioned above. The key question is: which force is accepted by people in general as the norm, and which functions as the overarching principle operating in that given society. The Chinese culture is such that centripetal forces are overwhelmingly strong and powerful. Individuals are expected and regulated to perform in accordance with the group. Anything different from the group may arouse a collective consciousness that works to rectify or straighten the deviant conducts or thoughts of the individual. With knowledge of such cultural signification, we may begin to explore specific symbolic meanings of the kite as in Tian’s movie “The Blue Kite.”
Kite in Flight: A Cultural Symbol of Individual Difference
A kite, once flown in the sky, becomes a “real” kite
in the true sense of the word. In the Chinese language, the concept of kite is
expressed through two characters--feng (the wind) and zheng
(a kind of instrument). So it has to be high above the ground to make it
different from other things of the kind, say, sheets of paper, or some
decorative gadget. What is it in the flight that makes a kite distinctive? That
is, what is culturally significance about the kite in flight?
As
has been discussed above, the Chinese culture defines individuals by sharing
similarities. The shared common features are usually analogized as common
denominators, the rudimental, and therefore the basic. Since these features are
associated with the majority of the people, the ordinary people, in turn, are
perceived as the foundation of the society. So anything that is characteristic
of the mass is termed as “the earth” (as supportive) in good sense, or “the
mediocre” in a derogatory sense. In the Chinese literature, one’s hope to be
different is often depicted as flying away up to the sky, to the moon, to a
peaceful and quiet heavenly place. The escape from the ground,
or the attempt per se distinguishes the person from the “mass.” So the flying
kite symbolizes not only hope but also lofty hope. The person who cherishes
such hope sets him/herself apart from the rest.
But such hope of being different
is culturally interpreted as dangerous. For one thing, the hope may be
far-fetched and therefore the hope bearers are likely to be disillusioned after
painstaking trials. For a more serious reason, the hope may disturb and
threaten the harmony of the hopes collectively held by the group. If permitted,
such hope may get rampant till there is no such a thing as common hope. This,
in turn, as the cultural reason goes, will upset the current structure of the
society, which should be retained at any cost. So the society sees its
undeniable duty to iron out the difference, to force the “aberrant” individual
into the group again. This social mentality is found in such expressions as “gao chu bu sheng han” (too cold high up there in the moon,
good and pure may the moon be), “xin bi tian gao” (cherishing a hope that soars
up to the sky--too ambitious). In the Communist terminology, such signs of hope
are often criticized as “tuo li qun zhong” (be detached from the mass), “hao
gao wu yuan” (be unrealistically ambitious).
In
order to secure the sociocentricity, extreme measures have been taken to
rectify individual variety. Early in the Qin Dynasty (the first unification of
Political movements came one
after another for such “purification” purposes. Even the so-called “peaceful” period (1949-1966, period of less
turbulent time compared to the Cultural Revolution, when nearly everyone was in
danger of becoming a potential target of the campaign) was also full of events,
tragic events for some people like Shujuan and her family: Suppression of the
Reactionaries (Sufan, in 1950, soon
after the Communist Party’s taking over of the country); joining of private
enterprises into public enterprises (gong
si he ying, 1953-54); Rectification / Anti-rightist movement (fan you, 1957); the Great Leap Forward (da yuejin, 1958). The political
persecution was interrupted by the Three year’s Natural disaster (san nian zi ran zai hai, 1959-62), which
claimed millions of ordinary people’s lives; then the Socialist Education
movement (she hui
zhu yi jiao yu yun dong, 1964) until the Cultural Revolution, which lasted
from 1966-1976. The goal of the movements, as Mao claimed, was to purge the
people of their “atheistic” thoughts, which referred to anything away from
Maoism. An interesting feature to note is that Maoism is in a large sense an
extension of the Chinese tradition. It replaced some “politically incorrect”
contents with new historical demands. At the same time, it adopts the tradition
and reinforced the power of authority at the expense of personal interests. At
that time, individual needs and desires were suppressed completely into
absence.
In
the film “The Blue Kite,” Zhu Ying is one among millions of others who were
persecuted for her hope of individual selection. She was a performer in the
army song and dance troupe. She loved Shusheng, Tietou’s uncle, who used to be
a Guomindang pilot5 and came to join the Communist side before the
Communist Party took over. However, she suffered severe persecution because of
her love. She was, first of all, forced to retire from the troupe in which she was the key member, and worked in a steel plant
doing heavy manual work. Later, she was put in prison for no legitimate
reasons. On the surface, her suffering came about because of political
persecution--she had the courage to disobey her leaders: she refused to dance
with a certain high rank officer so as to preserve her love for the man to whom
she was devoted.
However, based on a cultural
reading, her tragedy came from her hope of being different, to retain a little
room for individuality in herself. Tradition has it
that personal happiness lies in an arranged match; the would-be-husband and
wife should be “matching” in their economic and social status (men dang hu dui), and in the talent of
the man and good-looking of the wife (lang cai nu mao).
Love is a luxury, out of question. It might come as a by-product of marriage,
but not the primary goal of the marriage. The parents have the final say as to
who is to marry whom. There is no place for individual opinion. In the context
of new
Kite Holder: Power of the Male Gaze
"In our relation to things, in so far as this relation is constituted by the way of vision, and ordered in the figures of representation, something slips, passes, is transmitted, from stage to stage, and is always to some degree eluded in it --that is what we call the gaze" (Lacan, 1977: 73). In other words, gaze is the individual's way of organizing the images s/he sees in a given period of time, his/her starting point of the vision. The gaze jumps from one feature to another that is important to his/her mind's eye, while overlooking or ignoring the “less important” things. It is the individual's way of making a sense of what he/she sees.
In the movie, there are two dominant gazes, one of the boy, the narrator, and the other, the director. Through these sometimes mixed and sometimes distinctive gazes, the audience is led to reach the intended interpretations of rationality or irrationality in the things they see. Let me start with the boy’s gaze.
The
boy’s gaze is mainly focused on Shujuan, his mother. Through his gaze, we see
Shujuan as a good mother by performing all her female duties: she washed the
boy while the father reading under the lamp; she cooked and set the table when
the father invited his male friends for dinner; she cleaned the house and did
the laundry when the boy’s stepfather was working extra hours for “the
revolutionary cause.” Through the gaze of the boy, we see the desirable
qualities of femininity: she was not interested in politics--she never talked
big. She asked Zhu Ying, her brother’s girlfriend what her job is, where she
came from, whether she missed her parents far away, and she invited her to come
often for such chats (In contrast to the female talk, the background talk was
between the father and the uncle on the political situation in each of their
work places). She would interrupt politically charged argument between her
sister and brother.
What is more, Shujuan gave up her own happiness for the sake of the boy: to find a more promising future for the boy, she married again, because of the stepfather’s prestigious social position, which was thought to be helpful for the child’s future career. She gave up her job as a schoolteacher and devoted herself totally to the chore of housework--cooking, washing, and cleaning. With all her desirable virtues, she was weak. The boy caught her crying “for nothing,” and asked, “Why should you adults cry? What a shame!” She was weak in the physical sense, too. She had a hard time preparing the coals for winter after her husband’s death, and she looked genuinely happy when a male friend came over to help. She was vulnerable from the cruel politics and dirty human relationships: she was forced to go to the countryside “to receive education from the peasants,” leaving a boy of five unattended at home. She was physically attacked and beaten by the “red guards”; she was an easy target of gossip. Her weakness, therefore, created in the boy a desire to be a man, to grow strong enough to protect her. The theme song (The Crow Song), repeated four or five times in the movie, well expresses the boy’s feeling:
The crow on the
tree,
The crow flying free.
The old crow
flies no more,
Circling birds
cry and caw.
Little birds
look for food,
First feed mum
and then the brood.
I wait for mine
patiently,
For mum has
always fed me.
This
gaze of the boy’s desire to protect the mother is explicitly articulated
through his questions and behaviors. The boy asked her several times how she
could be happy, or rather, what he could do to make her happy. Though only
about 10 years old, he fought furiously with another boy who used obscene words
for his mother; he fought with all his might with the red guards who were
beating the mother for her sense of justice. However, he was weak, too, and was
beaten down to the ground with a bloody nose. He saw his mother taken away by
the group of red guards. At the end of the movie he was lying on the ground,
gazing into the deep blue sky, with the crow song ringing in his ears:
"...little birds look for food, first feed mum and then the brood.”
For
most part of the film, the boy is only a boy. That is, he has some sense of
male responsibility but is not able to appreciate womanhood in the adult male
sense. Then the director’s gaze jumps in, selecting and connecting things that
the boy cannot see. Generally speaking, as Lacan points out, “the relation
between the gaze and what one wishes to see involves allure. The subject is
presented as other than he is, and what one shows him is not what he wishes to
see” (Lacan, 1977: 104). The gaze on Shujuan
is a surprised gaze, surprised in a pleasant way.
In the wedding scene, Shujuan
dressed up. The political situation at the time was that the sole purpose of
clothes was for “preserving human dignity”--as a human being we have sense of
shame, and so we need clothes to cover up. But the clothing should be as plain
and as drab as possible. Throughout the film, Shujuan, and other females as
well, were all in dark, grayish dresses, to efface a natural desire to be
different and pretty. The wedding occasion, however, granted her a good chance
of showing her beauty. But she would not do it unless pressed:
(This
scene takes place on the wedding night when the young couple returned to their
bedroom room. Shujuan was trying on the new dress--brightly colored and
embroidered--that she was supposed to wear for the occasion)
Shujuan (bride): This is the cheungsam Mother
made for my wedding. It’s a bit too flashy. Don’t you think?
Shaolong (bridegroom): (Turning
back. An amazed look on his face with delight and appreciation) It looks
great! I love it! (He turns back again and picked up a red veil) Put
this on. They all wore it in the old times.
Shaolong: (Responds, protected) It matches
perfectly. Please do it for me.
The gaze, through the new husband’s eye,
leads the audience to appreciate the female beauty, which is expected to raise
the question, why hide female beauty under drab clothes. People (i.e. men) love
a female more if she is good-looking.
While
male gaze can be friendly and patronizing, it can also be malicious, for “Man’s
desire is the desire of the Other,” i.e. the desire on the part of the Other (Lacan, 1977: 115; italics in original). Once the
desire is denied, it can bring destruction to the object of the “showing.” Zhu
Ying was the victim of such malicious gaze. She was young and exceptionally
beautiful, and she did not have to dress up to be outstanding. When she was
playing a role in a rehearsal, she had the greedy male gazes following her. Out
of the stage, she was again trapped in the ill-meant male gaze, this time from
the head of the troupe. She was made to stand straight before the leader. She
was well aware of the gaze and tried to avoid it with her eyes looking down on
the ground and her hands playing with her clothes. In addition, she tried to
escape the gaze by disguising herself in plain clothes. But there was no
escape. She became the doomed victim of male gaze and served years of
imprisonment because of her refusal to be a willing object of the male desire.
I could imagine the gaze of that particular officer even when she was in
absence. He would imagine devouring her, and yet at the same time had the mind
to tell her that it was her fault for the suffering—“Why should you be so
beautiful after all?” he’d ask. Of course, it would be unfair to say that the
director’s gaze coincides with the ill-intended gaze of the officer. Yet, it is
easy to see, by the way the movie presented the issue,
that the director’s gaze seems to share the same assumption that it was her
beauty that ruined her life. She would be much better off if she either
satisfied the male gaze or was not so sensually attractive in the first place.
If
the male gaze in the film was that of respect for Shujuan’s femininity and
sympathy for Zhu Ying’s suffering, it becomes a gaze of contempt for Sis and
Little Uncle’s new wife, for different reasons. Sis was good-looking, too; she
had big glaring eyes and delicate facial features. But the male gaze sees her
as having some elements of masculinity. First of all, she wore a pair of
glasses, a sign of rich knowledge and wisdom, which should be denied to women,
according to the cultural tradition. Secondly, she did not perform female
duties; she was not seen doing household chores, and she had no children to
look after. She did not seem interested in those things. Instead, she was very
enthusiastic about her work, and with political affairs that are supposed to be
a man’s field. In a word, she was rejected by the male gaze not because she was
not nice-looking, but because she threatened men by doing the same job as they
do. The male world, through male gaze, sees this rebellious of the tradition,
and thus aberrant. She should be slighted.
As
for the Little Uncle’s new wife, she was not well liked nor properly respected
in the family. She was extremely willing to perform duties expected of a
woman--she took all the household chores to herself on her wedding day when she
was supposed to do nothing but enjoy. She was very warm to everyone in the
family, including the boy. However, the boy, now about 14 years old, saw her in
a rather critical male way. He didn’t like her because she was “somewhat...”, to which the Little Uncle continued “Somewhat plain,
right? Don’t be like me when you grow up. I’m no good (not able to find a
better looking girl).”
Through
the presentation of the females in the film, the male gaze focuses on three
criteria that would make a female desirable: good-looking, sacrifice of
personal happiness for men, and physically and mentally weaker (compared to
their male partners). Each of the female characters mentioned above suffered in
one way or other because of the male gaze--Zhu Ying for her reluctance to
sacrifice herself, Sis for her being emotionally strong and her courage to step
into the men’s world, and Little Uncle’s wife for her plain look. Worst of all
is Shujuan, the mother. In complying with the male gaze, she became the
attraction of the gaze, and the object of protection. However, in doing so, she
lost her own identity together with her personal happiness on a deeper level.
Kite Caught in Tree: Interruption of Cultural Hegemony and Ideology
The significance of the kite as a symbol of freedom
cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the might of the
centripetal forces in
The term hegemony is adopted
by cultural theorists to describe the process by which a dominant class wins
the willing consent of the subordinate classes to the system that ensures their
subordination. In hegemonic theory, ideology is constantly up against forces of
resistance (John Fiske, 1992: 291). Bakhtin analyzes the difference between
heteroglossic or multitongued texts, which contain the many voices of
subordinate groups, and monoglossic or more homogeneous ones, which carry only
the voice of the dominant. He uses the metaphor or a spinning wheel to
illustrate the difference: at the center is a relatively homogeneous hub of
domination and control, and around the circumference are multiple,
heterogeneous points of subordination that form potential points of resistance.
Centripetal forces, those tending toward the center, are ones of hegemony and
domination working through homogenization, whereas centrifugal forces, those
tending toward the circumference, are ones of resistance and difference working
through heterogeneity. The two are always opposed to each other, and television
texts are held in an unstable tension between them (Fiske, 1992: 298-9).
The
cultural hegemony that conditions and regulates individual behaviors is
structured like the branches that catch the kites. The first level of structure
is the family. Tradition has it that the ordinary people should function
properly first of all inside the family. Within the hierarchy of the family,
the younger should obey the older, because the older supposedly have more
experience in life, which necessarily leads to sharper insight into life. They
are wiser in practical matters as to how to make a living, and they are more
rational rather than emotional, which is considered as bad as anything in face
of serious situations like choosing the right spouse or taking political
stance.
Within
this structure, the male gender has more power over the female gender because
the culture sees the former as the stronger, both in physical and emotional senses.
In the film, the narrator “I” still enjoyed this gender privilege throughout
his childhood. It is true that both he and his mother, Shujuan, were socially
the weaker part, but Tietou was the stronger of the two, though younger in age.
The traditional “three obedience and four virtues for women” in the Confucian
thought still has some influence up to the present day
This
older/wiser, male/stronger ideology is reflected in a larger social scale as
well. As is discussed before, sociocentricity allows
little room for the ordinary people's wills and wishes. Who should then decide
which conducts are good for the group and which are not? It is an easier thing
at home, where the male elderly has the final say. Since there is no
natural “head” in social organizations as in the family, the issue of
representation becomes important. The conflicts between the individual and the
collectivity through the representative form a vital aspect of one’s social and
political life. As Laclau (1996) points out, a good representation would be one
in which the will moves in a single direction. This presupposes that at the
point from which the relation of representation starts, there is a full
identification of the represented with his will. The transparency of the
relation of representation would be threatened if the will of the
representative impinges upon the wills of those that he is supposed to
represent. If the represented need the relation of representation, it is
because their identities are incomplete and have to be supplemented by the
representatives (p.49).
In the Chinese culture, those in power supposedly represent
collective interests--the “parents” of the big family. For more than a thousand
years, official Confucian rhetoric abounds in stock references to the king or
emperor as the "father-mother" of the people and to magistrates as
father-mother officials. The ruling elites have the image of caring and
well-wised parents rather than limited humans sharing all the frailties of
their 'children'. The Communist government replaces this metaphor with that of
"people's servants" to the effect that they are acting purely in the
interest of the people, thus the sole true and responsible representatives.
However, this rhetoric of "servants" may be interpreted in the
intertextuality of servant-authority. In Mao’s time6, ordinary
people are asked to be "Mao's good pupils,” and further to be a
"screw that is ready to fit any position of the party machine." Since
the 1980’s the rhetoric of “parent-child” relationship returns, with the Party
as the “mother.” The Party is the parent whose authority should be always in
place, and whose wisdom should never be challenged. As Schwartz (1985)
commented, this parent-child metaphor bears with it the image of the people as
children. They are immature; they need care and concern; they need be told and
ordered as to what to do. And they cannot decide for themselves what they
perceive to be right (p. 415).
The
Party-parent analogy is personified in each individual of a leadership
position. In other words, the leaders are made the natural representatives of
common people’s interests. A telling case in point is the curator of a public
library (a nameless curator, therefore, a symbol of the leadership class). He
was wise enough to vision a “dangerous tendency” in the library staff to
“attack the leaders”, which was equalized to attacking the Party in general, an
unpardonable sin then. He asked Li Guodong to confide if he had any deviant
behaviors or thought. Guodong was an ordinary librarian, a close friend of
Shaolong (Tietou’s father). Once at the dinner table, he had an idle talk with
Shaolong and Yunwei, another friend. Then Yunwei told them that he’d found out
the two piles of books reported missing days before—the books were under the
curator’s study desk. “How could he have done that?” Yunwei joked. Under the
curator’s veiled threat, Guodong reported to him that little talk with his
friends, and blamed himself for being so naive and politically immature—“I
didn’t see through his true intention of being anti-party,” he regretted. His
report led to the two friends to be labeled “Rightists,” who were then sent
into exile and died in far-away places.
As
audience, we are prone to ask what if Guodong did not report the case? Clearly, he did not do it because he bore ill
intention for his friends. As a matter of fact, he later regretted again for
his political immaturity of reporting the talk to the curator. The guilty
feeling kept torturing him till his death. Couldn’t he see that the curator was
trying to persecute his friends? Althusser used to point out, that ideology is
“not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of
individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations
in which they ‘live’” (refer to Rimmon-Kena, 1996: 16). What we call social
reality is in the last resort an ethical construction; it is supported by a
certain as if (we act as
if we believe in the almightiness of bureaucracy, as if the President incarnates the Will of the People, as if the Party expresses the objective
interest of the working class, etc.) (Zizek, 1998: 36).
Guodong was conditioned by the invisible ideology of the time, and was doomed
to be the victim of his own belief that the Party was right in whatever it was
doing, because it must be right in anything it did. This belief in the
tautology of authority is what Zizek would call “a belief before belief”: it is
to accept that its authority is without
truth. (Zizek, 1998: 38).
Another aspect of cultural
hegemony is associated with interpersonal relations. As an explicit cultural
teaching the Confucian slogan is to love others. This love for others is made
evident by the virtues of loyalty and consideration. Loyalty refers to the
complete devotion of oneself to the best interests of another, and
consideration means never doing to others what one would not wish done oneself.
Qualities of loyalty and consideration will not breed any resentment either in
family life or in social affairs (H. Smith, 1973: 67). No one can clearly
remember what Confucius did say twenty-five centuries ago, but this cultural
ideology has become an implicit constraint that conditions people’s thought and
actions in, say, dealing with friendship. To a Chinese, a friend is always
right, whatever s/he does. Friendship integrates friends and irons out their
interest differences.
This was fine in times of
peace. Shaolong’s friends came to decorate their new home and to set the
wedding. In return for their friendship, Shaolong was to bear the consequences
of the friends’ conducts. Yunwei criticized the curator, and claimed to be
speaking for Shaolong and Guodong at the same time. This was fatally serious
under the high pressure of politics at the time. No one was supposed to say a
word of difference, even if to an individual person in authority. Li Guodong,
another friend, confided to the leader their idle talk in Shaolong’s home,
which led directly to Shaolong and Yunwei’s persecution and death. But friends
were not to be blamed. It is culturally right for friends to do anything for
you or to you, if they bear good intentions. They are legitimized to speak for
you, to make decisions in your name, even if you don't agree at heart. You are
not supposed to show difference from the friends. Therefore, it is easy to see
why Shaolong didn’t utter a single word against the friends. And his silence
about the friends’ misdoings was rewarded in return. Guodong, who felt guilty
of his political immaturity, continued to be a close friend of Shaolong’s
family. He married late Shaolong’s wife, and assumed head responsibility for
the family.
All
in all, the trees that caught the flying kite can be interpreted as triumph of
power as intervening force (authorized representation of collectivity) over
individual desire. The cultural and ideological structure often works best in
an invisible way. As Zizek (1998) comments, ideology really succeeds “when even
the facts which at first sight contradict it start to function as arguments in
its favor” (p. 49). In such a situation, it is doubtful if ever the kite could
fly high, and if the individual could have a personal happiness.
Should the Kite Fly Free? The Cultural Dead-end of
Individualism
From
the above discussion we see that the kite flier (usually male, as represented
in the movie) has a benevolent feeling towards the kite in flight. On the one
hand, he wishes something different, something exciting, and something that may
take him into a dreamland of individual freedom. On the other hand, as the kite
flier, he also wishes a controlling power over the kite. After all, the kite
would not be his kite, and the hope would not be his hope if the kite broke
free. He still needs the gaze, the visible and yet unreachable desire, and an object he feels obliged to protect because of
this desire of possession.
From
the projected perspective of the kite (individual diversity symbolizing the
female gender from the male gaze), she would not want to break away from the
controlling power of the kite flier. She needs his power for guidance, for
protection, and for shelter. If broken free by chance, she would be seen by the
culture as the failure of the particular individual, because she would then
lose her aim in life; she would be totally “lost” to the group, to the
collectivity of her culture.
In general, power has both
political and cultural dimensions. Through the gaze of the film, political
power was denunciated while cultural power applauded. Everything that goes
along with the traditional cultural values is presented in harmony and without
rupture. That is, nothing tragic is alleged to the cultural tradition, though
they are deep-rooted and have a tight control of people’s thought and behavior.
In the repeated narration “I’ll make you another one (meaning a kite),” the
kite maker as well as the kite flier becomes the very interceptive power of his
own wish to be different, and to be free of the social and cultural burdens.
So, the activity itself is a closed circle. Individualism has no way out, which
is a personal tragedy but cultural triumph.
Conclusion
In a sociocentric culture like
Notes
[1] This paper was presented at the National
Communication Association convention,
2 The anti-rightist campaign is one of the
first mass movements in Communist China, the main target being deviant
intellectual thinking. Hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were prosecuted
then. In the late 1970s, the government acknowledged its wrongdoing, and made
some material compensation for those suffered during this period.
3 Officially, the so-called “Three year
Natural Disaster” refers to the years 1960-1962, when 2 to 5 hundred thousand
people died of starvation (the death toll varies according to different
sources). The government later admitted that bad leadership played a role in
aggravating the natural catastrophe.
4 The “Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution” (often abbreviated as Cultural Revolution) covered a period of 10
years between 1966 and 1976. It was officially considered the most disastrous
of all the political movements launched in Communist China. The major target of
the campaign, especially at the beginning, were those authority figures, people
who had been in authority for long, and who were thought of as taking the
“capitalist road.”
5 Guomindang (or Nationalist) was the
ruling party for about 30 years when the Communist Party won over PR China,
driving the remaining Nationalists into
6
Mao Zedong was the
head of Chinese Communist Party and head of the state from 1949 till 1976.
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Copyright © 2002 Kaleidoscope/Speech Communication
Association/Department of Speech Communication, SIUC. All rights reserved.