Queer voice(over): Reassembling female desire in Chinese cinema
What is it about?
How to articulate queer voice and circumvent the state censorship in Chinese cinema? How can a queer voice express female desire beyond an individual’s here and now? This article discusses the development of queer voice(over) – a queer feminist aesthetic achievement that subverts and perverts the heteropatriarchal suppression of women’s desire – in Chinese director Ning Ying’s 2006 film wuqiongdong (Perpetual Motion). I argue, through queer voice(over), Perpetual Motion expands its theme beyond the issue of infidelity in a heterosexual marriage, develops a cinematic critique to the twentieth-century Chinese feminist movements and articulates female desires from multiple registers of senses, psychology and historical subjectivity.
Why is it important?
In Chinese cinema where queer voices are usually marginalized, Ning’s queer voice(over) establishes a mutually referent relation between queer and heteronormative storylines, circumventing the state censorship and adding queerness into Chinese-language feminist debates and cinematic expression.