Raise The Red Lantern: Chinese Cinema

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) a Chinese film directed by Zhang Yimou is a pertinent example of traditional Chinese cultural and societal norms and practices related to women’s position and value in society.  Raise the Red Lantern is the melodrama of a 19-year-old female, Songlian who is forced to marry a rich landowner, becoming his fourth mistress.  I would like to analyze this film through a feminist lens such as is provided by Laura Mulvey in Gordon Gray’s Cinema: A Visual Anthropology to critique pivotal themes in the film such as the autonomy, agency, value and status of women reflected through their presentation in this film. 

From the inception of the film, the act of necessitating Songlian to enter a marriage with a 60 year old man reflects the commodification, diminished status and minimized value of women, thus perhaps inferring a woman’s value and identity as premised on and reflected by her tie to a man. Raise the Red Lantern portrays a sexist, androcentric, patriarchal society reflected by the male head, referred to as ‘master,’ claiming ownership over four mistresses. The ‘master’s’ mistresses are also pitted in constant competition against one another, vying for his attention, thus giving more perceived power to the ‘master’ figure, while presenting the women as solely interested in attaining a male’s attention.  Therefore, the women in this film are presented with limited, minimal agency and autonomy and maintain a status and value directly correlated with the amount of attention they receive from the ‘master’.  This film reflects a confucionist society with rigid class and gender lines and customs, which – in the context of this particular film – oppresses women and reinforce their ‘proper’ place as below or subservient to a male. 

  Feminist film theory may be used to explore the oppression of women in this film by examining the demeaning ways in which women are presented and treated, which perhaps  correlates with the way they may be perceived; thus reinforcing the argument that they are oppressed, stripped of autonomy and agency, value and status in Raise the Red Lantern. Throughout the film there are many tight shots (close-up’s) of the women’s faces, however, there were no close ups of Chen’s – the master – face, therefore perhaps signifying an oppressive attitude towards women by suggesting the insolence of a women looking directly into her husbands face.  Further, a feminist film theory approach may critique the portrayal of Raise the Red Lantern by exploring how men are presented as powerful, strong and dominant, while not only are women the subjects of male-gaze, but also fetishism is applied to their bodies.  It is argued that, “the very act of cinema-going is voyeuristic and by looking at the subject (the male viewer) gains power and control over the object of their gaze—usually a woman or more precisely a woman’s body” (Gray, 2010: 59).  In the majority of the shots of the women in Raise the Red Lantern, one, single, specific part of women’s bodies is focused on exclusively; mainly the women’s upper torso from the top of the head to the bottom of the chest. The way the women are presented in this film may create a space for the sexual objectification and exploitation of women, thus allowing males to feel a sense of viewing dominance, and voyeuristic power over the females in the film.  The separation of women’s bodies proliferate in this film perhaps reflects the shaping of patriarchal order and an oppressive attitude towards women through their appearance perhaps coded for visual erotic impact, reflecting the objectification of the female body for male’s gaze and pleasure. Further, the separation of the females’ bodies and suggested portrayal of the women sleeping with the ‘master’ at his beckon call, suggested through quick shots throughout the film of the mistresses beginning to undress in his presence, perhaps also reflects women bodies as turned solely into objects of desire, portraying women’s bodies as stripped of agency and autonomy thus reflecting the subservience and devaluation of women.   Therefore, through the assertion of the principal male character as the ‘master’ and the ways in which women are presented in the film, perhaps influences the male viewers gaze, giving them a sense of voyeuristic power and privilege throughout the film over the viewership of the women’s bodies.

This is  the trailer for Raise the Red Lantern!

Bibliography

 1. Mulvey, Laura                                                                                                                                                1975 Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16 (3): 6–18.

2. Gray, Gordon                                                                                                                                                2010 Film Theory. In Cinema: A Visual Anthropology, Pp, 35-73. Oxford, New York:               Berg.