The Representation of Masculinities in Edward Yang’s Films During Taiwan’s Rapid Transition into Modernity

Abstract

This study explores the representation of masculinity through the lens of Edward Yang’s work. While the thematic and stylistic characteristics of Yang’s city films with Taipei as the main protagonist have been widely documented, the representation of masculinity has remained an under-researched area in Yang’s films. This thesis fills a gap in the study of Yang’s distinctive film language by articulating how his representation of Taiwanese masculinities reflects on and critiques the negative social-cultural impact experienced by Taiwanese society partly as a result of its complex colonial history and its rapid transition into modernity. This research also examines the representation of masculinities in pre-TNC Taiwanese cinema, and briefly discusses male identities shown in Hong Kong and mainland China Cinema, to situate Yang’s different perception and filmic representation of masculinity in the wider context of Chinese language cinema. Informed by a tripartite epistemological framework which consists of postcolonial, Chinese/Western masculinity and modernity theories, this thesis uses close textual analysis to explore the conundrum of Taiwanese masculinity formation through the lens of Yang’s film language. The close textual analysis to investigate Yang’s representation is based on his whole oeuvre of seven and a quarter feature films, with a special focus on his use of space, frames within-frames, and glass/ mirror/figurative reflections. Yang highlights the challenges of masculinity construction in a society with ever-shifting norms. The weakening colonial, patriarchal and Confucian influences in Taiwanese society, in combination with the consequences of different stages of modernity, contribute to a problematized, frustrated and entrapped Taiwanese masculinity. These findings add new insights to the study of Taiwanese masculinity and Taiwan’s vernacular modernity as represented in Taiwan cinema, in Taiwan’s own terms, instead of being subsumed within the larger sphere of cinematic representation of Chinese masculinity.