The Blue Kite Analysis

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In the essay “The Three Father Figures In Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Film The Blue Kite: The Emasculation of Males by the Communist Party”, Hanna Nielsen describes how men were stripped of their power by the Communist party, at least as depicted by The Blue Kite. “They are all incapable of fulfilling the traditional role of the father because this role is usurped by the Party to which their lives will be ultimately forfeit.” (Nielsen 84) “They” being the three fathers the main character loses over the course of the film, which according to Nielsen are replaced by the party. However, in focusing almost entirely on the men of the story, both Nielsen and the film are guilty of ignoring the women in the story. Similar to Nielsen’s point about emasculating men, I would argue that The Blue Kite also presents a narrative of women being defeminized as the party disrupts the traditional workings of the home. To use the word “defeminizing” is to acknowledge and deliberately play into the traditional …show more content…

Zhu Ying was a member of the military’s theatre troupe, and about to be a member of the party, until she refused to sleep with party members. After that, they transferred and then imprisoned her. While her role in the military could have made Zhu Ying an androgynous figure, an emblem of communist gender equality, the party’s expectation that she have sex with party members makes her a sexual object, which is its own form of feminization. Zhu Ying is allowed to retain her femininity only if she consents to being a sexual object; when she does not, she is sent to be a laborer, and later imprisoned. Moreover, by being separated from her boyfriend, her chance at domestic happiness is taken away. After imprisonment, she has no opportunity to fill the traditional female role of marriage and children (which she may or may not have desired). Thus, the party halts the “natural” order of marriage and

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