1 - The Chinese Queer Diasporic Imaginary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
Summary
Abstract
Focusing on the theme of Chinese familialism, this chapter recasts the notion of “filiality,” foundational to the familial-kinship system, as a discursive formation, calling attention to the way filiality has been differently maneuvered by different regimes at different historical moments. Foregrounding the strengthened links between filiality and loyalty in the reinforced “family-state” discourse of martial law-era Taiwan, this chapter argues that the family-state discourse is pivotal to what I term the “Chinese queer diasporic imaginary,” symptomatic of the insoluble tension between Chinese tongzhi/queer subjects and their family-based social settings. This Chinese queer diasporic imaginary is expressed through an array of tropes – including niezi, Nezha, AIDS, ghosts, and Chinese/Taiwanese opera – in various queer-themed films, beginning with Outcasts (Yu Kan-ping, 1986).
Keywords: filiality, Chinese queer diasporic imaginary, Outcasts, Nezha, AIDS, ghost
This chapter investigates the representation of queer subjects in relation to discourses of filiality, familial-home, and family-state in a Chinese cultural setting. To better capture the nuanced and multilayered meaning of such representation, I propose the idea of a “Chinese queer diasporic imaginary.” It is critical to introduce this concept at the start of this wideranging project: projected on the emerging queer mediascape, this diasporic imaginary juxtaposes queer politics and Chinacentric nationalism, thereby foregrounding the relative significance of the peripheral polities of Taiwan and Hong Kong vis-à-vis Mainland China. To articulate this Chinese queer diasporic imaginary, the notions of filiality and familial-home must also be interrogated, for they embody the patriarchal discourse so fundamental to Chinese cultural and intellectual history. The articulation of the Chinese queer diasporic imaginary, then, lays the foundation for my investigation of the queer-inflected camp aesthetic in Chapter 4; it also embodies a strand of Chinese queer representation equal in importance to that of Chinese opera (this will be more fully addressed in Chapters 2 and 6). But first: what is diaspora? On what grounds is the notion of diaspora relevant to queerness? And in what sense does the suturing of queerness to diaspora help account for the representation of queer subjects in a Chinese cultural context?
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020