Watching a broadway show was definitely on my bucket list of things to do in New York. Fancy theaters and signs that said ‘BROADWAY’ truly overwhelmed me but M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang offered more than simply checking a wish off from my bucket list.
The play follows through Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat who falls in love with a Chinese opera singer. The story takes place in China back in 1960s where China struggled both culturally and politically under a Communist leader Mao Zedong who launched what became known as the Cultural Revolution to reassert his authority over the government.
Spoiler alert – Song Liling, the Chinese opera singer, later turns out to be a spy and furthermore a man. Pretending to be a woman to Rene for over 20 years, Song reveals in the court by the end of the play that he was able to deceive Rene because of Rene’s racist miscue and men’s portrayal of a ‘perfect woman’. Song says to Rene:
It’s one of your favorite fantasies, isn’t it? The submissive oriental woman and the cruel white man.
Song scornfully talks about Rene’s innate desire for a submissive oriental woman to love him and even be willing to die or take risks for him. Director Hwang projects unrealistic beliefs that Western countries hold about the East not only in terms of romantic relationships but also in terms of political movements. For instance, Rene presumes that Vietnam would fall in a swoon before the ‘manly’ forces of the United States.
As a spy whose duty is to elicit information from Rene about France’s involvement in Vietnam, Song could easily play around with Rene’s misperceptions of the East and his ‘fantasies’ about oriental women.
One thought to “Broadway Play: M. Butterfly”
Good content!
There’s still a lot of misunderstanding about the Orient.
I hope that the understanding of the Orient is enlarged.
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