(Dis)Associating Political Dissent and Non-heteronormative Sexual Desire

In the preceding chapter, I discussed a highly commercialized zhuxuanlu production that emphasized the socialist spirit of submission to political leaders and regime. To obtain a more complete understanding of political subjectivity as depicted in films, in this chapter I explore three films that contain potentially subversive elements that challenge state power—East Palace, West Palace (東宫西宫), Lan Yu (藍宇), and Butterfly (蝴蝶). The common feature that draws these films together is their association of politically dissenting ideas with non-heteronormative sexuality. I maintain that the sexual and political taboos portrayed are interwoven within the present political and cultural milieu and therefore form a counterexample to proper Chineseness. These films suggest that the state allows only certain kinds of personal desires to break the surface, while all others are denied a place in the post-socialist, neo-liberal Chinese context. As seen in Chapter 5, a political subject has to embrace political leaders, and those subjects who do not fit the image of submissive patriotism may be considered verboten, as is the case with the protagonists depicted in the three films I analyze below. As these films are either shot underground or made without the intention of capturing the mainland market, they provide an angle from which to understand the type and salience of critical political subjectivity that can be screened in filmic productions that ignore or bypass China’s censorship system.