This post is partially a response to (inspired by) Vivian’s post regarding humor in M. Butterfly. I think she brought up a great point about how the tone of the story/play can be interpreted depending on its presentation. I was also taken aback when watching the clip, in that the artistic choice was made to make this play a comedy, when it is so strongly based on a operatic tragedy. This was done mostly through the ridiculous nature of the relationships between characters, and song is most clearly a man, or at least a humorously masculinized woman. I think this can have an effect on the audiences interpretation of other, more serious issues raised by the play. Where it in many ways undermines the very serious nature of racism and sexism, I think the end result, or the hoped result, is an honest one. In the end, the audience members, as westerners, are laughing at themselves. They are laughing at the ridiculous, pathetic nature of Gallimard, who still cannot see that song is truly a man, and his incompetence in regards to women, as well as the culture in which he is supposed to be an expert. In this sense, I can understand the reasoning for making the play a humorous one, as is does help to create a sense of irony and self-conscious laughter.

Continuing with the idea of interpretation, I was unimpressed with that of scholar David Eng. I felt as if he missed all ironic, possibly humorous undertones of the plot. He would have benefited from experiencing such a light-hearted interpretation as that in John Lithgow’s performance. The majority of Eng’s analysis in my mind focused on deep psychological issues, of which there was little to no evidence of in the play. Rather than laughing at the character of Gallimard, or even being angered by him as the image of the self-absorbed, uneducated westerner, (which is a valid and easily supported interpretation in my mind) he almost defends him, by doing a deep psychoanalysis on what stage of denial he was in. although I guess this does lend itself to a negative look at Gallimard, I think Eng quickly looses sight of the bigger picture. If Gallimard is psychoanalyzed so that he so desires to have his masculinity affirmed he is disillusioned and falls victim to a stereotype, there is no hope for the west. Are we doomed by are psychological tendencies to perpetuate stereotypes? This seems a bit excessive to me. If this were the case, it wouldn’t be worth writing about as, there is nothing we can do to change our patterns of psychological development and coping mechanisms. I don’t at all think this is Whang’s purpose in creating such a stimulating work.

My feelings are that although the point was not to be rolling on the floor laughing at the content of this play, I do think that the audience was meant to see some of the ridiculous results of stereotypes. Although I too didn’t get mush of the humor from the text, I could still see places where we are meant to be repulsed by the naivety of Gallimard and other represented westerners. Their situation and believes are supposed to be so bizarre and seemingly unthinkable, that for such a mistake of mistaken gender to take place, there most be at least a few lights out upstairs, if you know what I mean. But then we are reminded, that this can actually happen, and indeed it did. Walking through the mistakes and shame with Gallimard as our narrator, we see how unintentional he has in his stereotypical assumptions, but how his actions were quite racist and sexist. This reminds me of our earlier class discussion on racism without racists. Although Gallimard wasn’t necessarily evil, we as an audience are repulsed by his obsessive desire for self-assurance and power. We are sickened by his eager and unquestioning assumption of stereotypes, and yet we are painfully aware of how common this image of Asian women is, and how we too would scoff if a love-struck prom queen had fallen in love with an unfaithful Asian business man, likely blaming her poor choice on her gender and the color of her hair.

- Megan