Chinese Malaysian Diaspora and Queer Politics: On the Mandarin Popular Music in Tsai Ming-liang’s Films

• Main Authors: Lee, Hao-shan Leslie, 李豪善
• Other Authors: Liu, Chih-Hui Joyce
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/fdwt4w

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 亞際文化研究國際碩士學位學程(臺灣聯合大學系統） === 104 === This thesis attempts to propose a historically contextualized reading of three films of Taiwan-based Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang— The Hole (1998), The Wayward Cloud (2005) and I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (2007)— through particularly focusing on his adaptions of the 1950-60s Shanghai/Hong Kong mandarin popular songs. Situating Tsai’s films within Taiwan’s specific cultural-political-historical context during the (post)martial law era, my study argues that Chinese Malaysian(Mahua) diaspora and queer politics are the two intersecting forces in regard to Tsai’s critical reflections over nationalisms, citizenship, sexualities, and urban development. This project is divided into five chapters. In Introduction, I trace Tsai’s life history moving back and forth between Malaysia and Taiwan, then pinpoint the emerging moment of ‘Taiwan New Wave Cinema’ that Tsai came across in the 1980s, rethink Tsai’s queer confrontation with the globalizing homonormativity, and ask what it means to be a ‘Mahua/queer’ director in Taiwan. Chapter 2 discusses The Hole with emphasis on its five musical numbers sung by the 1950s Hong Kong star Grace Chang but lip-synched by Yang Kuei-mei in contemporary Taipei. I argue that Grace Chang, along with her legacy of ‘the Cold War modernity’, is reaccessed and reconfigured in a camply parodic but rather self-reflective style. Chapter 3 analyzes The Wayward Cloud to demonstrate how Tsai looks at post-martial law Taiwan society from his ‘Mahua’ standpoint as his musical numbers not only challenge the party-state cultural memories but also are at odds with mainstream nationalist/modernizing discourses in Taiwan. The fourth deals with Tsai’s first Kuala Lumpur-based film I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone by focusing on Petaling Street’s illegal migrant/domestic workers and Tamil and Chinese songs that, I argue, represents a non-familial, non-reproductive, and consmopolitan queer subaltern community. The concluding chapter foregrounds Tsai’s works have made the articulation of Mahua and queer subjects possible as it exceeds the existing nation-states and move towards a more complex trajectory of Taiwan-Malaysia inter-subjectivities.