The silent Tibetan women and their visual exclusions in Pema Tseden’s ‘Tibetan Trilogy’

Abstract

It can be observed that Pema Tseden’s ‘Tibetan Trilogy’ is a series of male-dominant films. Men, at times, serve as ‘images’ used to represent Tibetan culture and ethnicity. Women in the trilogy can be considered silent and sometimes they are outside of the dichotomy of ‘image’ and the play of the ‘look’. This visual representation of gendered politics can be seen to differ from feminist film studies readings of ‘woman as image’ and ‘man as bearer of the look’ in traditional (Hollywood) mainstream cinema. Meanwhile, the trilogy rejects any objectification and exoticisation of Tibetan culture and landscape. This paper therefore takes into consideration a postcolonial feminist perspective to examine if it is possible to understand Pema Tseden’s refusal to include visually women in his ‘Tibetan Trilogy’ as one way in which he rejects the objectification and exoticisation of the Tibetan culture. In addressing this question, this paper will adopt the lines of inquiry, asking: can the ‘Tibetan women’ speak? If yes, from where can they speak? What can they speak? In this way, this paper raises questions for whether and how the permissible subjectivity of female characters in the trilogy can speak, be heard or be seen.

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude to the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their positive, insightful and highly constructive comments on my manuscript and appreciate the efforts they made to help me improve the quality of this work. I am also grateful for the generous help of Dr Altman Yuzhu Peng and Dr James Cummings on this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Filmography

Balloon (Pema Tseden, 2019)Jinpa (Pema Tseden, 2018)Old Dog (Pema Tseden, 2011)Tharlo (Pema Tseden, 2015)The Sacred Arrow (Pema Tseden, 2014)The Search (Pema Tseden, 2009)The Silent Holy Stones (Pema Tseden, 2006)

Notes

[1] There are altogether fifty-six official ethnic groups in the PRC and Han Chinese make up the majority.

[2] The information comes from the article ‘未尽的”拉伊” – 评电影《塔洛》’ which published on 16/11/2015. The article can be read at: https://movie.douban.com/review/7661134/.

[3] The citation is from the article published on May 2020 by Françoise Robin: Women in Pema Tseden’s films: a so far uneasy relationship A brief overview. See the article from http://asianart.com/articles/robin (accessed, 18 April 2021).

[4] It is abbreviated for The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China.

[5] This can be read through the Chinese news reports about the film, The Sacred Arrow. One example is here: http://yue.ifeng.com/businessnews/detail_2013_11/20/31412973_0.shtml?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0 (accessed, 11 October 2015).

[6] The information comes from the article ‘万玛才旦 冷眼慈悲’, published on 19/02/2021. The article can be read at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FwyPcu6-TYoDLqPp3Y7jhg (accessed, 30 March 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yang Li

Yang Li (PhD, Newcastle University, UK) is an independent sociologist and visual studies researcher. Her research interests include cultural studies, East Asian cinematic & visual representations, and postcolonial & subaltern studies. She is currently working on a book project about historic urban branding in the mid-western Chinese city, Xi’an, and she has also published the research works in some academic journals, such as Visual Studies and Feminist Media Studies. She was a Teaching Associate in Sociology at Newcastle University (UK) and an Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, Design & Social Sciences at Northumbria University (UK). Email: [email protected]