Dieyi’s troubled gender identity: an Analysis 

Here, I attempt to break down the analysis into three registers, the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, in order to examine Xiaolou’s role in the evolution of Dieyi gender identity in different phases of Dieyi’s trajectory of life—Douzi and Dieyi.

The Mirror stage, is a the stage in the imaginary register where a baby identifies itself with the reflected image of itself in the mirror. In this stage, the baby starts to discover the existence of the “other”—that is not part of it, and recognise itself as a separate entity from the “other”. Born to a prostitute mother, Douzi was raised in a brothel. At the age of nine, his mother, no longer being able to conceal Douzi’s masculine physicalities, brings him to the opera troupe and pleads Master Guan to take him in. For that she cuts off Douzi’s extra finger which Master Guan deems unfit for one to become a Peking opera performer. Experiencing abandonment, Douzi has lost the maternal figure that to the preliminary identification of the self. Shitou, another older apprentice at the opera troupe, stepped into Douzi’s life in the opera troupe, and protected Douzi from the bullying and punishments from other apprentices and the masters. Dieyi has gradually made Shitou a substitute for Douzi’s lack of maternal figure, laying grounds for Douzi’s later obsession and dependence towards Shitou—the later King of Chu.

As Douzi and Shitou grow older, Douzi is assigned to perform in the role of Dan (female roles). Such type of role does often not only require male actor to cross-dress as female on stage, but also to deliver the essence, especially so in Beijing, the capital of China. The actors who plays transvestite roles are expected to capture the shen (essence/psyche) of the roles they impersonate. By capturing the shen of the character, they can be perceived as a “real woman”—they do not only impersonate but “signify” the woman. Douzi was asked to recite an aria from the play Sifan (Longing for the World), in which the nun sings, “I am by nature a girl, not a boy,” expressing her desire for a worldly love. While reciting the lines from the aria, he makes the same mistake repetitively—singing instead “I am by nature a boy, not a girl (我本是男兒郎，又不是女嬌娥),” often leads to severe physical punishment from the masters of the troupe. This mistake was made not because of Douzi’s inability to properly memorise the correct line, but comes from his conflation of reality and fictionality, thus could not sing “I am by nature a girl,” a statement that is opposite to his gender identity. 

One day, the manager of a theatre in the city visited the troupe to scout for young actors to perform Farewell at former imperial Eunuch Zhang’s birthday banquet. At the manager’s request, Xiao Douzi came forward and performed Sifan. However, Douzi again, unable to set apart reality and fictionality, made the same “mistake” again by singing “I am by nature a boy, not a girl.” To secure the opportunity, Shitou dragged Douzi, screwing Douzi’s mouth brutally with an opium pipe, while repetitively scolding “you’ve stuffed it up! (我叫你錯！)” Here, a close-up shot is given to Douzi’s face, blood flowing out between his lips in this post-coital scene, symbolising the loss of virginity (see fig. 1). Then, Douzi gradually walks down from the chair, performing the aria once again, but singing “I am by nature a girl, not a boy (我本是女嬌娥，又不是男兒郎).” His inverted gender identity, or femininity has become subservient to the idealised “male authority”—the king of Chu. This act of symbolic rape and Douzi’s surrender to the male authority, symbolised by the pipe, has signified Douzi’s entrance into the symbolic order. Within the symbolic register, he discovers the language, law and social norms of the world of Peking opera that he is in, which operates as the “big other.” While Shitou, serves as an enforcer of the symbolic order—the language of “I am by nature a girl,” inverting Douzi’s fragile masculine identity into a feminine one.

Over time, Douzi and Shitou have grown to become stars of Peking Opera, taking the stage names of Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou respectively. After a successful performance of Farewell, Master Yuan came to the backstage to talk to Dieyi and Xiaolou, complimented Dieyi’s evocation on the role of Concubine Yu—is as if “Concubine Yu has come back to life.” Yuan is seated while speaking to Dieyi, with his back towards a mirror which reflects Dieyi’s image, with make up of Concubine Yu from the performance of Farewell still on his face (see fig. 2). This scene is in fact a visual metaphor for his misidentification with Concubine Yu, the reason behind Dieyi’s superior evocation of the character that impressed Master Yuan. 

This brings us back to the mirror stage—the mirror, employed as an important symbolic motifs throughout the film, signifies Dieyi’s misidentification (méconnaissance) with Concubine Yu, the external image that is falsely perceived as the “self.” Such external image with Concubine Yu is at the same time in Lacan’s term, the ideal-I that provides a false sense of wholeness—the unswerving (從一而終) relationship between the king and the concubine. The mirror as symbolic motif is again used the day after Xiaolou got “engaged” with Juxian at the brothel, when Dieyi and Xiaolou do their make up at the backstage. The reflection of Dieyi’s, or (painted) Concubine Yu’s face in the mirror, is the idealised image of the Concubine which he is strives to become, and identifies with; while the reflection of the mirrored image of Xiaolou’s (painted) face, symbolises the idealised male image of the King of Chu, whom the concubine shares a loyal, unswerving relationship with, whom she sacrifices herself for—the anchor for her femininity (see fig. 3). Dieyi looking into the mirrored image of the King, is yet again a metaphor for Dieyi’s psychological transvestism and his literalisation of the on-stage king-concubine relationship into reality, which reinforces his dependence and desire towards an unswerving relationship with his stage partner—Xiaolou, that would last for the rest of their lives.

Nonetheless, Xiaolou’s engagement with Juxian interrupts the false sense of wholeness, the illusion that the extended king-concubine relationship could last forever. Dieyi despises the union between Xiaolou and Juxian, a prostitute, just like his own biological mother. “I want you to…just let me perform with you for the rest of our lives, can’t we? (我想讓你跟我...就讓我跟你好好唱一輩子戲，不行嗎),” Dieyi pleaded Xiaolou to stay. Xiaolou, unlike Dieyi, who could well distinguish fictionality and reality, has dismissed his plead as “an obsession with opera.” On the night of the wedding of Xiaolou and Juxian, Dieyi rejects Xiaolou’s invitation for him to become the witness of the marriage, and criticised the union as “a play of the Gangster king and a whore.” Xiaolou, disappointed with Dieyi’s hostility, left him with a statement—“I am not the real King of Chu, but you are a real Concubine Yu (我是假霸王，你是真虞姬),” with Juxian on his side (see fig. 4). Again, Xiaolou points out Dieyi’s obsession with opera, that he has confused reality and fictionality. This union was not only a reinforcement of. The social order—a confirmation of the heteronormative social norms, but also symbolises the second abandonment of the “other”, Xiaolou, whom his identification of self is dependent upon. Abandoned by Xiaolou, Dieyi turned to wantonness with Master Yuan. Dieyi in Concubine Yu’s makeup, sang Farewell not with Xiaolou, but with Master Yuan whose face was painted with a Jing makeup of King of Chu.

During a mass struggle during the Cultural Revolution, as the practitioners of Peking Opera, the art of the old era, that is counter-revolutionary—including Xiaolou and Dieyi. They were paraded around the streets in their stage costumes and makeup, with a board saying “defeat opera villain” hanging around their necks and brought to a mass struggle. During the mass struggle, Xiaolou denounces Dieyi, listing his “crimes,” namely the obsession with opera, opium smoking, treason—and eventually him being a private prostitute to his patron, Master Yuan, “You became Master Yuan’s (zhiji)…did you?” The surrender, and the ultimate betrayal of Xiaolou to the regime, signifies the collapse of the heroic image of the King of Chu and the loss of anchor of Dieyi’s own femininity.

This is a scene that resonates with the last scene of the original opera, “my king has lost his spirit, how could I, a concubine continue live on? (君王意氣盡，賤妾何聊生).” Being back and forth betrayed and abandoned by the Xiaolou, the “other” which his feminine identity reliant upon—Dieyi could no longer identify with Concubine Yu. He screams, “Now even the King of Chu is on his Knees begging for mercy, how can Peking Opera not die!” Not only was Peking Opera dying, but also Dieyi’s misidentification with Concubine Yu. He murmurs, “you all have betrayed me…(你們都騙我),” Dieyi has come to realise the traumatic fact (see fig. 5&6). After all, Xiaolou was never the idealised King of Chu as he pictured, but only an ordinary man that bent down his knees, begging for mercy under the oppression rigid symbolic order . Therefore, the mass struggle has become the death of Concubine Yu, as well as the King of Chu.

At the end of the film, Dieyi and Xiaolou reunites in their respective costumes of Concubine Yu and King of Chu. After 11 years of political turmoil, they finally once again perform Farewell together. This resistance against the symbolic order is manifested at the end of the film, when Dieyi and Xiaolou reunite at the arena to again rehearse for the Farewell performance. Dieyi has once again made a “mistake” like in the teenage days, singing “I am by nature a boy, not a girl.” Xiaolou pointed out that it was wrong, like back in the days. However, Dieyi continued, “I am by nature a boy, not a girl,” without making a correction. There they resumed the rehearsal with Farewell. At the end of the rehearsal, Dieyi, the Concubine pulled out the sword of the King of Chu—Xiaolou’s, committed suicide by slaying himself with the sword. Witnessing Dieyi’s suicide, Xiaolou first shouted “Dieyi,” and after moment of silence, he sighed “Douzi” (see fig. 7). The pre-castrated, or pre-symbolically inverted masculine identity is therefore restored. This restoration of Dieyi’s masculine gender identity signifies a collapse of the longstanding fantasy and symbolic order built upon Dieyi’s misidentification with Concubine Yu. Thus, Dieyi’s suicide is in fact a resistance against, if not a liberation from the symbolic order that had forcefully inverted his gender identity, signifying a restoration of his pre-symbolic self—Xiao Douzi, where there is no more lack and symbolic order.