So here's the interesting thing about Postcolonialism and Postmodernism: they function both as ways of looking at a text and also as qualities that the texts themselves can possess. This sounds easy in a sentence, but I'm finding it a little difficult to negotiate in practice because I can't decide which angle to take. So...that's that.
Looking at Chosen through a Postcolonialist lens is interesting because it keeps challenging me on my own assumptions. A goal of postcolonialist criticism is to show Western literature's "general inability to empathize across boundaries of cultural and ethnic difference." This film seems to portray racial relations much like films we've seen in the past (if they even enter a film at all...): the good white man comes in to save the small Asian boy. Much like The Cheat that we saw at the beginning of the year in film history, the bad guy is the greedy, somewhat culturally assimilated Asian. Ultimately, the good Tibetan monks have to rely on the strong white man, who desecrates their spiritual artifacts in the process (Wikipedia tells me that you spin the wheel in part to receive good karma. Can you get good karma when you set the wheel spinning with someone else's unconscious head? Maybe it purifies the bad karma brought by violence and general Clive Owen-ery?) Furthermore, it's a German car that these films are glorifying. The German car and the white man save the day. This seems problematic.
But then I remember that the filmmaker is, himself, Asian. Not Tibetan, but probably more sensitive to Tibetan culture than, say, Michael Bay (I tried to come up with a director I hated more but...nope.). What do I do with that? What do I do with the fact that Ang Lee has strongly situated himself as both an Asian AND American filmmaker (Eat Drink Man Woman and The Hulk? Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility?), as both an action director and a drama director? Is Ang Lee merely adopting Western traditions, is he adapting them to suit his needs, or is he so adept at them that he can do anything, and trying to do a Postcolonialist criticism isn't really even necessary?
Perhaps Ang Lee's film (and filmic work as a whole) is just one large celebration of what Barry calls "cultural polyvalency"--the ability to belong to multiple cultures at the same time (as I remember from science, valence electrons are electrons that can flit about and help to complete the outer electron ring when elements are trying to bond (not to be confused with valance electrons, which are window coverings for a child interested in science)). The story in Chosen can be see to represent a partnership between Eastern and Western cultures, because although Clive Owen is the savior, he's not the chosen--that title belongs to the boy, Ang Lee's son whose actual name is Mason (further evidence of Ang's willingness to simultaneously include both cultures even in his personal life). The whole goal of the film is to help the boy, and rather than colonizing the story, Clive Owen merely comes in, stays a while, and then leaves. Ang Lee is a multicultural, multigenre-al filmmaker, easily tackling both Asian and American cinema, action and Jane Austen (he should just direct a Kung-Fu adaptation of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and get it over with), and is probably loved by Postcolonialist critics because of this.
2 comments:
I had negative feelings while reading the postcolonialism chapter. Just in the sense of how filmmakers are mistreating other cultures, and I was considering all the attacks I could make against films I think are less empathetic. Then, I read your post and I like how you are charitable and didn't take the mean spirited stance I think I would have.
I listened to you on the radio last night! You sounded really smart, almost as smart as you do in this post :)
I actually really like the idea of cultural polyvalency and recognition of the fact that just as the colonizer impacts the culture so too is the colonizer impacted by the culture with that said I think that is more true when looking at Ang Lee's whole ouvre than it is in Chosen. I think taken as a whole it is clear to see that he embraces and uses aspects of both his native background and his adopted background but in Chosen I think he does fall prey to relying on stereotypes and stereotypical depictions to tell his story. Granted this may be partially due to the fact the film is only 8 minutes long and as a result the whole story is painted in broad strokes nevertheless I don't think it woud be inappropriate to question why when an Asian filmmaker has an opportunity to do any sort of film he wanted he would choose to rely on exoticism of a marginalized population to do so. I think in this case Ang was exploiting this opportunity to sell his own films.
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