The Wedding Banquet (1993)

            Starting off as a comedy The Wedding Banquet (1993) soon becomes the dark reality of life and the expectations of family and life. Living with a secret, the protagonist is faced with dealing with his culture and expectations of family and living true to himself while all meshing realities, all depending on who he comes in contact with and what truths they need at that moment. The banquet is like the metaphor for the façade. Going through extravagant comedic leaps to hide the reality of Wai Tung and his partner’s existence as not to upset his traditional parents, is what makes this movie so funny and enjoyable, coupled by the fake wife that ironically cannot even fry an egg and serves her green-card husband his lovers breakfast. She herself is living a lie with her pale boyfriend as well. With a lot of un-needed complications and stunts dreamed up by Simon, the partner, all of this made the ruse even more crazy and beyond anyone’s control, this was smart writing and directing by Ang Lee.

            All puns aside the dark reality of living this life is common among homosexuals in all cultures across the world, but this moment is highlighted the most in the Asian cultures. According to John (Song Pae) Cho an Anthrophonic researcher, they studied ‘Contract Marriages’, detailing how Korean gays and lesbians sell into South Korea’s heteronormative system affixed in the heterosexual family dynamic. Through this they conquer up marriage contacts in order to fulfil their family duties to marry and continue the line without fears of being outed. Even though the study was mainly in Korea this can be seen obviously in Taiwan as depicted in this movie. This is the underlining truth of what is being presented in the film masked in funny gags and sophisticated dialogue. In the pursuit to fulfil the happiness of family in their culture, they may transform the heteronormative values of marriage and challenge the model of ‘out and proud’ in their families finds the research. I believe that this contract marriage can turn away the individual to self-sacrifice their culture for westernized models of lifestyle, this can include removing themselves from their traditions and assimilate to westernized life never reconnecting with their culture, or as simple as purposely finding white counterparts to adopt their culture and lifestyle. 

References

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CEFDB1431F937A3575BC0A965958260

Cho, J. P. (2009). The Wedding Banquet Revisited: "Contract Marriages" Between Korean Gays and Lesbians. Anthropological Quarterly 82(2), 401-422. George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from Project MUSE database.

           

CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM 

1) ( X ) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class.

2) (  X) If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.

3) (X  ) If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text.

4) ( X ) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper.

5) (X  ) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.

6) ( X ) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography.

7) ( X ) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality.

8) (X  ) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper.

Name: Nnenne O_  Date: Feb 22 2018