Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Sexuality and gender in Saving Face (2006) are represented in unique ways that are defined both by cultural and familial expectations and traditions. In the family of Wil and Gao, sexuality is viewed from a much more cultural and traditional standpoint, as GAO is literally kicked out of her home by her father for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. It is felt by Gao's father that this is a shameful condition to be in and is rooted in a conservative traditional view of sexuality (as in human sexuality is something that should be reserved for two partners who are married). Yet, at the same time, Wil represents a new, more modern view of sexuality and gender, as she responds to sexual feelings for another girl -- Viv -- and pursues a sexual relationship with her. At the same time, while Wil is under more pressure to closet her feelings (she introduces Viv to her mother as a "friend" -- and even though Gao is under no illusions about the nature of the relationship, she still refuses to admit what it is), Viv comes from a family that is much more open about sexuality...
Viv's family is more modern and open about sexuality and gender in this sense.
The meaning of sexuality is confirmed by the film in the closing scenes, when Wil and Viv display their affection for one another in public, and Gao accepts the father of her child to be her husband in spite of his social standing as a pharmacist's son. Both Wil's and Viv's mothers look knowingly at one another when Wil and Viv slow dance and kiss, indicating that they are both open to the sexuality of their daughters because it is based on the feelings of the heart. Thus, the film suggests that if the heart is the force guiding the individual, then one should not reject the sexual expression that accompanies that guidance, and vice versa.
In this way, the family of Viv is more "hyper-assimilated" (Dhingra, Rodriguez 96) into the progressive cultures of New York and Paris than is Wil's family (though she and her mother both arrive at the "assimilated" stage by the end of the film). Part of the reason for Viv's family being more progressive in terms of how it views sexuality and gender is that…
Works Cited
Dhingra, Pawan; Rodriguez, Robyn. Asian America. UK: Polity Press, 2014. Print.
Representation of Asian Women: American Television Sitcoms and Media Introduction American Asian women exist within a culture that is at times resistant at providing a realistic portrait of what an Oriental woman is and how she expresses herself. This can be seen in personalities like Margaret Cho, whose sitcom, All-American Girl forced her to see the reality of how America perceived Asian American women and Oriental people in general. These negative images,
Gayatri Gopinath, associate professor of women and gender studies at the University of California at Davis, says that many of these young Asian-Americans who join artistic subcultures are individuals who cross over from one country to another in addition to not fitting into the norm of gender, sexuality or psychology. A first-world homosexual transnational has difficulty finding rights of citizenship or dual citizenship in any geographical locations of a diaspora
Surprisingly, BDD, which is often a precursor to or comorbid symptom of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa, is nearly as common among young men as women. This indicates that the onslaught and idolization of media images of "gorgeous" men in America is also having a negative effect on boys' sexual self-images. (da Costa, Nelson, Rudes, & Guterman, 2007) Narrowing the focus down to American women and their
These shows depict diverse expressions of sexuality and relationships within the gay and lesbian communities, but they also tend to overgeneralize. Bisexuality is hardly treated at all, because it does not fit into neatly defined categories like "gay" and "straight." Occasionally this theme is discussed in films and television, as with one episode of Six Feet Under. Stereotypes can constrain real-life behavior as film and television offer visual cues for
Asian History The homeless children Dower describes in Embracing Defeat experience a type of structural inequality both similar to and different from the types of inequality addressed in Consuming Kids. In both case, the children are systematically disenfranchised before they have an input into the course of their lives. The structural inequalities faced by the disenfranchised victims of World War Two in Japan included dire straits, homelessness, and poverty. These are
MEDIA (MIS) REPRSENTATIONS OF CHINESE-AmericanS Culture Media (Mis) Representations of Chinese-Americans Media (Mis) Representations of Chinese-Americans In the west, representations of people who are outside of the standard or norm, (white, middle & upper class, male) are not represented with accuracy. Chinese-Americans are one such group that doese not often receive an accurate or dynamically real representation of the spectrum of the culture or the people within it. Media representations in the west of