"Passing" as an Approach to
Literary Analysis of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly
and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet
The Wedding
Banquet
The portrayal of Asian men
in western media—the feminine role of the Asian man
[Photo by Dr. Thomas Tam] Prof. Liu
showed video clips from both Puccini's Madame Butterfly
and D. H. Hwang's M. Butterfly, comparing and
contrasting their interweaving themes in order to illustrate
her points.
M. Butterfly
Song Liling’s "Passing"
Song’s passing is a physical
and visible one that serves as a means to two ends:
1. His desire to be
loved as a woman
2. His resentment of the
colonialist
The French Diplomat’s
"Passing"
Rene Gallimard’s passing is
an invisible and psychological one
1. Psychologically,
Gallimard refuses to see "her" (Song’s) penis—as a form of
physical and racial castration
2. To preserve his sense
of masculinity
[Photo by Dr. Thomas Tam] Prof. Liu demonstrated the various
aspects of passing in the world of Ang Lee's Wedding
Banquet, where only the viewer knows the whole truth
behind each character.
Dr. Keming Liu
Assistant Professor
Medgar Evers College/CUNY
