THE HANDMAIDEN
THE HANDMAIDEN
From what I have experienced, queer spaces in the West are disappointingly dominated by whiteness. My Queer Lit class in high school, for example, somehow managed to direct discussions on intersectionality in Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider towards white narratives and savior complexes. White queer icons are more frequently praised and recognized than their POC contemporaries. Conversations on queer media, even when directed or starring POC, are filtered through white, Western lenses, ignorant of how queerness is not a singular global experience.
Such is why I am interested in The Handmaiden as a potential primary source: though we were advised against analyzing our favorite content, discourse surrounding it has struck me in the wrong way and I am eager to formulate my opinion around its criticism in an academic setting. Directed by the famous South Korean director Park Chan-wook, it was released in 2016 to critical acclaim and widespread success. It is a historical psychological thriller film, imbued with explicit queerness and sapphic romance. Adapted from Sarah Water’s novel, The Fingersmith, The Handmaiden expands on the original by shifting the setting from Victorian era Britain to Korea underneath Japanese occupation and colonial rule. I’m particularly interested in how this extra layer of worldbuilding has simultaneously added more depth to the original and been largely ignored by Western audiences, reflecting how when queerness is a focal point of debate, all other identities are seen as moot. In other words, when audiences look at pieces on queerness, little focus is directed towards how such queerness is formed and shaped by other areas in life.
Thus, my research on The Handmaiden would serve as a vehicle for discussion surrounding ignorance towards the white privilege that still prevails over queer spaces (and perhaps more broadly, Western criticism of other nations’ conservatism, often bleeding with condemnatory tones of superiority due to Western “progressiveness”).
The Handmaiden is available on Amazon Prime and is particularly shocking because it is a mainstream, globally successful film featuring an explicit romance between women. Consumed largely by film cinephiles and queer audiences, as a result of its penetration into Western spheres of media, it has faced a range of criticism along with its achievements, namely surrounding the graphic sex scenes and depiction of a sapphic romance by a male director. Should I choose to follow this path of research, I seek to understand why perhaps the argued male gaze is more prevalent to Western viewers than, for example, South Koreans, and why, should one choose to argue that the male gaze dominates the film, a thorough grasp of colonized Korea, Japanese imperialism, and the modern-day South Korean sociopolitical climate can absolutely not be left out. For this paper, I would employ a combination of historical and film analysis: for the historical analysis, I would bolster my readings by pulling from sources on Japanese occupation and gender in Korea, as well as the current temperament towards queerness in South Korea. The film analysis would serve to prove that the intentions of the director and creative team were perhaps different than what is commonly argued by queer, Western critics of The Handmaiden.
THE UNTAMED
THE UNTAMED X HARPER'S BAZAAR
Released in the summer of 2019, The Untamed is arguably the most globally successful Chinese drama to date. Based on MXTX’s web novel/book series Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi, or MDZS), it is categorized as a “bromance,” and falls under the Chinese genres of “xianxia/wuxia” (Chinese fiction concerning martial arts and chivalry). Despite Chinese censorship regarding LGBTQ+ portrayals, the drama still contains heavy homoerotic subtexts remnant from the original text. It is accessible on YouTube through Tencent Video, on which it initially aired, as well as Netflix. Though people know the author is a fairly young Chinese woman, her identity is largely unknown, as many web novel authors tend to remain anonymous. Her popularity as a danmei (genre of Chinese literature depicting romantic relationships between men) author has brought her much controversy, as in addition to fandom culture’s ability to get quite intense, there are many real-life consequences that could happen due to the Chinese government’s treatment of homosexuality.
XIAO ZHAN, WHO PLAYS THE PROTAGONIST, WEI YING, FOR THE UNTAMED X HARPER'S BAZAAR
The worldbuilding of this universe is extremely thorough and abundant with politics and cultivation, which stems from Chinese mythology. It is also notably absent of homophobia in the novel serialization. Beyond this being one of my favorite TV series, I’m captured by global perceptions of queer media coming out of (primarily East) Asia. Compared with Western queer media, Asian queer media is usually looked down upon as fetish-y, as it is known to be largely consumed by heterosexual women. Since The Untamed is China’s most favorite drama and arguably one of, if not the most successful queer TV show, I thought it would serve as a good point to ask about straight women’s love for BL (“Boy’s Love”) media and when queer media turns into something fetishizing.
Despite The Untamed being extremely censored, arguments have been made about how it has actually helped strengthen the show, which is something I am also interested in exploring. But, first and foremost, I want to explore (a) what this show reveals about the popular consumption of gay media by straight women, and (b) what it reveals about how relationships between Asian men are perceived by the West. This will be done through film analysis of the show and comparing them to the nature of the novels, as well as drawing from academic articles on the inner workings of danmei and BL.
WANG YIBO, WHO PLAYS LAN ZHAN, FOR
THE UNTAMED X HARPER'S BAZAAR
Identity and how it is constructed is so often a conflated mess of confused definitions. We never get it right, even though a lot of the time people assume they do. In the age of social media globalization, this tends to become a source of contention for many people who exchange words over the Internet without robust understanding of the culture and various contexts surrounding one another’s background. In trying to simplify the world’s innumerable experiences into a baseline culture – often based in Western norms – we only wrench open the divide.
Both of these potential primary sources function within the scope of Asian (not diasporic Asian) gender/sexual identity, because, naturally, cultures we are familiar with stand out more when they are incorrectly criticized or analyzed. Thus, I find myself drawn to conversations surrounding gender and sexuality in East Asia -- specifically discourse surrounding how queerness is portrayed in Asian media -- and am excited to work on a project that focuses on how sometimes this intersection overshadows itself.
REFLECTION
Seo-kyung, Chung,, et al. The Handmaiden Widescreen ed., Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2017.
Yang, Xia, et al. The Untamed, 2019.