{"id":45300,"date":"2026-04-18T00:02:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=45300"},"modified":"2026-04-18T00:02:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:02:38","slug":"how-m-butterfly-with-jeremy-irons-subverted-western-fantasies-of-chinese-femininity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=45300","title":{"rendered":"How M. Butterfly with Jeremy Irons subverted Western fantasies of Chinese femininity"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of your favourite fantasies, isn\u2019t it: the submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man?\u201d Chinese opera singer Song Liling (John Lone) says to French diplomat Ren\u00e9 Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) at the start of their metaphorically freighted affair.<\/p>\n

It is a clich\u00e9 both explored and exploded in director David Cronenberg\u2019s 1993 drama M. Butterfly<\/em>, which was adapted by David Henry Hwang from his Tony-winning play.<\/p>\n

In 1960s Beijing, Gallimard meets and falls in love with Song \u2013 or at least the carefully curated image of Chinese femininity she projects. In fact, she is a man \u2013 and a spy \u2013 passing state secrets to the Communist Party as the Cultural Revolution intensifies around them and Gallimard\u2019s life and career begin to unravel.<\/p>\n

Based on a scandalous true story and echoing Puccini\u2019s opera Madama Butterfly<\/em>, M. Butterfly<\/em> was seen as something of a departure for Cronenberg, who was best known for cerebral body horror films such as The Fly<\/em> and had never shot outside his native Canada before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions. \u201cIt\u2019s one of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8689,107,20783,20784,20781,7324,20782,98],"class_list":["post-45300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-butterfly","tag-chinese","tag-fantasies","tag-femininity","tag-irons","tag-jeremy","tag-subverted","tag-western","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}