WHILE Pushing Hands was a hit in Taiwan and popular in Asian markets, The Wedding Banquet was Ang Lee’s breakout film for the American general public. Although the film dealt with less-than-mainstream subject matter, according to coproducer James Schamus, the storyline followed the arc of a typical 1930s Hollywood screwball comedy—“except that it was gay and Chinese.”1 The film’s plot is perhaps by now familiar—a Chinese son, Wai-Tung (Winston Chao), with a gay American lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein), wishes to get his parents to stop badgering him to marry; he is unwilling to tell them the truth about his homosexuality for fear of breaking their hearts. Simon comes up with the suggestion of a sham marriage between Wai-Tung and their Shanghainese artist friend Wei Wei (May Chin). Wei Wei moves into the basement and everything is fine until Wai-Tung’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gao (Sihung Lung and Ah-Leh Gua) decide to make the trip from Taiwan to attend the wedding. The young couple’s plans for a small civil ceremony at City Hall are thwarted when an old friend of Wai-Tung’s father offers his posh restaurant for a huge traditional Chinese wedding banquet. The plans go further awry when Wei Wei and Wai-Tung spend a drunken wedding night together, and Wei Wei becomes pregnant from that single encounter.
The construction of this film, in which the five main characters are trying to conceal things from one another, is complex and poignant. Ultimately, although Wai-Tung wishes to keep his homosexual identity a secret, his father sees through the pretense. The father does not let his son know that he knows, however; instead he shares the secret with his son’s gay lover, by offering him a red envelope to welcome him as a kind of “son-in-law.” The father and the son are both keeping secrets from each other and living under the pretense of normality—both are playing along by pretending the wedding is real and the son is not gay. This unresolved tension fuels the movie’s somewhat madcap hijinks; even at the end of the film, this tension remains unresolved, as the father departs without revealing to his son what he knows—in experiencing The Wedding Banquet, only the viewer is allowed a universal, privileged viewpoint.
Wedding Banquet’s structure is unique in its balance of its five principal roles. It opens with a scene of Wai-Tung going through an elaborate exercise routine with weights and weight machines. The calm and meticulous manner in which he works combined with his expressionless face suggest a meditative state, while the greenish lighting and shiny, metallic glitter of the machines contributes to a sense of institutional aseptic cleanliness. The voice-over is an older woman whom the viewer comes to realize is the man’s mother who has recorded a letter to him (which he listens to on headphones as he mechanically completes his exercise routines). There is an interesting contrast, too, between his attractively muscular, sweating body on the one hand, and his passive, expressionless face as he listens to the letter. He does not react with warmth or any other emotion in those inhuman surroundings, so the viewer is uncertain what to make of it.
At the beginning of the film, as Chris Berry (2003) observes, the opening sequence appears to suggest this will be Wai-Tung’s story. However, as the film goes on, the other characters are given screen time and backstory in almost equal amounts. The viewer is treated to a scene of Simon at work in his job as a physical therapist, and Wei Wei’s background as an artist and rugged individualist from China is also fleshed out. When the parents arrive in New York, their history and personalities are also revealed through their intimate conversations not only with their son, but with Simon, and especially in the conversations between Wai-Tung’s mother and Wei Wei. Berry notes that the group must thus be observed as a unit, and that the narrative reflects how powerfully decisions made in the film impact the five-member family unit as a whole. There are many scenes to back this up: the final scene at the airport when they all look at the photo album; the group eating despondently together after the courthouse wedding; and the many “family” dinners at home and discussions around the dinner table. There is an especially funny moment when all five are asked to join in a wedding ritual together and Simon takes a running leap over the long train of Wei Wei’s wedding dress; this indecorous behavior shocks the visiting parents.
An elaborate ruse: Wei Wei and Wai-Tung pay respect to Wai-Tung’s parents while real lover Simon stands by.
Latin-inflected music, such as salsa and tango, is used throughout the film, adding both a comic and high-energy touch to the narrative, and serving a structural purpose. The salsa and tango are intense and sexually provocative dances, and this film provides an elaborate dance among its leads. In addition, in tango and salsa, the focus is on one’s partner and one’s connection with the other, listening to the other’s “body language” and imagining what he/she might be experiencing. The tango’s intensity is created by the flow of creativity that comes from the unusual freedom in tango to improvise. Thus, the high art of tango dancing serves as a good metaphor for this film in which characters must keep a connection with each other while responding to unexpected improvisation and the complex maneuvers of the dance, which include swapping partners. This elaborate switching of partners in the film includes Wai-Tung with Simon, Wai-Tung with Wei Wei, Wei Wei with Wai-Tung’s mother, and Wai-Tung with his own father. In the final, unexpected maneuver, Wai-Tung’s father “dances” with Simon, as he reveals his true heart. Two standard Latin numbers in the soundtrack include “Quisiera Ser” and “Virgenes del Sol.”2
The Use of Language in The Wedding Banquet
Language plays a humorous role in this film as the language barrier enables the five main characters to gossip around the dinner table in their respective languages. Wei Wei’s pregnancy is discussed in English by the younger characters, while Wai-Tung’s mother wonders aloud in Chinese what the argument is about, asking, “Didn’t Wai-Tung pay his rent?” Another hilarious scene in the film is the civil wedding ceremony at City Hall, which details the truncated and comical wedding vows pronounced by the judge and the Chinese couple—Lee has said he based this scene on his own nuptials—where the judge calls the bride “Wee-wee,” and the bride takes the vow “in sickness and death,” rather than “in sickness and health.”
The climactic scene in The Wedding Banquet is one in which the language barrier between the Chinese-speaking father and the English-speaking Simon is broken. They have not communicated directly throughout the movie; instead, the language barrier between them has prevented them from being able to have any honest communication at all. In one scene, the father mutters complaints in Chinese as Simon helps him do physical therapy. The father expresses his frustration about the pain of the physical exercises and yearns for a cigarette. Simon reacts without comprehension or care; he simply says, “Yes … right.” In another scene, Simon shouts and rages in front of Wai-Tung’s parents about Wei Wei’s pregnancy. When asked by Wai-Tung to be quiet, Simon shouts out that Wai-Tung’s parents do not even understand English so they cannot possibly know what he is saying. He also shouts out the telling line, “I will speak my own language in my own house!”
Because the father and mother have spoken nothing but Chinese throughout the movie, the final climax comes as a palpable shock, when the father speaks several sentences of clear English to Simon. “Happy Birthday, Simon,” he says, offering him the red envelope as a gift. Simon is clearly stunned that the language barrier has been broken; Mr. Gao’s English is fluent and smooth, thus revealing that his knowledge of the English language far surpasses what everyone (including the viewer) has been led to believe. This is a great moment in the film, signaled by the switch of language by one of the main characters. Simon expresses further surprise when he opens the envelope of crisp bills and understands the implications of the father’s gift. “Ba,” he stammers, “You know … you’ve known.” The father replies in English: “I watch, I hear, I learn. Wai-Tung is my son, so you are my son, also.” The process of watching, listening, and learning is also that undergone by a non-English speaker in the process of adapting to a new culture; this underscores the twice-over “adaptation” of the father—first in breaking through the language barrier between Chinese and English, and second in his shattering of cultural taboos through tenuous acceptance of his son’s homosexuality.
The quiet slow-motion final scene as the father raises his arms over his head for a security check and the screen slowly fades to black can be read in a variety of ways. Most commonly, this ending is viewed with relation to qigong martial arts, where the father strikes a pose (resembling a graceful crane with wings aloft) in the physical art of qigong. This dignified movement of qigong reiterates the Chinese narrative and implies that the patriarch of the family has come to terms with his son’s situation; his smooth and confident movement, like a bird taking flight, demonstrates that he is at peace with his son’s decision. Interestingly, like many of Ang Lee’s endings, it can also be interpreted as ambiguous and inconclusive—this duality of interpretation is a fascinating dimension in Lee’s work. For example, the pose of the father raising his hands at the bidding of the customs official also (to the Western eye) looks very much like a position of surrender. In this interpretation, the father is read to have been overwhelmed by the dynamics of change caused by modernizing global influences which force him to release his once-rigid ideology and embrace his son’s choice. The two interpretations demonstrate how this film can be read differently through different cultural lenses, and yet still be understood as a coherent narrative with basically—but not quite—the same meaning.
Personal Reflection and Autobiographical Detail
Ang Lee’s confronting of his own emotions about his father played an important role in the film. He says: “For me, all of my first three movies up until Eat Drink Man Woman (which I didn’t understand until I made the third one) are actually a trilogy about my father … and the need for the releasing [letting go] of the Chinese tradition, so to speak. … The thing that used to be [the backbone of Chinese society] and provide us security is now drifting away.”3 There is a poignant scene in The Wedding Banquet in which the father proudly insists on washing the dishes after the meal—an inversion of the traditional male/female roles. The father says in Chinese, “Simon cooked, so [Dad] will wash the dishes.” It is as if he is trying to learn to live in a new way, and make sense of this new modern world where traditional male/female roles can be called into question. In the process of the washing, however, he drops a dish, which shatters on the floor, suggesting the difficulty of his learning and accepting a new way of life. This signifies Lee’s conflict with his own father, a highly traditional man who had difficulty accepting his son’s choice to be a mere “entertainer”—a walk of life that does not command respect in traditional Chinese culture. Because Lee was the firstborn son in his family, he felt guilty not honoring his father’s expectations with his career choice. Referring to the making of The Wedding Banquet, he explains, “It’s a tremendous guilt on my part … I ended up an entertainer … It’s a tremendous guilt I felt toward my father. I had to work it out of my system.”4
Lee describes the film in autobiographical terms:
A lot of the scenes in The Wedding Banquet [are taken directly from] my personal story (although I don’t live a gay life), but the way I talk to my parents, the parents’ dialogue, is pretty much strictly from my parents. And things like the City Hall marriage is pretty much a documentary of mine [laughs]. … It was just a mess. My mother just kept crying, “It was shabby, it was such a disgrace,” and my father [he makes a grimace]. … I carried that guilt for a long time.5
These lines from the screenplay reflect this autobiographical nature of the writing:
| Mr. Gao: |
Wai-Tung, you’re getting married. I have to tell you something. Do you know why I joined the military? |
| Wai-Tung: |
You responded to General Chiang’s call to join the army during the Sino-Japanese War. |
| Mr. Gao: |
No. I wanted to run away from home. So I joined the army. Your grandpa had arranged a marriage for me. I got mad and just took off. After the war, we fought the Communists. A relative escaped to Taiwan and brought me a letter from your grandpa. He told me that there was no longer a Gao family and that I should start my own family outside the mainland, to continue the family name. Son, imagine how I feel to be able to attend your wedding.6 |
What makes this scene especially moving is that the Gao family history in this film—the grandparents killed when Communist rule began in China, the father escaping alone to Taiwan—reflects Ang Lee’s own family history. Similarly, as the firstborn son, he was obligated to carry the mantle of the Lee family. Disappointing his own father with his career choice (as a movie director) parallels Wai-Tung disappointing his father with his lifestyle choice (as a homosexual).
Politics and Homosexuality in The Wedding Banquet
A striking aspect of this film is the controversial line “Wo yao jiefang ni” (“I’m going to liberate you”). This line is uttered as the newly-married Wai-Tung and Wei Wei enjoy their first moments of solitude in their wedding suite, and the drunken Wei Wei begins physically seducing her new husband. Wei Wei has always harbored a deep affection for Wai-Tung (she expresses jealousy when she sees him “dating” another girl), and her infatuation grows as the film progresses to their wedding night. As she prepares for the wedding, at points she seems to hold out the hope that the marriage will become a true one. The viewer has become sympathetic to Wei Wei’s plight as she has had to play-act intimacy with her pretend groom, and genuine intimacy grows between her and Wai-Tung’s family. Here it is emphasized that although the conspiracy of the sham marriage was designed not to hurt anybody, there is indeed a price to be paid for this web of deceit. Wei Wei’s loneliness is underscored by a tearful long-distance phone call to her family in Shanghai as she is getting ready on the morning of her wedding. She does not tell them she is getting married, which illustrates again how alone she is in the situation. At the wedding banquet itself, when the couple is goaded by the crowd to kiss (“Put some passion into it!”), Wei Wei becomes visibly aroused and can barely keep her balance. On the wedding night, in the half-asleep predawn drunken state that Wei Wei and Wai-Tung find themselves in, they lie on the bed with their eyes closed. Suddenly Wai-Tung’s eyes fly open; he asks Wei Wei what she is doing with her hand. Wei Wei responds seductively that Wai-Tung had lied when he said he had no attraction to women. He asks her to stop, but then she pronounces the fateful line, “I’m going to liberate you.” This line demonstrates her desire to “normalize” her gay husband—she wants him to enjoy a heterosexual relationship with her, so that her dreams of a real marriage can be realized. Dariotis and Fung’s polemic is that, because of Wai-Tung’s refusal and because of Wei Wei’s agression and dominant physical posture, this qualifies as a “rape”—however, in their view, this aggressive act results in her (re)location to a position of domesticity as Wai-Tung’s pregnant wife.7
At the same time, in Wei Wei’s pronunciation of the line “Wo yao jiefang ni,” she uses the language of political liberation. Several critics have commented on the union created by a Taiwanese man and a mainland Chinese woman; therefore, the line “I am going to liberate you” would have political significance. Gina Marchetti (2000) analyzes this allegorically: “The nature of this ‘liberation’ remains uncertain: Is Taiwan, the wayward province, returned to the motherland, or is Taiwan, the bourgeois, decadent (homosexual) spawn of intercourse with America, returned to a ‘true,’ ‘Chinese’ (heterosexual) path? Or is Wai-Tung, ironically, really liberating Wei Wei from communism?”8 Even more overt and unambiguous is the film’s satiric treatment of a “sham marriage” between a Taiwanese man and a mainland Chinese woman—the idea is that the “unity” between Taiwan and China is also a sham. Marchetti notes that the political allegory concerning relations between Taiwan and the mainland is highlighted for Mandarin speakers, particularly in the scene in which Mr. Gao blesses the union of Wai-Tung and Wei Wei as a coming together of Taiwan and China. Continuing the allegory, Marchetti observes:
In any intercourse between the two Chinas (embodied by Wai-Tung and Wei Wei) America (Simon) plays a critical role. America ambivalently brings the Chinas together (i.e., Simon suggests the marriage of convenience to Wai-Tung as a way to solve both his and Wei Wei’s problems) and pushes them apart (i.e., Simon threatens to leave Wai-Tung when he learns that his lover has had sex with Wei Wei, which, in turn, pushes a lovelorn Wai-Tung to distance himself from Wei Wei, the cause of the problem.9
Ultimately, however, Wai-Tung reconciles with Simon, and Wei Wei invites Simon to be the second father to her baby. Therefore, at the end of the film, the allegorical relationship between the three characters continues to mirror this political situation. Marchetti notes: “America may not be to everyone’s liking, but allegorically it is accepted, in this case, as a bedfellow.”10
Chinese critics have noted the different reception of The Wedding Banquet among Chinese and Western audiences; the cultural bias of the audience determines what they will “see” in the film. Eileen Chow (1997) has noted this divergence of details during the frenetic scene in which the two men frantically attempt to “redecorate” their home as a heterosexual environment, in preparation for the arrival of Wai-Tung’s parents. The homosexual signifiers, such as the scantily clad “Ken” doll, are removed and replaced with Chinese calligraphy scrolls, the representation of classical Chinese moral rectitude. The scrolls include a poem by Tang poet Bai Juyi (Po Chü-yi, 772–846), who, like the renowned Tang poet Du Fu, was deeply concerned with the social problems of his time. While the Chinese viewer is unaware of the humorous significance of a “Ken” doll as an American homosexual signifier, the Western viewer is unable to read the Chinese calligraphy on the scrolls; thus, both the Chinese and Western viewer are not “seeing” vital cultural clues in the film. Chow describes attending a cinema screening of The Wedding Banquet where Chinese and American audience members laughed aloud at different times and at different images and jokes. This dichotomy is underscored by the reception of the film in other countries as well. For example, in France, the promotional campaign for the film brought Simon’s character to the forefront; the film’s French title was Garςon d’Honneur (The Best Man). The film’s advertising showed Simon and Wei Wei in the foreground with intimacy suggested between them, while Wai-Tung’s character hovered more in the background; Mitchell Lichtenstein’s name was also listed first in the caption. Dariotis and Fung have commented that this not only brings to mind David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, but that it demonstrates a privileging of the Western viewpoint over the Chinese, referring principally to the Caucasian man’s struggle with sexual identity.11
The screenplay published by Neil Peng in Taiwan (Lee and Peng 1993) is different from the final cut of the film; Peng wanted to publish the original award-winning screenplay that had won second prize in the Taiwan government’s screenwriting contest. This version had Wai-Tung working at an advertising agency designing advertisements for products for left-handed people. Wai-Tung’s company presentation is thus an object-lesson about conventional treatment of homosexuality in Taiwan:
| Wai-Tung: |
The problem as I see it then is this: In Taiwan most left handers are made over to be right-handed, “converted” if you will, to the recognized majority, so our challenge would be to encourage the Chinese lefties to use your product. Now, the way to do that might be to [attract] right-handed customers to buy your merchandise as a gift for their left-handed friends and relatives. For example, children might buy a present for their mothers on Mother’s Day or a lover for his sweetheart on Valentine’s Day; this might be the ideal means to promote your merchandise. … We must recognize that the people who will buy your product are not necessarily the same people who will use it. To buy such merchandise will show the customer to be a very considerate individual, one who thinks of the needs of others.12 |
In addition, in the initial screenplay, Wai-Tung and Simon originally lived in suburban Connecticut, rather than in a trendy brownstone in Greenwich Village. It was James Schamus who was able to add a credible New York flavor to the script. Simon’s character was expanded by Schamus and made more likeable. Moreover, lines from the marriage scene at City Hall (one of the funniest examples of English dialogue in the final version) did not appear in the original screenplay. The conflict between Wei Wei and Simon is spelled out clearly when, after the wedding night, they confront each other in a heated argument over Wai-Tung’s sexuality; although this dischord and jealousy between Simon and Wei Wei seems very believable under the circumstances, the scene was excised from the final version of the screenplay to preserve a tone of comic levity. Finally, the ending of the film is different. There is no evidence of the trenchant final image of Mr. Gao raising his arms for the security check; instead, when the Gao parents leave the younger generation and walk through the airport hall to their plane, Mrs. Gao begins to cry inconsolably. The ending of the original screenplay had Wai-Tung and Wei Wei discuss legal details of “joint custody” of the child, and the film ended with the line, “Have you thought of a name yet?”
In locating the film’s viewpoint toward homosexuality, Dariotis and Fung examine the screenplay’s ambivalence about the topic, noting that in the original screenplay, Wei Wei calls the two men “vampires” during an argument. The film’s denouement also deals uneasily with the subject of homosexuality from the Chinese point of view, without answering the complex questions it raises. With his father in the hospital and his condition uncertain, Wai-Tung breaks down and shares his life’s biggest secret with his mother. At first, Mrs. Gao innocently thinks he is talking about Wei Wei’s pregnancy. This scene makes it very clear that this secret is a shameful one in Chinese culture; Wai-Tung and his mother agree to spare his father from knowing the truth. Meanwhile, Mrs. Gao’s response to Wai-Tung’s revelation is both naïve and telling. Mrs. Gao wonders aloud if perhaps Wai-Tung has been “made” gay since arriving in the U.S., citing past girlfriends he had in Taiwan. She asks Wai-Tung “Did Simon lead you astray?” This very truthful scene demonstrates a further dimension of the situation—that of foreignness and alienation “causing” homosexuality. This is rightly observed by Dariotis and Fung, whose lengthy argument about the film’s ambivalent stance toward homosexuality can be found in their 1997 article on the film.13 The argument is echoed by Gina Marchetti: “Avowedly homosexual, [Wai-Tung] falls for a woman and impregnates her. He upholds a Chinese tradition of filial piety and duty and still manages to keep his male lover. Is he gay? Is he heterosexual?”14
The treatment of the film’s homosexual theme is dealt with at length in screenwriter Neil Peng’s preface and postface to the published screenplay of The Wedding Banquet. In his preface, Peng relates the personal story of his childhood friend from Taiwan (identified only by the initial “A”) “coming out” to him in America, and the dilemma “A” experienced in keeping the truth from his parents (like Wai-Tung, “A” was the only male child in his family). This is where the core of the story developed. Peng relates how his friend said “Wo shi gay” or “I am gay” (using the adjective in English), pointing to a tendency to look at gay life as “Western” or “foreign.” In his preface to The Wedding Banquet screenplay, Peng describes how he and “A” were friends in middle school and high school in Taiwan; by coincidence, Ang Lee also met “A” when they served in Taiwan’s compulsory military service together. Going abroad for graduate school, “A” experienced true freedom for the first time as a gay man in the American gay community, whereupon he decided to make his home permanently in the U.S. after finishing his studies.15 In the closing credits of The Wedding Banquet, the film is dedicated to “N. Yu and his longtime companion B. Geyer”—most likely the true identity of “A” and his Western companion. In his preface and postface, Neil Peng also details the history of the American gay liberation movement and states the hope that the film will reduce Chinese stigmatization of homosexuality. The book contains a photograph of Ang Lee with May Chin and Winston Chao attending a Gay Pride demonstration in New York City to research their roles. Peng writes that Lee’s attitude toward homosexuals matured over the years as he lived in America; he came to strongly believe that the screenplay should not treat them as “different”—this is reinforced not only by The Wedding Banquet screenplay but by Lee’s stance in the making of Brokeback Mountain. Interestingly, The Wedding Banquet is the only film of Lee’s in which the director himself appears. It is curious that he made the decision to appear as a wedding guest and to utter the comic line, in response to an American guest’s surprise at the over-the-top wedding antics: “You’re witnessing the result of five thousand years of sexual repression.”16 This demonstrates the filmmaker’s strong criticism of this repressive aspect of Chinese culture.
Intimate Revelation
Written in 1987, The Wedding Banquet was not made until six years later. When it came to raising money to make the film, the idea proved too Chinese to raise money in the United States, while at the same time too gay for China. As noted previously, Ang Lee entered a film contest held by the Taiwanese government, in which his main submission was Pushing Hands; he submitted The Wedding Banquet almost as an afterthought. Pushing Hands was released only in Taiwan, where it was well received. The Wedding Banquet was made for under US$1 million and took fewer than six weeks to complete. As noted, this film earned more than US$23 million internationally and enjoyed phenomenal success, making it the most financially lucrative return on investment for a movie in 1993. Although the problems with financing demonstrated that the subject matter was difficult, Lee felt that it was essential to ensure that the important issues that the film discusses were able to make it to the screen. For him, the encouragement of honest debate amongst a wider audience was paramount. As he says:
I have both theatrical and cinema backgrounds; the bottom line is you have to be willing to open up to your viewer, expose yourself—although you open yourself up to criticism and all that—you have to take that step. You have to be moved by your material at a gut level. [I have to] constantly judge if I’m being honest with how I feel, and what I put on the screen. I think people respond to that … Honesty is the best policy. It’s just the best way I’ve found to live my life and go about my career, and hopefully be able to sleep at night.17
In the film’s closing credits, Ang Lee offers special thanks to his father, Lee Sheng, his mother (Su-Tsung Yung), and his wife (Jane Lin). In certain respects, this film is the most personal of all of Lee’s works, in its heartwrenching yearning for parental acceptance. Lee has also said that he had great fun making this film, both because of the celebratory atmosphere among the Taiwanese cast and crew as they filmed typical Chinese wedding customs (the raucous partying in the bridal suite; the late-night game of mahjong, etc.) and the similarities with his own wedding (at which he confesses he drank too much, just as Wai-Tung did). Ang Lee’s younger son, Mason, makes his first appearance in The Wedding Banquet, jumping on the bridal bed in a prewedding ritual and kissing the blindfolded bride in a game at the banquet itself. Jane Lin (carrying Mason in her arms) and Haan also appear in the wedding festivities. With the appearance of each of his own family members onscreen and a cameo of the director himself, as well as the screenplay’s nearly word-for-word recording of conversations between Ang Lee and his own father, The Wedding Banquet intimately reveals the heart of its director.