Sex and gender are always controversial in modern Chinese culture, and the problem about these issues are more serious before the modern China. Sex always conflicts between two positions in Chinese culture, where sex is a word that is hard to speak out while on the other hand sex is curtail for procreation. There is an old saying that there are kinds of unfilial conduct of which the worst is to have no heir. Therefore there is a reasonable excuse to have wives and concubines in ancient China. The conflict between this two positions is the family ethic based on blood relationship and family affection which can be found by the audience in these two films.

1.The introduction of the two films

Yimou Zhang is a famous film director known by China and foreign countries who is regarded as a banner of Chinese culture and film.He has directed the film‘Raise the Red Lantern’ which Gong Li has played the lead role in the year of 1991. The film illustrates a story that an educated beautiful girl, nineteen-year-old Songlian whose father has passed away is forced to marry a wealthy old man as the fourth wife or the third concubine during the Warlord Era. The whole story of the film has occurred in Shannxi mansion. The three concubines try to compete each other for their husband’s attention and respect from the servants by using all kinds of means, which is a war without winners. It also shows that the social status of women is very low in this male-superiority society. Zhang has expressed the miserable lives of women under the authority of husband by applying the red lantern as a meaningful metaphor successfully. Afterwards, the film ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ narrates about eroticism, desire, and female bodies. The actor Gong Li is considered to perfectly represent the image of the Chinese women depressed by male chauvinism and patriarchy which are embodied in the unequal situation of sex and gender.

The other film which will be discussed is ‘The Wedding Banquet’ directed by Ang Lee in 1993 who was born in a middle-class family with a devout Confucian belief. His father has made such a great influence on him that father-son relationship, father’s image and patriarchal culture have become the major issues repeatedly discussed and manifested in his films. Because his father is strict with him, the symbolic order of the father almost dominates Lee’s entire life. ‘The Wedding Banquet’ tells a sort of comedy that the Chinese American Wai-Tung Gao who is a Taiwanese homosexual boy lives with his love, Simon, in the United States and does not come out to his parents who have a high social status in Taiwan. He gets married to Wei Wei, a poor artist from the mainland who is interested in him to keep his parents away from worrying about his marriage. The woman will get the green card as a payback from the fake marriage. However, the truth will come to light sooner or later. After his parents have arrived in America to prepare for his wedding ceremony, this secret has eventually been exposed. The parents accept the truth silently in order to keep up the traditional happiness of a family. At the end of the film, the father has implicitly agreed the relationship between his son and Simon. Before boarding on the plane, he raises his hands and says goodbye which has become the most meaningful scene in the movie. Although this movie greatly illustrates the conflicts from the differences between the western and eastern cultures, at the same time presents sexual views which is always a sensitive topic in China through wedding banquet, the father representing patriarchy knows how to change and compromise. In the meantime, ‘The Wedding Banquet’ expresses the father’s disappointment with his son because in traditional Chinese culture, lack of filial piety is condemned by public opinion.

2.The background of the two films

As the soul of Chinese “fifth generation” directors, Zhang’s most films are adapted from novels. ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ is no exception which is adapted from the novel Wives and Concubines by Su Tong. In the 1920s, that is, the Warlord Era, warlords engaging in tangled warfare keep the government under his thumb, female consciousness is still hidden in the male rights. As the film shows that women have no right to do what they want and still do not escape the traditional mode of “women being told.” They are the pitiful accessory for the men, especially wealthy and powerful men. In order to survive in this harsh surroundings, women are forced to use sex as a kind of means and at the same time the only weapon they have to face the patriarchy. Once a woman has made some progress, she will have a meteoric rise in position and wealth just like Songlian has experienced when she claims to be pregnant in order to get her husband’s affection and the great treat of delicious food and wonderful service. But once the woman fails to arrive at this goal, the merciful fate will wait for her. So to speak, the destiny of the women is tightly grasped by the men who represent the male chauvinism and patriarchy that are determined by that special patriarchal society.

From the other side, ‘The Wedding Banquet’ has a quite different situation. The biggest feature of this film lies in its skillful combination of identity politics and cultural differences, and the use of gender identity to simulate cultural identity, and the homosexuality of the film is actually not accepted within the mainstream society. Although the film also involves Chinese traditional concept about having a son to carry on his family name, the ending is happy. To a certain extent, the good outcome depends on the understanding and compromise from the father character who stands for patriarchy though his son uses fake marriage to cheat his parents.

To put it in a nutshell, both ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ and ‘The Wedding Banquet’ involve sex and gender which are always controversial topics since long time ago and they will keep lasting for a long time as well. What roles that sex and gender play in Chinese culture and the conflicting position of sex and gender in Chinese society are the key questions worthy of studying. It cannot be ignored that sex and gender also concern other issues such as feminism and patriarchy.

3.The main part

To start with the film ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ will be talked about the above-mentioned issues. Women in Chinese culture have shown the inequality between sex and gender by displaying to foreigners the guilty images of women, for example: the character Songlian acted by Gong Li. As a romantic film, it has displayed the theme of resistance to oppression and the pursuit of freedom by the way of the “abnormal” sexual relations such as possessing concubines which is a kind of quite common phenomenon in the 1920s. In the meantime, it expresses the opinion about women’s three obediences (to father before marriage, to husband after marriage and to son after the death of husband) and four virtues (morality, proper speech, modest manner and diligent work) which are spiritual fetters imposed on women in feudal society. It can be thought as the model codes that women should obey which stand for patriarchy. Therefore when the love affair between Meishan and Doctor Gao is exposed, it is not strange to come to a conclusion that Meishan is hanged to death by the order of the master. In the meantime, polygamy which means one man has several wives embodies the condition of how Chinese men are in dilemmas and crises.

From the perspective of feminist theories, female bodies in Chinese culture are misunderstood, mutilated and distorted and forced to silence which need to identify and restore in order to construct a truly healthy development fit for both sexes. Because in the long history of China, the female image under the control of male power is disciplined by the binding of the moral teachings such as women’s three obediences and four virtues. To be frank, ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ has proposed a kind of ecological feminism. It is not the good ecological environment for Chinese women to live in.

To a certain extent, the film also expresses a certain type of feminism through the desire power of women. The film strives to construct a female subjectivity, defies the suppression of patriarchal power and extols passionate lust, sex and fertility. But when the desires have failed and are constantly repressed by patriarchal destructive energy, the outcome is merciful and hard to endure, sometimes for the sacrifice of life, for instance, the adultery of Meishan and Doctor Gao. The other example is lightning the red lanterns which means being selected whereas losing favor is implied by blowing off the red lanterns. And striving for favor is the desire to get the lanterns lighten. This rule shows the supremacy of host Chen in the Chen’s family. It seems that it is an everlasting situation and desire for every woman in the Chen’s mansion to crave for, even the low-class maid Yan’er has the similar desire to become the next mistress of the master.

In a word, as a traditional Chinese symbolic, the red lantern does not mean hope but a metaphor of the extinction of empowered women and controlled humanity, which is also the reason the film is named ‘raise the red lantern’. The deeply symbolic visual and audio language is the reason of the success of such a delicate symbolism movie. Every part of Zhang’s skill is used completely and highly unified to express the theme that under the authority of patriarchy, sex and gender are quite unequal between men and women.

Now have a look at ‘The Wedding Banquet’. This film involves a series of complex cultural issues such as culture, gender, race, and class, therefore, a cultural study is undoubtedly necessary. As the second of “Father Trilogy,” the differences and collisions between Chinese and Western cultures not only constitute the background of the film, but also are embodied in the arrangement of the storyline, the shaping of the character image, and even the depiction of specific details.

Due to the important position of the father’s image in the traditional symbolic order, Lee has attached great importance to the father’s image in the film. The root comes from the Electra complex of Lee to his father. It is a little odd because Electra complex usually means a young girl’s unconscious sexual attraction to her father. But it is only one side of the coin. The other side implies the status of patriarchy in the traditional Chinese family. The film not only shows love and sympathy for his father, but also understands the fatherhood of Chinese traditional culture and subverts the feudal ethics in China to some extent.

To be more specific, the father’s image reflects some thoughts of the patriarchal status in the Western context after the disintegration of the authoritarian regime in Taiwan including the ambiguity and helplessness that Chinese traditional patriarchal value system encountered in modern society. And at the same time it explores the plight of fatherhood facing the modern challenges from a traditional Chinese cultural background and embodies deep humanistic concerns.

Because the film involves homosexuality, sex and gender issues are also very compelling for Lee to point out that homosexuality is no longer curious but belongs to the daily life of gay men. The essence of the ‘The Wedding Banquet’ is not to show the psychology and experience of homosexuals, but to delve into the traditional Chinese (parental) process of being recognized which mainly shows the conflicts of family ethics, the conflicts between the eastern and western cultures.

It is too difficult to have a comprehensive and in-depth discussion on the basic themes of Lee’s film such as globalization and cultural identity, homosexuality, feminism, patriarchal culture, family ethics, and social responsibility. However, it can be thoroughly analyzed the film’s representation of mixed language and identity, and explored how the hero of the film, Wai-Tung Gao, constructs his own identity through multiple negotiations with race, gender, and culture when the plots develop step by step.

Lee explores human nature from the “secular” dimensions of family and society, history and politics, gender differences and cultural conflicts in order to profoundly reveal the conflict between civilization and freedom: the development of civilization is always at the expense of individual rights and freedom.In the movie, love never leaves, but love often becomes the bondage of freedom. Although the value of freedom is worthy of pursuing, sometimes disguise and compromise are necessary. For example, the fake marriage between Wai-Tung Gao and Wei Wei and later on Wei Wei’s pregnancy are both disguise and compromise on the traditional value of. sex and gender. It is an inevitable part of life.

The film expresses the traditional Chinese ethical sentiments and reflects on the contemporary fate of Chinese traditional culture and reveals the absurdity of rigid cultural ceremonies in an ironic way. The theme of the film focuses on the identity of the Chinese subject in cultural conflicts, mainly on gender ideology. Wai-Tung Gao seems to be good at dealing with the contradictions between the two cultures and the two identities.

4.Conclusion

Since both films involve a series of complex cultural issues such as cultural gender, sex, and class, the different emphases should be clarified necessarily. While ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ focuses more on sex, ‘The Wedding Banquet’ focuses more on gender. How to get rid of the contradictory position of sex and gender in China to solve this dilemma of male and female? The answer may be easy to say but hard to do, that is, men should work with women to care for each other and protect female ecological balance and interests in order to achieve some kind of true equality between men and women.