London-based film writer Esmé Holden joins us to discuss David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly. Based on the Tony Award-winning David Henry Hwang play - itself based on the the real life relationship between Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer - Cronenberg's film embraces the conventions of melodrama while thoughtfully exploring gender & queernes and weaving a complex romance tragically undone by the conventions and bigotries of the colonial-capitalist order.
We begin by discussing the films explorations of gender, queerness, and transness, and how Cronenberg showcases an exceptionally forward-thinking and nuanced portrayal of these concepts in an era of films content with caricature, stereotype, and parody. Then, we consider how M. Butterfly presents a ground-zero for further explorations of the body, its presentation within societal perfrormance, and the fluidity of sexual expression that would become hallmarks of Cronenberg's signature style throughout the next few decades. Finally, explore the complicated ideological stictures that confine the film's protagonists and how capitalism's myopic definitions of identity continue to hinder self-actualization in its subjects.
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