Sexual Backlash:
Sexual Identity on Stage
British & American Drama and Performance 13
ROUND 1
Man and Woman
ROUND 2
Feminitity & Masculinity
Both women are young, beautiful and successful.
They both look feminine and just exudes feminity.
What is feminity?
According to a dictionary, feminity means qualities and behaviors judged by a particular culture to be ideally associated with or
especially appropriate to women and girls….
So what is it exactly?
“Sensuality and Feminity”:
The Mae West Lips Sofa designed by Dalí in 1937
Wonder Woman
Tale as old as time True as it can be
…
Beauty and the beast
ROUND 3
Feminism
Feminists
recognize the equal value of all human beings & seek to diminish discrimination and oppression based on sex
Feminism
Concerned with gender and gender inequities
Gender
A socially constructed--human created--system of values &
identities that are prescribed for women and men
Patriarchy
Concerned with values, institutions, & practices that reflect the experiences, values, interests of men as a group and protect their privileges… while denying and devaluing the experiences, values, interests of women as a group
Some Thoughts on Feminism
Purpose & Basis
Aims to struggle against the oppression of women as women
Works toward the overthrow of patriarchy
A critique of the patriarchal ‘cannon’ & the hegemony of male artists
A devaluation or rejection of works with high canonical standing
Feminism & Gender Theory
Concerns
Concerned with the cultural representation of women, as a masculinist fantasy with no relation to real women, or as the appropriation of women’s bodies to masculine perspectives
Overturn the traditional systems of representation
Understand the ideologies that have limited women’s way of becoming subjects
Open up new ways in which women are free to escape the confines of the subjectivity patriarch sets for them
Interested in the fostering of women’s cultures rediscovery of forgotten & overlooked works by women
Feminism & Gender Theory
Liberal Feminism
All people should be equal
Feminism & Gender Theory
Radical or Cultural Feminism
Assumes essential or universal feminine mode of being
Female body, rhythms, feminine relations to the material, feminine spiritual, emotional and intellectual make-up
Hélène Cixous “Feminine Writing” (écriture féminine)
A mode of expression faithful to the rhythms and intuitiveness natural to women
Feminism & Gender Theory
Materialist Feminism
See the feminine as not natural but constructed in relation with other forces (ex, class and race)
Oppression of women as a result of the patriarchal/capitalist societal structure
Refuses to posit a feminine essence
Feminism & Gender Theory
Materialist Feminism
Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex
French Existentialist Feminist
Concerned with the consequences of being born a man or a woman, & the differences as resulting from social
constructions, not from an essential cause
“One is not born, but, rather becomes a Woman”
Feminism & Gender Theory
Black Feminism
Argues that Feminism theory itself is part of an exclusionary, white discourse that does not relate to the experience of black women
Feminism & Gender Theory
Lesbian Feminism
Emerged in the late 1960s-1970s in the US
Brings new perspectives to gender identity, heterosexuality
Claims the lesbian relations escape patriarchal oppression, representation and the male gaze
To be freed from oppression, women must be separate from men
Feminism & Gender Theory
Lesbian Feminism
Jill Dolan
Gay and Lesbian Representation and Sexuality
Resists the power structure of patriarchy
“We should the extreme!”6 Extreme = gay, homo, lesbian…
Trans-gender’s body = third area of body
Feminism & Gender Theory
Queer Theory
Queer: homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, cross-dressers &
everybody else who does not feel ‘straight’ for some reason
Ultimately posits towards sexuality open to varied & shifting practices and identities
Feminism & Gender Theory
ROUND 4
Essentialist vs. Postmodernist
“The female body has many uses. It’s been used as a door-knocker, a bottle-opener, as a
clock with a ticking belly, as something to hold up lampshades, as a nutcracker…”
- Margaret Atwood
Female Body
The difficulties of locating identity
Who/What are women and feminity?
Essentialist belief
Natural qualities of femininity exist “underneath” everything else
Stress absolute essence of women and the most important difference between men and women is biology
“Human body is important… because it shapes our identities and structures our interventions in, and classifications of, the world”
Female Body
The difficulties of locating identity
Who/What are women and feminity?
Postmodern feminist
Criticism of feminist essentialism
A differentiated body will only reinforce the structures of oppression which naturalize gender construction
“We need to pursue a third position on the body which avoids both the dissolving of the material body associated with extreme social constructionism, and a return to biological essentialism”
Female Body
여성부 폐지 논란
여성부를 폐지하자는 정책이 논의된 바 있다… 여성부의 존치가
남녀평등의 관점에서 보았을 때 과연 합당한지, 여성부는 있는데 왜 남성부는 없는 건지에 대한 부분도 생각해 보아야 할 것이다…
Ex) Chairman vs. Chairwoman Chairperson
Pros & Cons of Gender Issue
캐콘 <남보원>
여자들이 밥을 사는 그날까지 남자들이여 일어나라!
집에서는 귀한 아들, 너한테는 짐꾼이냐!
니전화는 수신전용, 내전화는 발신전용!
손이없냐 발이없냐, 가방들고 소변봐라!
이병헌과 비교마라, 니얼굴이 김태희냐!
벗어달라 강요말라, 가을밤엔 나도춥다!
Pros & Cons of Gender Issue
영화 <아내가 결혼했다>
‘일부일처제’의 고정관념이 흔들리기
시작한 것이다… 결혼은 이젠 ‘필수’가 아닌 ‘선택’이라는 생각이 들기까지 한다… ‘이중결혼’이란 가치전복적인 상상력을 통해 사랑과 결혼이 주는 진정한 행복의 본질이 무엇인지 한번쯤 생각케 한다….
(대학내일 2008. 10. 27)
Pros & Cons of Gender Issue
영화 <브로크백 마운틴>
“에덴동산에서 쫓겨난 아담과 이브의 이야기…
아담과 이브가 먹은 선악과는 잭과 에니스, 두 남자의 사랑이 된다”<씨네 2006. 2.17)
마사치오 <낙원추방>
Pros & Cons of Gender Issue
ROUND 4
M. Butterfly
Basic Info
A play by David Henry Hwang (Asian American playwright)
Contemporary adaptation of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly
Dramatizes the true tale of a French diplomat’s two-decade love affair with a Chinese actress who is later reveals to be a spy, and a MAN
Shocking revelation: the singer turns out to be a man!!!
How could the French diplomat maintains a sexual relationship for two decades
without learning the truth?
M. Butterfly (1988)
Film edition (1993)
Characteristics of Song
Physical beauty
Submissiveness
Self-sacrifice
Combination of modesty and sexiness
Song performed a female gender with his male body…
Is Song a male/masculine or female/feminine?
M. Butterfly (1988)
Film edition (1993)
Myths about Gender Identity
French man, Gillimard, thinks he is loved by the perfect woman
The perfect female, Song, turns out to be a male… Gillimard realizes that Song is just a man, cold and abusive
The difference between fantasy &
reality…
Gilliard chooses fantasy, entering into his own private world where he
becomes the tragic Madam Butterfly
feminizes himself!
M. Butterfly (1988)
Film edition (1993)
M. Butterfly (1988)
Premiered (1988) at Eugene O’Neill Theatre, New York City.
Original casts:
John Lithgow (Gillimard) B.D. Wong (Song Liling)
M. Butterfly (1988)
Premiered (1988) at Eugene O’Neill Theatre, New York City.
Original casts: John Lithgow (Gillimard), B.D. Wong (Song Liling)
M. Butterfly (1988)
Premiered (1988) at Eugene O’Neill Theatre, New York City.
Original casts: John Lithgow (Gillimard), B.D. Wong (Song Liling)
M. Butterfly (1988)
Premiered (1988)