Chinese Queer Images on Screen: A Case Study of Cui Zi’en’s Films

Abstract:

The image of Chinese LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) is largely absent from the big screen under the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship control. Taking advantage of the now cheaply available digital-video (DV) technology, queer activist and filmmaker Cui Zi’en has produced more than 10 LGBT-themed films since 2002, which shows the momentum of Chinese independent DV filmmaking. Although circulated mainly underground in China and at international film festivals, Cui’s films seek to promote the visibility of Chinese LGBT by representing queer diversity in this community. As the only filmmaker consistently dealing with LGBT themes and experimenting with new film techniques in China, Cui employs unconventional film aesthetics, featuring extreme long takes, unstable camerawork and minimal narrative, to challenge the oppression of Chinese LGBT by heteronormative conventions, as embodied by state power and a patriarchal social order. Furthermore, facilitated by DV technology, Cui adapts Western New Queer Cinema to the Chinese context, which brings a new dimension to Chinese cinema. In China’s restrictive political environment, Cui, like many other independent filmmakers, uses moving images to challenge official interpretations of social realities in contemporary China.

Keywords:

• queer Chinese cinema
• queer Sinophone culture
• digital-video
• Cui Zi’en
• independent filmmaking
• New Queer Cinema

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thought-provoking comments. Special thanks go to Audrey Yue for her suggestions on the early draft of this paper and to Cui Zi’en for agreeing to an interview with me in 2009 and providing me with DVD copies of his major films.

Notes

1. Despite the sudden cancellation of the Documentary Film Festival China in May 2011, about 20 overseas guests, 10 directors and 40 fans, who had registered to attend the festival, went to Songzhuang, a suburban Beijing artists’ community, for private screenings of the festival’s scheduled programs. See Kraicer (2011).

2. .Cui Zi’en and Shi Tou appeared on a talk show on Hunan Satellite TV in 2000 and became the first openly gay celebrities in China.

3. Mobile intimacy refers to the mobility of intimate emotions and desires across multiple times and places made possible by mobile media. For more information, see Raiti (2007).

4. Cui’s films have mainly been circulated underground in China and at various film festivals, such as the Berlin International Film Festival, Turin GLBT Film Festival and Busan International Film Festival.

5. In her analysis of Cui’s cinema, Yue has incorporated the concept of Sinophone proposed by Shu-mei Shih (2007) and Sheldon Lu (2007) to cover both China-based and diasporic Chinese directors. See Shih (2007) for more discussion about a non-Han-centric conceptual framing of Sinophone, and Lu’s (2008) counterargument that supports the inclusion of mainland China and all Chinese-speaking communities in the world in the discourse of Sinophone.

6. Originally a common term of address among members of the CCP and the Kuomintang/Nationalist Party, “tongzhi” is now commonly used to refer to same-sex sexuality. According to Lim (2008), the key difference between “tongzhi” and “queer” is that the former emphasises “similarity” and the latter “difference”.

7. According to my interview with Cui, the budget for his films is normally less than 10,000 yuan (roughly US$1,500).

8. According to my email correspondence with Hong, the article has been accepted for publication by positions: east asia cultures critique in Spring 2013, but bibliographical information on the article is currently unavailable.

9. According to Berry, Zhang’s film is more concerned with the whole question of whether identities can be performed at all, than with the way in which they can be performed differently. See Berry (1998, pp. 84–89).

10. However, DVD copies of these films can be found both in the legitimate audiovisual market and on the black DVD market.

11. According to Article 23 of the Film Management Regulations issued by SARFT, no film processing studio should process a film without a film production permit. A full-text version of the Regulations is available at

http://www.sarft.gov.cn/articles/2007/02/16/20070913144431120333.html,

accessed 25 September 2012.

12. For example, Iranian film director Jafar Panahi produced This Is Not a Film (2011) and smuggled it out of Iran on a USB drive hidden in a cake, even though he was banned from directing movies, talking to the press or travelling abroad after he spoke out against Iran’s regime during the 2009 Green Revolution.

13. See comments on Cui’s films on China’s famous Douban website. Available at http://movie.douban.com/subject/1483656, accessed 23 April 2012.

14. Cui Zi’en, interview by Yuxing Zhou, 6 December 2009.

15. dGenerate Films conducted an interview with Cui at the Beijing Apple store on 12 April 2010. This was part of an ongoing series of interviews, entitled ‘Meet the Filmmakers’, that aims to showcase China’s newest filmmakers who are powered by digital technology. See video of the interview, available at http://dgeneratefilms.com/cinematalk/cinematalk-cui-zien-at-the-beijing-apple-store, accessed 27 April 2012.

16. Ibid.

17. The information was available at http://fanhall.com/if00400.html, accessed 2 October 2010. I learned from the founder of Fanhall, Zhu Rikun, in May 2011 that the website had been shut down by the government for posting illegal content. When I rechecked the validity of this URL when writing this paper, the website remained inaccessible.

18. Such as Swoon (1992, dir. Tom Kalin) and Nowhere (1997, dir. Gregg Araki).