"The relationship between individuals mirrors the relationship between nations." Discuss this statement with specific reference to the film.

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M. Butterfly.

“The relationship between individuals mirrors the relationship between nations.” Discuss this statement with specific reference to the film.

“The relationship between individuals mirrors the relationship between nations.” In the light of this statement, M. Butterfly, a film about a French diplomat, Rene Gallimard, being seduced by the Chinese opera actor, Song Liling, who masqueraded as an Oriental ideal woman, evolves into a tale exposing the East-West misconceptions by using the intricacies of male-female relations. Relationship between eastern nations and western nations, and that among western nations, is mirrored by the two relationships between individuals respectively: the relationship between Rene Gallimard and Song Liling, and the relationship between Rene Gallimard and Lady Baden.

 

    Relationship between Eastern nations and Western nations is mirrored by the relationship between Rene Gallimard and Song Liling. Many after watching the film have asked, “how is it possible for Gallimard to be in love with a man for twenty years, and believe all the time that he is a woman?” The answer to this question is Gallimard’s misunderstanding of the East. The Western misconceptions of the East and the Western fantasies of protective masculinity towards the East can be seen from the relationship of Gallimard and Song.

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    The misunderstanding of the West towards the East is foregrounded when Gallimard met Song after Song’s performance of Madame Butterfly. Seeing Song on stage as Cio Cio San in Madame Butterfly, an Oriental woman who kills herself for the white man Pinkerton, Gallimard assumed that Song would be an equivalent of the submissive Oriental perfect woman. Gallimard’s ignorance of the culture of the East is clearly seen as it is Chinese tradition that, in Peking opera, the female characters are played by men, which is also later pointed out by Song in the film. After the performance, ...

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