David Hwang’s play M. Butterfly offers of critique of many things which include: the relationship between the East and the West, Western imperialism (especially U.S. Imperialism) in the East, homophobia, and (the focus of this blog post) it calls into question the conflation of gender and sex. While all of these critiques are important I’m interested in how Hwang’s characters, particularly the biological women and Song Liling, offer a critique of the misleading conflation of gender and sex while also posing a queering of gender presentation and sexual identity. Just for clarity sake, gender is the socially constructed classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity which can change over time and are different between cultures; while sex is the bodily distinction that is based on anatomy (http://geneq.berkeley.edu/lgbt_resources_ definiton_ of_ terms). Gender presentation is the expression of one’s gender which is not always connected with one’s sexual identity.
In M. Butterfly, Hwang’s character Song is a biological male posing as a woman for the Chinese opera and for Communist China as a spy. As a woman Song allows himself to be courted by Rene and they carry on a twenty year partnership. For Song this gender presentation and sexual identity he must perform with tension because of the cultural norms of Chinese Communism where, as Comrade Chin states, “…there is no homosexuality in China” (39). Song feels debased by his sexual interactions with Rene while simultaneously he desires to be worshipped and loved by him, however it is not clearly if he desires Rene for his masculine or feminine qualities. In Song’s last conversation with Rene he remarks, “…I’m disappointed in you, Rene…I thought you’d become something more. More like…a woman,” (67) expressing a desire ultimately for a woman and not a man. With Song, Hwang challenges notions of how gender and sex are conflated as well as how one’s gender expression is thought to connote one’s sexual identity.
With most the biologically female characters, Hwang imbues them with masculine qualities. Renee is sexually forward and isn’t modest about discussing male genitalia and its association with economic and political power. But perhaps the best critique of gender for a biological woman lies with Comrade Chin. Song questions Comrade Chin’s knowledge of how to be both a woman and a man. Comrade Chin is characterized as masculine through her name and her powerful position within the Communist party in China. This masculinity, however, is not in line with her sexual identity, as a heterosexual married woman.
Works Cited
Hwang, David. M. Butterfly. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1998.
http://geneq.berkeley.edu/lgbt_resources_definiton_of_terms
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