Vietnamese Film Helps Change Attitude to Gays
From: Dien Nguyen
Date: Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 8:26 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Vietnamese film helps change attitude to gays
Vietnam's first film to openly feature love and intimacy between gay men is helping to change attitudes in a country where homosexuality is often seen either as a disease or a source of ridicule.
Curious filmgoers have streamed into cinemas to catch "Lost in Paradise", which chronicles the doomed love affair between a gay prostitute and a book seller and provides a rare glimpse into a usually hidden side of Vietnam.
http://www.intellasia.net/news/articles/society/111353770.shtml
--
Nguy?n Ði?n
Independent Researcher
Canberra
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 9:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Great story. Anyone know of any Chinese movie like this?
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: Natalie Newton
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:34 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hello all,
To contextualize this film a little more, there have been many before it that also feature gay male love in the recent years in Vietnam, that were also positively depicted: "Nhung nu hon ruc ro," "De Mai Tinh," and minor characters in a few other films.
Whether the story ends happily or not, I would not argue that featuring gay male prostitution is necessarily combating negative stereotypes of male homosexuality in Vietnam. I'm not arguing that prostitution is inherently negative. But I think that this use of character development is simply playing off of existing paradigms of social depravity associated with homosexuality in Vietnam.
Also, possibly as expected from Yahoo News, important parts of the article are misinformed:
*Le Quang Binh is not a sociologist, but someone with a master's degree in public administration. He runs a nonprofit in Hanoi called the Institute for Society, Economy, and Environment (iSEE), which runs an LGBT project. The media work that he is referring to is the work that this LGBT project is already doing (in other words, a circular argument about their own work).
*The 2010 Hanoian lesbian wedding is definitely not the first lesbian wedding in Vietnam, and not even the first to be reported in Vietnamese news papers. In 1998, An Ninh Doi Song reported two women whose wedding was disbanded in Binh Long. I have a very bad photocopy of the article if anyone wants to see it. In my fieldwork in 2009-2010, I witnessed 3 lesbian weddings in Saigon. The media's representation of what is going on in the gay and lesbian communities in Vietnam are much less active than what I was seeing was going on in the cities.
Reliability issues with Vietnamese media, or media about Vietnam, is hardly a new problem. But I get especially wary when I see media that says something is happening "for the first time" for gays or lesbians in Vietnam.
Sincerely,
Natalie Newton
PhD Candidate
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Irvine
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From: Jo
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 10:15 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Natalie
Thanks for posting your point about the non-value of representing prostitution in the context of upgrading a negative popular image, as well as the unreliability of yahoo reports.
However, I would argue that prostitution is indeed “inherently negative”—not a currently popular view. I’m against it not because of religion, but because it is psychologically and physiologically detrimental to a woman or a man to sell one’s body in order to make a living. Such a sale is the ultimate reduction of consciousness and being. Prostitution is also a scene of drug use and exploitation and leads to serious illness. This assertion, I think, has been abundantly proven existentially over the centuries, and via research as well, despite what the prostitute unions and their biz-owners and customers claim.
Although all we had to go on was a yahoo link, so I haven’t a clear idea of the film’s narrative, what I’m about to say might not be relevant to the Vietnamese film under discussion. But the film perhaps begs a larger question of filmmaking—this time on ethical and political grounds—about the automatic inclusion of explicit sex activity in films that are ostensibly about _love_ between people. If a film is intended to be about love, to include blatant sex activity scenes in my view is to commodify the relationship, obviously for the sake of selling tickets to see the film. In media today, sex is rex.
Isn’t it time that love between people gained a position of social respect, instead of being compromised by sexual exhibitions? Yes, I do think that sex between lovers (not lusters) needs to remain private. Letting it “all hang out” was tried in the 60s and 70s and got nowhere, except to produce more businesses. That was sex as a full-time consumer product. I argue that producing ever more businesses, regardless of what they do or make, is a socially destructive phenomenon and policy. Social living has always required regulation, no matter what the evolutionary status of the society. The idea that the much longed for value of _freedom_ entails doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and even better, turning it into mercenary profit, has already begun to come under serious social review. As Freud pointed out, the id is totally amoral, nor is that mind-body process concerned about social solidarity and well-being, either.
Films, unlike books, are in the public domain of spectacle. If someone wants to make a film about lust, about cruising for sex , about sexual addiction and all of its combinations and practices, about prostitution etc. -- go for it, but don’t represent such a film as about “gay or straight love.” It is, au fond, porn; nothing to do with love.
I realize that my views are not politically correct, but I think they are worth representing. Indeed, lately here and there, signs of a new social resistance to the increasingly relentless mass commodification of sex in the media and in society is beginning to make itself audible and visible, as a political rather than as a religious or traditional-style moral response. (I don’t refer here to the boiler-plate clichés emanating from today’s politicians and so-called clerics.) I see this trend as part of the larger trend of disgust and frustration at the rising inequalities of access to necessary resources, and at lack of the broadest social well-being, engineered of course by today’s ruling political-economies.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
Vis. Anthro.
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From: Nguyen-Vo, Thu-Huong
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 11:12 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thank you for a great contextualization of the film and the article for us, Natalie. th
From: Margaret B. Bodemer
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 2:46 PM
Natalie,
Thank you for your discussion of the original posting, and making several good points. I'm wondering if you - or anyone else - has seen this film, an exploration of spirit mediums, in 7 parts, on youtube :Love Man Love Woman" (I don't have the Vietnamese title)http://youtu.be/hqjLxcrsYDs - or are familiar with the filmmaker's argument that this practice allows for some acceptance of shifting male/female/other gender identities in contemporary Vietnam.
Best,
Maggie Bodemer
Margaret B. Bodemer
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 3:00 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I suspect the Vietnamese is ai nam ai nu which can be translated as either bisexual or, I believe, hermaphrodite (not sure of that). I recall this phrase from the 60s, suggesting that it was not unknown in Vietnamese culture. I don't think homosexuality was criminalized.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: Mariam Lam
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 3:14 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Maggie,
The director of Love Man Love Woman (Hue-Tam is correct in its Vietnamese translated title, but this film does not refer to hermaphrodites at all), Nguyen Trinh Thi, and her husband, the cinematographer and producer, are based in HaNoi, so Mike DiGregorio may know more. In the film, the main protagonist spirit medium is transgender and does discuss his performances in relation to general growing acceptance of queer identities, but then he also describes how each day will return home by xe om to his wife and kids and that his lives are somewhat separate. The mediumship anthropologists I have spoken with about the film seem to think the film overstates this acceptance and the portrayal of these mediumship communities as somehow more of a safe space for queer folks.
That's all I know, but I have Trinh Thi's email address if you need it.
Best,
Mariam
Mariam B. Lam, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
Director, Southeast Asian Studies Research Program (SEATRiP-UCR)
Co-Editor, Journal of Vietnamese Studies (JVS)
Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0321
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Indeed, without knowing anything other than Dien's post about either film, the photo in the article he linked to reminded me of the so-called 'lady boys' of Thailand. They are certainly tolerated, but also expected to 'grow up', get married and have kids. This strikes me as very harsh on the women they marry - but then in my limited experience (limited to anecdotal evidence that is) the Thai and Vietnamese tend to keep sex and marriage in separate compartments, while love can be applicable in both cases.
I also have to disagree with Jo that there is a necessary connection between the sexual freedom of the '60s and commodification of sex. The prostitution industry is increasingly dominated in the west by non-western workers - a reflection of the fact that female equality in sexual matters forces the customers and their suppliers to turn to those who are economically weaker and probably from places where gender equality is frowned upon. For that matter, a UK survey showed that only 9% of men regularly used prostitutes and most of them were immigrants as well - which is possibly a reflection of the lack of sexual freedom of their immigrant wives. Commodification is about power not sex.
As for the film 'Lost in Paradise', the story indicates that the boundaries of what can be said through art are being pushed, but not too radically. Given that in some countries being gay is a life-threatening condition (and not simply due to STDs), it's all good.
cheers,
Melanie
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From: Natalie Newton
Date: Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:55 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi all,
When I would talk with Vietnamese lesbians (les) in Saigon or Hanoi, they would explain that "ái nam, ái n?" is that it is a derogatory slang phrasing for people who are non-normatively gendered, bisexuals, or homosexuals. The phrasing "ái nam, ái n?" is to specifically demonize someone's ambiguous "gi?i tính," or gender/sexual identity. It does also refer to hermaphordites, which even in English is now considered a derogatory phrase to call intersex people. Les would tell me it's similar to slang phrasings like "nu?c pha nh?t" (oil and water, which do not mix) for bisexuals and "hi-fi" (like the two-sided tape deck). I was learning these phrasings in the urban centers, so I cannot say whether or not the phrasing "ái nam, ái n?" has a different connotation for spirit mediums in the rural North, where I understand Nguyen Trinh Thi made her film. I would meet les from the countryside who migrated to Saigon that used "ô-môi" to describe themselves, which would offend Saigonese les.
I do not use the word "queer" to describe Vietnamese homosexual/transgender identities in my research for a few reasons. Most importantly, Vietnamese people don't use these terms, even those who are bilingual in English and have translated these terms for Vietnamese consumption. I have seen the word "queer" translated to "công" (meaning curved, as in the opposite of straight). Yet, Vietnamese gay men (gay) and lesbians (les) do not adhere to post-modern and post-idenitarian constructs like "queer." I would also argue that "queer" also comes out of a very specific historical and cultural moment in Western gay liberation politics that has a particular meaning for the generations who appropriate it now. I think these factors complicate the academic processing of assigning a "queer" framework to Vietnamese gender/sexuality politics or community identities, processes which I have not quite worked out completely yet myself either.
I appreciate everyone's discussion on the topic otherwise.
UC Irvine
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From: Nhu Miller
Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:04 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The first public gay wedding in Viet Nam that I know of is that
of Tôn Th?t Hi?u Anh, the son of Dr. Tôn Th?t Ba`ng and grandson of
the eminent liver surgeon Dr Tôn Th?t Tu`ng. What made this nuptial
especially unusual was that Hi?u Anh was the last and only son in this
particular branch of Tôn Th?t. Hieu Anh married his long time
partner, who was, I think, in fashion biz. His parents had a huge reception
for the couple with more than 1000 guests to celebrate the union.
Although undoubtedly agog, the guests accepted the family's
stance and no more was said about this daring wedding which took
place about a decade ago.
T.T. Nhu
Berkeley, Ca.
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From: Nguyet Nguyen
Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:35 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I would like to say a few things about this topic, although I am not at all an expert. "De Mai Tinh" is not necessarily a positive portrayal of homosexuality. First, it is a comedy. Second, the main gay character is portrayed as "aberrant"; his "gayishness" is exaggerated a great deal, and we know gay people do not necessarily behave as such. And third, he's not of Vietnamese "ethnicity"; he's a Viet national living abroad, and just visiting HCMC periodically. If one knows Vietnamese culture, one would understand that for the Vietnamese generally, "outsiders" can do just about anything, but it's because they are not "Vietnamese." A positive portrayal (or at least one that could generate change in Viet Nam) of homosexuals should not include all these elements.
About 15 years ago or so, in the "Phu nu Viet Nam" - one of the most popular magazines in the country, there were a series of neutral and favorable writings about homosexuality in the country. This series discussed the question of the origins of the homosexuality, treating it as a matter of fact, and nothing aberrant or to be ridiculed. For some reason, it went silent on the matter ever since, and the topic was also generally shut down in other mass media as well. I guess there must have been some sort of "instruction" from high up as the intellectual environment of the country was turned to conservatism after a brief period of openness in the early 90s. If you are interested in this matter, try digging up the magazine.
In order for homosexuality to be received more favorably, I think there must be some serious lobbying at the highest level - the
"Ban tu tuong van hoa trung uong" - to open the discussion again. But I doubt it. The country is now having the political name of socialism, the economics of capitalism, but the cultural system of severely backward patriarchy.
My two cents.
Nguyet
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From: Natalie Newton
Date: Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:55 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hello Nguyet and everyone,
I think the original discussion on this list was about the films on homosexuality in Vietnam is critiquing the media portrayal of the films as necessarily positive, when they really perpetuate existing stereotypes. I do not think anyone is saying "De Mai Tinh" is a positive portrayal, anymore so than "Lost in paradise," which features a gay prostitute. The original Yahoo story that we were discussing was trying to portray "Lost in paradise" as not only a positive film, but the FIRST film that portrays gays in a positive light. I was trying to state that neither are true, anymore so than films like "De mai tinh" or "Nhung nu hon ruc ro" are positive portrayals.
In your email, you're equating "outsiders" with "Viet Kieu/hai ngoai" in the film "De mai tinh." I must respectfully disagree. If so, this would not explain why Vietnamese diasporics STILL discriminate against Vietnamese diasporics who are homosexual, saying that homosexuality is "against Vietnamese culture." By that logic, homophobic diasporics must concede that all diasporics are outside of Vietnamese culture, by virtue of their "outsider" status as migrants and refugees. Even the Vietnamese State has allowed bi-national citizenship for any diasporic.
Also, in the film "De mai tinh,' the character Hoi's boyfriend is a Vietnamese national, living in Nha Trang, not Viet Kieu. Hoi's whole depth of character in the film revolves around this bi-national relationship turning sour, leading to his eventual revelation that he deserves happiness regardless. This is the only redeeming narrative I would say that the film has for gay portrayals in the media.
About the Vietnamese government and homosexuality, a few Vietnamese NGOs in Hanoi are doing various research and media (which is still controlled by the Vietnamese State) related projects to combat homophobia in the country. You can search on Google in Vietnamese or in English about their work or contact me if you want to learn about my involvement with some of them. I can also forward you their contact information if you want to talk to them directly.www.natalienewtonteaching.wordpress.com
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From: Daniel C. Tsang
Date: Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:24 PM
The 2000-2001 World Values Survey - Vietnam included a question about homosexuality; here was my writeup on it:
http://www.ocweekly.com/2001-12-20/news/no-queers-here/
In the random sample of 1,000 Vietnamese across Vietnam, 82 percent responded that homosexuality was never legitimate, and another 92 percent condemned prostitution. Other bad behavior: suicide (86 percent opposed), abortion (61 percent), euthanasia (51 percent) and divorce (50 percent).
The entire dataset is accessible from the UCI Social Science Data Archive site, and variables can be selected and cross-tabulated online. See: http://data.lib.uci.edu/wvsv/
But in a decade much has changed.
Even a few years after the survey, one Vietnamese NGO among those Natalie mentioned had a quick quiz on their web site in 2004 asking viewers their views on homosexuality and most seemed positive, as I recall.
dan
--
Daniel C. Tsang, Distinguished Librarian
Data Librarian and Bibliographer for Asian American Studies,
Economics, Political Science & Business (interim)
468 Langson Library, University of California, Irvine
PO Box 19557, Irvine CA 92623-9557, USA
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From: Daniel C. Tsang
Date: Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:33 PM
Here's the result for this variable:
V208 homosexuality
Description of the Variable
Please tell me for each of the following statements whether you think it can
always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card.
READ OUT STATEMENTS. CODE ONE ANSWER FOR EACH STATEMENT:
Homosexuality
Percent N Value Label
81.7 741 1 never
4.0 36 2
2.0 18 3
2.1 19 4
6.4 58 5
2.0 18 6
0.1 1 7
0.3 3 8
0.2 2 9
1.2 11 10 always
93 99 dk
100.0 1,000 Total
dan