Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Chuyi Zhang: My article mainly focuses on the film Saving Face created in 2004 by Chinese American director Alice Wu, which carries a lot of meaning but does not catch as much attention as it should. From a film history perspective, it was the first Hollywood film centered on Chinese Americans’ experiences and stories since The Joy Luck Club. From the cultural studies perspective, it is a perfect case, where feminism, queer, ethnic and intercultural studies intersect altogether. However, it is not frequently mentioned in academia. The aim of my essay is to discuss and reveal how the director challenges the representation of Chinese in the dominant American narrative.
FM: What research and/or methodologies do you incorporate in your article?
CZ: The approach used in this piece is textual analysis, and the theoretical framework is mainly based on Orientalism.
FM: Describe the original context for/when writing this article while an undergraduate student.
CZ: This piece was an assignment from a module I took. I am happy it provided an opportunity for me to examine Saving Face, one of my most loved films, in a new perspective. Actually, as a film student, picking your loved film as the case to research is challenging as you have to watch it over and over again until you’re sick of it. However, in the process of research, I still could be refreshed each time and get some new interpretation even if I had been very familiar with the plot. This is really intriguing.
FM: How has your department and/or institution supported your work in film and media?
CZ: I think the most important role that my department plays is not to teach me knowledge, but to provide me space to discover something new about myself, expand the way of viewing the world, and develop critical thinking abilities.
FM: How has your faculty mentor fostered your advancement as a film scholar?
CZ: The media scholar Jamie Zhao, whose lectures I took, inspired me a lot. As a very young, prolific scholar, she makes me see what real enthusiasm and passion is. She has presented her research at more than seventy international conferences, workshops, and events. Her academic writings can be found in over twenty academic anthologies, journals, and media portals, such as Feminist Media Studies, Transformative Works and Cultures, MCLC, Journal of Oriental Studies, Celebrity Studies, Journal of Fandom Studies, the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, and Media Fields Journal.
FM: How has the Film Matters editorial and publication process impacted the development/evolution of your article?
CZ: I really appreciate the peer review and feedback I got, and I’m totally surprised I got mostly positive comments, which greatly boosts my confidence. Although there was no physical communication, the feedback I got made me feel a sense of real interactions. The suggestions my readers provided for my essay were instructive, making me know exactly which section was well-supported and which not.
FM: What audience do you hope to reach with your Film Matters article and/or what impact do you hope it has on the field of film studies?
CZ: I hope this essay can help readers who are interested in cross culture gain insight into the Orientalist representation in media landscape. The framework in this thesis — namely Orientalist discourse — has new variations nowadays, because it not only exists geographically in Occident and Orient; “other-ed” images may emerge anywhere in the world, especially in transcultural media products. I hope more and more audiences can realize that and be alert to the “other-ed” representation.
FM: What are your future plans?
CZ: Interestingly, after I finished this paper, the director Alice Wu’s second film by Netflix was released, which still tells a story about a Chinese American girl. I hope to conduct serial research on the representation of female characters in Alice Wu’s new film.
Author Biography
Chuyi Zhang is a documentary filmmaker, and recently obtained her BA in film and TV production from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She is keen on independent films with a feminism perspective in global range, and a wide array of topics on Chinese-language transcultural films.
