Final essay

Throughout FREN 383, Franco-Asian Encounters, we have examined the significant effects of colonial imperialism upon the perceptions of the people of Indochina as well as those of the Europeans. France’s control over Vietnam has saturated its traditional culture, from its cuisine to its religion, and the Vietnamese have been forced to reconcile their cultural identities with the constant presence of occidental influence, much of which has not been peaceable. Much of the literature we read concerned this sense of identity confusion, and the films were equally interesting in their differing perspectives.

The variations between films and literary works produced by western artists and those of native Vietnamese artists are noteworthy, but all explored some common themes. Both French writer Marguerite Duras, who lived in Vietnam throughout her childhood, and Vietnamese-born Kim Lefèvre examined colonial racial relations. Un Barrage Contre le Pacifique was the story of a poor French family (mother, son and daughter) living in Vietnam. Their family ties were personally troubled, but their social status (privileged racially but disadvantaged economically) was also a constant source of struggle. In L’Amant, a story about the same family, the daughter Suzanne deals with fallout from her affair with a much older Chinese man, and racial tensions are emphasized similarly in Kim Lefèvre’s Métisse Blanche, a memoir describing the childhood and adolescence of a mixed-race Vietnamese girl who was fathered by a now-absent French soldier. Lefèvre constantly struggled with her mixed background and was stigmatized by her family, friends and authority figures. All of these works clearly expose the negative effects of colonial oppression and social stratification upon all members of affected societies – both the privileged and the oppressed – because of the pressure to adhere to strict social norms.

Another interesting aspect of this course for me as a women’s studies student was its emphasis on female protagonists. It was evident that strict traditional gender roles coupled with cultural oppression contributed to an intense sense of confinement for most of the female subjects of the stories and films. The crises of Suzanne, Kim, young Camille from the film Indochine, and others were all compounded by their protected, taboo sexualities along with questionable motives of the men in their lives. For example, in Métisse Blanche Kim asks her pianist lover if he would love her if she was not racially mixed, and he says he would not. She worries that her allure might come simply from her exoticism, and many Asian women have similar concerns. These difficult expectations are detailed in the documentary Slaying the Dragon, which explores racial stereotypes faced by modern Asian women and their historical development. I was inspired by that film to conduct my final project research on that topic.

Overall, Franco-Asian Encounters has helped me to explore the darker, often ignored side of French history. As an imperialist nation, France has frequently conquered “less civilized” nations, and much blood has been shed, not to mention the lasting systems of inequality that still exist in formerly colonized nations. The power exerted by the French over Indochina was tinged with racist attitudes toward non-western cultures and non-white people, and it caused the people of Indochina to lose some of their cultural identity and all of their political control. However, a more recent movement by native artists and authors to preserve and reclaim their indigenous cultures has led to somewhat of a resurgence of pride and national identity in Vietnam. France still avoids recognizing its considerably negative role as a colonial power, but more people are calling for a redress of its humanitarian crimes.

Final: The fetishization of Asian women through the years

The development of the "Asian fetish"
-Orientalist painters of the nineteenth century, such as Eugene Delacroix and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
-women of Turkey, northern Africa depicted in vulnerable, available positions with fair skin --> attractive to European men who were reacting to increased independence of European women


Josephine Baker -- "the wild beast from the jungle"
-American woman; immense popular in France, where she depicted ethnic women without a clear nationality (Asian? African? Arab? this is never clear--her role is a manifestation of orientalist fantasies)
-exoticized nudity
-racist and objectified image of the female body
-primitivism; exotic fantasies


Common stereotypes of Asian women in American film
-derived from racist attitudes toward Chinese immigrants in the West
-"dragon lady" --> Thief of Baghdad (1924) starring Anna Mae Wong
-Asian roles were played by Caucasians because of morality codes in the film industry at the time (Dragon Seed, 1944)
-Sayonara (1957) --> first film to address prejudices, but still perpetuated stereotypes of submissive Asian women
-The World of Suzie Wong (1957) --> sexy, submissive Asian prostitute is "rescued" by an American tourist
-Flower Drum Song (1961) --> Rodgers and Hammerstein musical about the assimilation of Asian immigrants into American society; starred Miyoshi Umeki as Mei Li, the submissive Asian woman, and Nancy Kwan as Linda Low, the sexy Asian woman
-Vietnam became the focus in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the Vietnam War with films like Deer Hunter (1978), Good Morning Vietnam (1987) and Miss Saigon (1989)


More recently
-At the beginning of the 1980s, Asian women were en vogue in Hollywood and New York City (result of beginning of globalization)
-"ornamentals" --> "Orientals" (derogatory term for an Asian woman who served as arm candy for an American man)
-Increase in the number of Asian models during the 1990s


Why the stereotypes?
-Connection between sexuality and commerce --> sex trafficking
-Begun with American and European soldiers during foreign wars, sex tourism has grown for 50 years
-White men have traditionally had free rein to sleep with minority women
-Devaluation of Asian women saturates modern Western society
-Mail-order brides (fulfill submissive stereotype)


Fetishes in pornography
-3.55 million results for "Asian fetish" on Google (more than any other type of fetish search)
-1994: eight of the ten most popular porn videos featured Asian women, often in sadistic-masochistic sexual situations, as submissive sex objects, or petite, child-like women framed as schoolgirls

Images from the presentation

Film preview: Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song original trailer <-- click!

Film preview: Sayonara

Sayonara film preview video <-- click!

Bibliography

"Captive Daughters - The Cause: DEMAND." Captive Daughters Home Page. Web. 01 Dec. 2009. .

Chang, Maggie. Made in the USA: Rewriting Images of the Asian Fetish. Diss. University of Pennsylvania, 2006. Print.

Eng, Phoebe. Warrior lessons an Asian American woman's journey into power. New York: Pocket Books, 1999. Print.

Hume, Bill. Babysan. 1953. Print.

Ockman, Carol. "Two large eyebrows à l’Orientale: Ethnic stereotyping in Ingres’s Baronne de Rothschild." Art History 14.4 (1991): 521-39. Print.

Prasso, Sheridan. Asian mystique dragon ladies, geisha girls, & our fantasies of the exotic Orient. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. Print.

Slaying the Dragon. Dir. Deborah Gee. Asian Women United, 1988. Videocassette.

Wofford, Tom. "Mail-order brides." Metro Santa Cruz 27 Mar. 1997. Print.

Traditional Vietnamese music video

Video of woman playing the dan tranh <-- click!

Synthèse : Kim Lefèvre

Dans la paire de mémoires Métisse blanche et Retour à la saison des pluies, auteure vietnamienne-française Kim Lefèvre raconte l’histoire de son enfance au Vietnam. Ses expériences n’étaient pas toujours sans souci : son père français a abandonné sa mère quand elle était très petite, et son statut comme « métisse » de pair avec sa situation familiale éclatée ont provoqué une crise d’identité considérable au long de sa vie. Ces luttes d’identité et avec des relations familiales suivre Lefèvre dans son enfance et pendant toute sa vie adulte en France. Ils reviennent même à son voyage de retour au Vietnam beaucoup plus tard.

Lefèvere raconte son histoire avec une attention particulière à son traitement comme produit d’une mère vietnamienne et d’un père français. Comme enfant, Lefèvre s’efforce avec son identité raciale. Elle n’a pas de connexion avec la France sauve son apparence, ce qui n’est pas complètement typiquement asiatique. Elle se réfère souvent à son « sang français », un aspect physique de son identité qui coule sans que son aptitude à le contrôler. En raison des hostilités entre les vietnamiens et les français à l’époque de son enfance, Lefèvere rencontre de nombreux préjugés des vietnamiens collègues, avec qui elle s’identifie d’un point de vue ethnique, mais qui ne l’acceptent pas uniquement sur le bas de son apparence. Même les propres membres de sa famille s’efforcent de l’accepter. Son Oncle Tri elle bannit de son domicile : « Crois-moi, répétait-il à ma mère, tu couves une vipère en ton sein, son sang français prendra le dessus malgrés tes bienfaits. »

Cet isolement de sa famille provoque Lefèvre à se considérer comme étrangère ainsi, même à un jeune âge. « Quand le martinet s’abbattit sur ma chair, ma douleur s’exalta d’une sorte de volupté. Mais cela ne faisait que renforcer l’idée qu’il avait de moi : que j’étais un monstre. » Elle imagine sa vie sans les stigmates de son « sang français » , dans un monde avec d’autres comme elle : « Peut-être je trouverais-je un nouveau pays, peuplé de métisses ? J’aurais un père métis, une mère métisse, un oncle métis, et même mon institutrice serait métisse. » Notez que ce fantasme ne comporte pas d’espoir d’un changement dans la société vietnamienne. Son isolement est si complète qu’elle pense le seul moyen pour trouver l’acceptation est de trouver un pays entièrement nouveau.

Dans Retour à la saison des pluies, après des années de quasi-fuite en France, Lefèvre revient de trouver que beaucoup de ses anciennes épreuves continuent de consommer sa compréhension de son identité. Maintenant, la séparation de Lefèvre de la société vietnamienne est encore plus grande car elle a perdu le langage et ses relations avec sa famille, particulièrement avec sa mère, bien que ces liens fussent faibles au départ. Sa perspective semble encore plus comme celle d’un outsider. Maintenant, sa division de la société vietnamienne est encore plus évidente. Elle fait des observations précises sur la nature de la culture orientale : « Ici, c’est encore l’Asie, on tâte, on soupèse, on examine avant de choisir, sans doute pour compenser la disparition du marchandage. » Lefèvre a la capacité de comprendre ses mentalités, mais elle ne semble pas de les considérer comme le sien.

Lefèvre continue à tenter de réconcilier son passé et son présent, ses deux mondes (aucun qui appartiennent entièrement à elle). Elle améliore ses relations avec sa mère, mais en fin de compte elle revient en France. Elle compare sa vie à la glace dans un vieil adage vietnamien : « La vie est comme un miroir : il vous renvoie votre image quand vous en êtes proche, il vous oublie quand vous êtes loin. » Elle affirme que sa vie est le même : ses connexions au Vietnam sont tels qu’elle peut reconstruire une vie pour elle-même à son retour, mais le pays n’est pas sa place à un niveau profonde. « Lorsque je quitterai ce pays mon image s’effacera et je ne laisserai plus de trace danc ce paysage d’eau où il recommence à pleuvoir. » Lefèvre ne se sent pas tout à fait qu’elle appartienne au Vietnam, mais elle a réussi à concilier son identité. Ses deux cultures, orientale et occidentale, se combinent en elle pour créer son « pays métisse » idéalisé de l’enfance.

Synthèse: "Which Way is East" and "Apocalypse Now Redux"

While Lynne Sachs’ documentary Which Way is East and Francis Ford Coppola’s lengthy feature film Apocalypse Now Redux both present a strong anti-war message with their examinations of the Vietnam War (“la guerre amèricaine”), their perspectives are strikingly different.

In Which Way is East, the filmmaker and her sister Dana Sachs tour the Vietnamese countryside in the early 1990s with an eye to the lasting effects of the memory of the Vietnam War. Footage of modern-day life in Vietnam is presented in the same way as images of formerly war-ravaged scenery: with a simplicity and peace that suggests a movement forward. While the memory of war is ever present in the minds of its citizens, both young and old, the Vietnamese feel compelled to try to put this past behind them. Even when Lynne and Dana tour former Vietcong tunnels, where they speak to a woman, the wife of a Vietcong soldier, who lived underground for 20 years in order to survive and even gave birth in the damp space, she is not bitter. An injured war veteran Dana meets is uncomfortable when she apologizes for her country’s involvement in Vietnam. “It doesn’t matter,” he says.

Lynne and Dana speak to Vietnamese people who recount the diffusion of the people throughout the country during the war-torn years. They hear a story about a man who couldn’t contact his family in Saigon by mail for over 20 years. “When a water buffalo and a bull are fighting, it is the mosquitoes and the flies who follow them that die,” says one speaker. This proverb places the emphasis on the innocent civilians, families of the soldiers, who suffered throughout the duration of the war and continue to struggle today with economic and personal instability.

While the filmmakers are sympathetic to the plight of the Vietnamese, it is important to note that they are still outsiders. Dana remarks that Lynne seems to “understand Vietnam better through the lens of her camera.” In framing the country with a specific purpose, to create a documentary, Lynne is able to separate herself from the distress that surrounds her. She is privileged to be the outsider behind the camera looking in.

Apocalypse Now Redux examines the negative effects of war from a different perspective, based on the moral questions war invokes. It is the dark, psychological story of an American officer who is sent to the Cambodian jungle in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, to stop the destruction of a crazed, renegade military officer, Colonel Walter Kurtz, who has gone mad and established his own reign as warlord in the jungle.

The story takes a dark turn when the American officer, Willard, becomes obsessed with Kurtz’s situation and begins to descend into madness himself. After his crew stops a boat of civilians in order to search it, and most of the civilians on it are killed after a member of the crew opens fire, spooked by a sudden movement, Willard personally, inhumanely, murders the one survivor of the massacre with no remorse. Willard becomes a monster, unlike the tortured Kurtz. He accepts the war and embraces its casualties.

While Apocalypse Now is focused specifically around the Vietnam War, it could be about any war. Its message is not specific to that particular conflict, and thus I find its message to be meaningful but not necessarily enlightening when it comes to reflecting on the history and effects of war in Vietnam. When taken together, Apocalypse Now and Which Way is East serve to promote an anti-war message, but Which Way is East is more enlightening as to actual Vietnamese culture. In addition, the production of both films by American directors could possibly cloud the viewer’s understanding of the situation in Vietnam. The outsider perspective is valuable, but arguably not as enlightening as the viewpoint of a native Vietnamese citizen.