Stacie Leung

Manual Perez-Tejada

English 1102: 1:30

March 12, 2009

Cultural Hybrids and the Feminist Progression

The endowed American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor, Quentin Jerome Tarantino has created a collection of the most violent and brutal, nonlinear storytellers in the Hollywood film industry. Tarantino, an Academy, BAFTA and Palm d’Or Award winner has a talent for his unconventional method of telling a story. Known to be greatly influenced by the African American and Asian cultures, evident in much of his works, Tarantino has a pattern of culturizing his films. Whether or not he intends to integrate techniques of hybridization and culturalization in his films, Quentin’s motion pictures obliquely address social issues of the world and politics. Alongside these themes of hybridization and globalization is a native-born Chinese director, Ang Lee. Contrast to Tarantino, Lee’s films has recurring themes of alienation, marginalization, and repression. Raised with a strong emphasis on Chinese classics, his films focus on traditions and modernity. References to historical realism and martial law, Lee’s dedication to his Asian descendants have inadvertently strengthened the national identity and traditions of China. One notable characteristic in his Academy and Best Foreign Language Film picture, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is his allusion to feminism and the transition of the feminist movement in Asian culture. The two films concentrated on in this essay are Tarantino’s globalization with Kill Bill and Lee’s national view through feminism with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. My argument will revolve around the different trends seen in Lee and Tarantino’s works in hybridization and the feminist portrayal in the international film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; as well as how these traditions vary with respect to Hollywood’s misconceptions and stereotypes of female action characters.

The fourth movie of writer/director Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill is an epic long movie, requiring roughly four hours of viewing time. An action drama of bloody revenge, this film stars actress Uma Thurman, known in the film as one of many names: Beatrix Kiddo, Black Mamba, The Bride, and Mommy. Seeking revenge four years later after a coma received from a violent massacre at her wedding in an El Paso wedding chapel, Uma is on a quest to kill. One by one, crossing off her victims names from her list as she kills them, The Bride incorporates Eastern Asian tactics during confrontation with the enemies. Director, Tarantino, used plenty of globalization techniques in composing this film. Homage to: Hong Kong martial arts movies, Japanese samurai films, and Italian spaghetti westerns, Quentin Tarantino displayed a flawless integration of cultural backgrounds compressed in one film.

Homage to kung-fu and spaghetti westerns, Kill Bill intrinsically intertwines cultures from Hong Kong and other East Asian countries with Italian trends and even a Mexican backdrop. Lately, hybridization of cultures has become an ongoing trend in cultural production; globalizing and localizing the culture industry. Hybridization of culture becomes more than combining, mixing, and blending multiple elements of different sources. The culture hybridization done by Tarantino creates connections with the different elements. Instead of a faceless whole of cultures, this type of hybridization creates new forms of “indie” culture (Wang, Yeh 1). This mix and blend of cultures is more intrinsic than a stir fry of a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. This independent creation of something completely new highlights the talent behind Tarantino in making this film.

Directed by Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts style movie with similar choreography of The Matrix. Highlighting similar fighting techniques from Kill Bill and vice versa, Crouching Tiger illustrates the difficulty in making hybrids of and globalizing culture. Nationalizing their traditions and alluding to popular Chinese and Asian cultures, this film strikes the idea of “reculturalization,” closely related to the background of the producer’s style of play, moreover his past and current inspirations (Wang, Yeh 1).

Released across seas, the independent, international new line cinema, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon also has a transparent focus on Asian female roles in Hong Kong and Chinese martial arts films (Kim 1). As a primary focus of this essay, Lee’s film illustrates female action stars playing heroic roles; taking control, charge, and containing leadership qualities, Shanghai cinema shows a greater appreciation toward the roles and positions women partake into the society. In this society, women are more respected. They are not just supple and submissive females awaiting to be saved by their “knight and shining armor.” Developed from the Peking Opera traditions as well as Chinese martial arts, Asian women are very active in action films and take many leading roles in film (Kim 3; Zhu 1).

These Oriental views and Asian reception of female roles vary enormously in comparison to the Western perception. Giving vivid context and meaningful roles as action figures without the erroneous and exotic appeal of the female figure, the cultural context of Chinese cinema on women keeps their dignity and in some views, their pride and respect. Cleaving the body and intensity of skin shown, Hollywood tends to rely on making something out of a female character by somehow showing some exoticism in their self-image. It is too often in Hollywood for a major female role to surpass some sexual content in attire, or lack thereof (Kim 4).

A great allusion of Hollywood’s partake in this biased view of women would be Angelina Jolie. Playing major roles such as Lara croft in Tomb Raider, through the use of mise-en-scene, Jolie’s character is dressed in some sort of skin-tight black sheer fabric hugged snugly around her curves. From the multiple outfits designed for the role of Lara Croft, they all seem to stress and extenuate her body for larger sex appeals to the audience. Another example of Jolie’s provocative “badass” action roles in Hollywood is seen in Timur Bekmambetov’s, Wanted. Angelina Jolie plays the role of Fox, a Fraternity assassin who is screened as tough, distant and unattainable. Publicized through media as a memorable scene of the movie is the moment Jolie emerges from a steaming bath and walks by with camera panning on the tattoos imprinted on her back. In contrast to the roles Jolie has played throughout Hollywood, Uma Thurman’s role in Kill Bill shows more of the traditional qualities of Asian cinema.

Grasping techniques from Asian films, scenes throughout Kill Bill show a lot of hybridization techniques of Director Tarantino. Straying from the typical depiction of femininity in Hollywood, Beatrix Kiddo, the vengeful bride, is tailored in a full, yellow body suit; completely concealing her skin, yet giving the suit the appearance of an action fighter. Unlike movies such as Charlie’s Angels, this movie doesn’t make a mockery out of female roles and takes a more serious approach to things. In Charlie’s Angels, the three women are presented as cute, attractive, sassy babes (Kim 5). As reflected by the cover of the special edition DVD, it is noticeable in how the three “Angels” strike a pose as they would for the cover of a glamorous magazine, in comparison to the image of Uma, sculpted with a face of confidence and strength. Parallel to Uma, the stances of the two women on the cover of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s DVD strike fear in their enemies eyes.

Strong approaches stemmed from the Asian tactics of cinema seen in Crouching Tiger, the production of Kill Bill has gained cinematic values by hybridizing its plot and transforming its Hollywood view of female action stars. The majority of the action scenes throughout this film consist of two stiff, fearless women ready to take each other on. With its use of Asian warrior swords, this Hollywood budgeted movie depicts tools of hybridization with a cultural crossover to the Asian traditional approach of characterizing female action figures. A specific scene which portrays all of these qualities is the final duel between Lucy Liu’s character, O-Ren Ishii, and The Bride. The setting is located outside the House of Blue Leaves, which gives the audience an instant feel of the Asian culture. Presented face to face, ready to battle, the camera shows the two approaching each other with envy. Crossing swords multiple times, the martial arts tactics come into play once again; while the two women are represented as powerful, well respected leaders.

Two movies closely related yet produced thousands of miles away, Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2 display many similar qualities and techniques in production in comparison to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. One movie, filmed largely in the western coast of America and the other predominately filmed in Eastern Asia, the two pictures had large impacts on both countries’ movie audience. Films with such appeal to two different worlds, the directors of the two movies have showed how globalization, nationalization, and hybridization have such large impacts in film. Combining cinematic techniques from Italy to the Asian roots, Kill Bill is a creation of an absolute hybrid of cultures. Within this fusion of cultural aspects is Tarantino’s feminist portrayal of female action roles. Alongside Tarantino’s work comes Ang Lee’s embodiment of Asian cultural representations and influences of women in Crouching Tiger, released world-wide. With a notable focus on the effect of female characters in his film, the portrayal of Ang Lee globalizes the equality of women with men in Asian cultures through film. Chinese cinema has widened the media’s representation of passive dependent women, to strong leaders of heuristic qualities. Lee’s more traditional approach in comparison to Tarantino’s globalized draw outline some differences in cinematic approach of Hollywood and Shanghai film (Zhu 2).