This was part of a larger project last year where we had to make a website on a particular movie. We chose to do Hero - so we had to make up a 20 page website dedicated to just that. It was actually quite challenging...
Gender representations are something which is completely different in both the western and Chinese cinema, and provides different means of interpretation from a feminist point of view. From a Western point of view, making a feminist reading on Hero can be problematic, as there can be errors made when interpreting the Chinese culture from this perspective. Confucian ideology has been embedded in a lot of Chinese films from the 20th century, and only since the 1980’s has new 5th generation directors strayed away from conventional Chinese cinema styles. Directors like Zhang Yimou have recently provided the audience with an alternative take on Chinese cinema, with some claiming his films don’t portray the ‘real China’. However, it is clear Chinese cinema is moving in a new direction into the 21st century, along with gender roles that are represented in films.
Films from the 20th century from China mostly have a patriarchal tendency towards gender – where the woman is treated as the object, and the man as the voyeur. In western films, the gaze between the man and the woman is significant in expressing sexual desire and gender impositions. Even today the concept of the gaze in western films is important in structuring romantic relationships between characters. In China, chastity for women and filial piety for men was similarly valued, in relation to Confucian ideology. In films though, the role reversal of the patriarchy in China is evident since the 1930’s since the start of the women’s movement. In Hero, the woman is often seen as the strong and masculine character throughout most of the movie, especially through the character Flying Snow. Instead of being given the usual static role of a female, Flying Snow is seen as the strongest and most irrational between her and Broken Sword - features usually found in the male character. It can be argued though, that the role reversal of the women is just a means to construct the male characters.
In an article in the West Australian, Gong Li states she found the roles in Hollywood for Asian women very stereotypical: “I’d been approached to do Hollywood films before but usually it was some stereotypical role, an Asian woman in a pretty dress who says a few lines and then gets killed off.” This shows the continuing trend of the view of Asian women in Hollywood, and the unchanging representation of “Asia” in western films. She also talks about films made in China in relation to the changing gender roles in Chinese films: “They had a spirit of struggle inside them. You found that spirit, that fight against being suppressed, in almost every part I played.” This representation of women in China today shows the different and changing representations of women in Chinese cinema – something which Hollywood has hardly touched on in years.
While many cultures treat gender differently, the gender representations in Hero present a different, rare and unfamiliar situation in the eyes of the West. While the gender role reversal in Chinese films is becoming more natural and popular, especially in unrealistic martial arts films, in the West this is hardly the case. The dominant reading of the feminist reading in Hero can be disputed though, with the suicide of Flying Snow and the seduction of Moon – showing the weakness and dependence of the women on the men. Similarities of the women in Hero can be drawn to other movies in the West, such as The Matrix or Lara Croft – where the women are seen as warriors, and equal to the men. The dominant reading of Hero though emphasizes the difference of this film to a typical Hollywood movie, and also shows the deep cultural influences from today’s society in both China and America. The result is a combination of elements from both cinemas in Hero, which may cause many alternative feminist readings.