Jiaxin Yang
CCTP-505 Introduction to Communication, Culture and Technology
Annotated Bibliography and Scholarly Summary
10/06/2015
The topic I am really interested in researching is how critical theory can be applied to
the analysis of contemporary films. The theory I choose is the relationship of power
and sex in Michel Foucault’s books and the text is Ang Lee’s film Lust/Caution. I
would like to name it “Power and Sex: A Foucaultian Reading of Ang Lee’s
Lust/Caution”. Here are the annotated bibliographies.
Key terms: Foucault, Lust/Caution, Power, Sexuality, Repression
1.Chi, Robert. “Exhibitionism: Lust/Caution.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 3, no. 2 (2009):
177–87.
2.Ding, Shaoyan. “Beyond Language: The Postmodern Poetics of Ang Lee’s Adaptation of
Lust/Caution.” Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 25, no. 1 (2011):
88–101.
This article suggests that the film Lust/Caution adapted from Eileen Chang’s fiction of
the same name is a recreation full of cultural politics. The author uses Foucault’s theory
in analyzing the bodily narration in this film, which can be seen as an intellectual
product addressing the notions of “the self” and “the other”, history and identity. It aims
at deconstructing the various forms of power that have enslaved human beings,
particularly women, and demonstrating the hope for equality, tolerance and harmony in
human society.
3.Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage, 1977.
4.Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Reissue edition. New
York: Vintage, 1990.
In this book, French philosopher Michel Foucault argues against the “repressive
hypothesis” in western society from 17th to the mid-20th century, indicating that the
discourse on sexuality is encouraged during this period. Even Freud’s psychoanalysis
was based on the illusion of this hypothesis. However, in fact, in the desire to acquire
the truth of sexuality, people tend to confess their feelings and behaviors with the
guidance of the operation of power. Through deployment of sexuality, power
manipulates their bodies in creative way.
5.Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure. Vintage, 2012.
6.Hsiao-yen, Peng, and Whitney Crothers Dilley. From Eileen Chang to Ang Lee:
Lust/Caution. Routledge, 2014.
7.Kuo, Ying-Ti. “The Function of Power: Repression and Performance in Ang Lee’s: The
Wedding Banquet and Lust/CautionThe Wedding Banquet and Lust/Caution,” 2011.
This is a master thesis attempts to analyze the issue of the repression of sexuality in
the strict patriarchal society. The texts are Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and
Lust/Caution. The author presents through her reasoning how people forge their new
class, sexualities, and identities by changing their identity within social construct. She
uses part of Foucault’s authority elaboration theory and concept of resistance in The
History of Sexuality to illustrate the repression and the power deployment in these two
films.
8.Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “Ang Lee’s Lust/Caution and Its Reception.” Boundary 2 35, no. 3
(2008): 223–38.
9.Liao, Hsien-hao Sebastian. “Becoming Modernized or Simply ‘Modern’? : Sex,
Chineseness, Diasporic Consciousness in Lust/Caution.” Concentric Literary and
Cultural Studies, 36, no. 2 (2010): 181–211.
This article focuses on the modernity in Ang Lee’s Lust/Caution. There are many
unfavorable responses from both Chinese and Western critics about the extended,
seemingly self-indulgent sex scenes in the film, but this article argues that these sex
scenes are central to Ang Lee’s approach to deal with Chineseness and Diasporic
Consciousness. In Lust/Caution, Sex is a metaphor for a people-state relationship in
discussing the modern nationalism.
10.McWhorter, Ladelle. Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual
Normalization. Indiana University Press, 1999.
11.Miller, James, and Jim Miller. The Passion of Michel Foucault. Cambridge University
Press, 1993.
Begin and end with his death from AIDS, this book is presented as an intellectual
journey of Michel Foucault. The author addresses his lifelong fascination with
Nietzsche, his psychiatry study in Sweden, his radical political activism, his delving
into the world of sensation and his strong will to know. This book also contains
information of Foucault’s very personal life, the theme of homosexuality,
experimentation with drugs and a fascination with death.
Reflection:
The articles I select can be categorized into three types, including Foucault’s theory
and its explanation (3,4,5,10,11), basic themes of Ang Lee’s Lust/Caution (1,6,8,9)
and the combination of these two aspects (2,7). From Foucault’s The History of
Sexuality and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, I will learn some
important ideas of power, its rules of operation together with its relationship with
sexuality. Then I will go on to investigate on the major topics in the film and catch its
essence through related articles to get a broad picture. Finally, I will study how the
scholars use the Foucaultian view to analysis Ang Lee’s film, which is seldom
practiced. I can hardly find more information of my chosen topic. But after all, it is
my job to discover the relationship of the theory and the film.
In viewing the film Lust/Caution, these articles actually have very different
perspectives, because both Foucault’s theory and Ang Lee’s film embrace unlimited
potential of various explanations. The authors all form their logical path to come to
their own conclusions. Some of them focus on feminism, some modernization and
others adaptation, which can all provide important perspectives and structures of
reasoning for my specific topic.
However, for the two articles which apply Foucault’s theory on sex, discipline, and
power into the viewing of Lust/Caution, their reasoning concerns more about the
content and narrative of the film itself instead of a thorough understanding and
analysis of Foucault’s ideas and their implications. Viewpoints in The History of
Sexuality and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison become merely pieces of
cloth covering on the description of the film’s plot and characters. Besides, they
discuss only how the film conform to Foucault’s theory without seeing if the film
diverts from or challenge any viewpoints of Foucault. Therefore, the topic of the sex
and power relationship revealed in Ang Lee’s film might have possibilities for future
research.