M Butterfly

            In the movie M Butterfly gender and ethnicity play a big role in how the characters interact with each other. Rene Gallimard is a Frenchman in China in the 1960’s. He begins an affair with Song Liling after he becomes intrigued by her performance in the play Madame Butterfly.  In the play Song plays an Asian woman that falls in love with a white man that leaves her. She is so in love that she kills herself to rid the pain of the loss. This idea appealed to Rene because he was a white westerner that would love to have the perfect woman fall for him. Rene starts to believe that Song is his own butterfly, seeing Song as the perfect woman.

            Rene is either unaware or purposefully ignoring the fact that women were not allowed to perform in plays at that time in China. For in fact, Song is a man, and throughout their entire affair Rene never realized it. Rene believed that Song, his butterfly, was the perfect woman, and he was so in love with the idea that he failed to notice the signs that Song was a man. Song never undressed in front of Rene, but he convinced Rene that Chinese women were very modest. Song made up many things about Chinese women, all which Rene believed and that added to his romanticized image of Song. A good line from the movie is when Song tells a government official “only a man knows how a woman should act.” This shows that women were inferior to men, and that men dictate how women are supposed to act. As Song acted out a woman, he embodied the quote so well that Rene believed his butterfly was perfect. Gender roles are generalized, women are modest and obedient, and men are lustful and ignorant. Rene is blinded by his own lust and grandiose idea that he had the perfect woman. Song, being a man, could easily act out the perfect woman because he knows how men think women should act. Unfortunately for Rene, Song was a great actor.

            Ethnicity is also another topic in M Butterfly. The Eastern Asian culture is seen as submissive to Western culture. Song is a representation of the Chinese seeming to need Western culture to save them. Rene feels as if he is protecting Song, and is going to rescue her and bring her to France, where everything is better. Song, on the other hand, is perfectly happy in China and needs no rescuing. The West feels like a big brother to the East, needing to watch over and protect. Song portrays the Chinese as being very traditional and modest, another generalization of Eastern culture. The traditional and modesty of the Chinese is very similar to the modesty that Song portrays as a Chinese woman. The gender and ethnic roles that Rene and Song fit into are one of the main issues that this movie addresses.