“Camp can be seen as oppositional reading of popular culture which offers identifications and pleasures that dominant culture denies to homosexuals.” (Smelik 141)

Set in a Taiwan small fish village, 41^st Golden Horse award-winning “Best Taiwanese Film of the Year” Splendid Float (Dir. Zero Chou, 2004, Taiwan) is a romantic tragedy as well as a camp musical aiming at liberating and salving the queer community in Taiwan in the confrontation between “so-called” traditional conservative Chinese thoughts and contemporary global queer values. As Susan Sontag asserts that “Camp” is “Being-as-Playing-a-Role” and emphasizes “[c]amp sees everything in quotation marks”, I put “so-called” in quotation marks as a “queer” and “camp” reading of “traditional conservative Chinese thoughts” since I wonder if there is a pure essential sense of “Chineseness”; yet “Chineseness” could be a “camp” “artifice” in the era of globalization (10). Nonetheless, this paper will deal with how “camp” negotiates a space for “queer” discourse in Taiwan cinema.

Narrating the tragic romance between Roy/Rose and village “twink-jock” Sunny, Splendid Float could be regarded as the Taiwanese counterpart of Australian camp road movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert (Dir. Stephan Elliot, 1994) or a drug-free version of the Big Apple’s Party Monster (Dir. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, 2003). In day time, Roy works as a Taoist priest facilitating funeral services; in night time, Roy cross-dresses and performs as a drag queen with his/her fraternity/sorority (called “Splendid Float”) on a modified pantechnicon stage for some outdoor night parties. After one show, the drags have a night meal in a hut where Sunny works. The encounter of Rose and Sunny sparks into romance. No sooner had the couple separated because of different life principles than Sunny is mysteriously and accidentally buried in the sea. Roy is assigned to facilitate a funeral for an unknown client and later discovers his service is dedicated to his beloved. Finally, the drags farewell Sunny with their performance alongside the Taoist ghost salvation ceremony.

The significance of Splendid Float is that it is the first film about drags made in Taiwan: Not being a copycat of the so-called Western ancestors, the film is culturally specific to the Chinese-speaking communities and successful in highlighting the social problem of marginalization of the queer community in Taiwan. In her article “Queer Asian Cinema”, Helen Leung asserts the queer identity, politics and aesthetics in Asian community differ from that of the West due to the complex history of Asia (14). With reference to Leung’s observation, I would elucidate how “camp” serves as “alternative models” salve the Taiwan queer community and Taiwanese cinema and vis-à-vis Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp.

Trans and Masquerade as Epicene

Susan Sontag is a vanguard in developing the idea of “Camp”. One characteristic she asserts on “Camp” is the “epicene style”, which about gender confusion, or more accurately and precisely, gender transgression vis-à-vis “artifice” (11).

In the Chinese performing art hsitory, cross-dressing actors were common. Samshasha, Hong Kong’s first gay rights activist, reflects that the concepts related to “queer”, like “homosexuals” and “cross-dressers”, are ambiguous in Chinese culture. When he came out to his father, his father responded that male homosexuals are those cross-dressing female-role actors in Peking opera who prostitutes in Chinese culture (McLelland).¹

Contrarily, the Western notions of “homosexuality” and “trans” are more clinical and definite. The International Foundation for Gender Education has noted that “transgender”, “transvestite” and “transsexual” are three distinguishable terms which often confuse people: a “transgender” refers to a person who is born as one gender yet lives as another gender, and who might already have had a sex-reassignment surgery or who wants to have a sex-reassignment surgery later to become a person of the chosen gender; while a “transvestite” refers to someone who wears the clothes which are intended for the opposite sex as the opposite sex to gain pleasure or fun from the practice, yet does not intend to have any sex-reassignment surgery; and a “transsexual” refers to a person who has had a sex-reassignment surgery to become a person of the opposite sex from the original sex (Qtd. in Marchetti).

“Trans” destabilizes the dualism between men and women as well as the dualism between sex and gender and suggests that masculinity and femininity could be performed, although the gender the performer performs may not be the performer’s originally assigned gender (Butler 136). Through the moment of “passing”, “trans” gains recognition from others to prove that the gender they are performing or doing is the gender of what the “trans” thinks that the “trans” belongs to (Esposito 233).

Roy/Rose and her fraternity/sorority are transgressive vis-à-vis their sexualities/gender identities. The masquerade they wear makes it difficult to accord them to any sexual/gendered category. The performers seem to descend from the cross-dressing female-role actors; yet the two kinds of performers differ. In Qing dynasty, opera performing operated in apprenticeship cum prostitution system. The performers have to comply with the masters and the customers. Films like Farewell to My Concubine (Dir. Kaige Chen, 1993) and Fleeing by Night (Dir. Lin-kong Hsu and Chi Yin, 2000) exemplify how the circumstances shape ones’ sexualities. In traditional Chinese Confucian society, procreation is obliged, especially to those wealthy people. The poor people, like orphans, joined an opera team for survival. Opera performers were commodified as sexual objects consumed by wealthy men through performing art and sexual engagement. Thus the dynastic cross-dressing opera performers often perform (situational/self-chosen) homosexuality by manipulations rather than by free will. Unlike the opera actors, the “Splendid Float” seems to have a free will to live in the way they wish.

Moreover, the “Splendid Float” is not confined to the clinical definitions of “trans”. The performers have a consciousness of being in the way as they wish. Firstly, the “Splendid Float” is neither “transgender” nor “transsexual” since they have never wanted or had a sex-reassignment surgery. Secondly, they are not “(heterosexual) transvestite” who are gaining sexual pleasure from the fantasy. Indeed the “Splendid Float” is doing masquerade to pass as “epicene”, a transgressive identity which destabilizes the gender and sexual dualisms. In her essay “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator”, Doane argues for that “masquerade” is potentially liberating for women: whereas cinema always constructs and manipulates the feminine as the object of gaze, thus denying the female subject an objective view of the self, masquerade reveals that “womanliness is a mask which can be worn and removed”, and hence draws the attention to the process whereby it is constructed (138). Feminine masquerade refers to the notion that “womanliness” (femininity) is a removable mask worn by women in order to satisfy the desire of men in a patriarchal society and conceals an ambiguity; moreover, the feminine masquerade represents the woman’s performance of herself as the man would have her, which is also a defense against unconscious “masculinity” and a means of relieving from the anxiety fueled by phallocentrism (Doane 138). The idea “epicene” could be seen as a non-identity in which the feminine masquerade of the Splendid Float is removable. This masquerade delivers a sense of “tender feeling” in which the “epicene” is enjoyable and loveable; thus the “camp taste” of Splendid Float could be seen as “a kind of love, love for human nature” as the “Splendid Float” appreciate themselves (Sontag). Obviously, the flood of images of the “women’s clothes of the twenties”, like “feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses” of the Splendid Float contributes to their “epicene” masquerade, a feature which Sontag has identified for “camp” subculture that coheres with an exaggerated and transgressive style (Sontag). Furthermore, as a removable mask, the masquerade is not natural and thus an artifice embracing a theatrical campy style (Sontag).

Besides, masquerade destabilizes gender bias. Roy/Rose’s colleagues tease off Roy/Rose since s/he was upset for Sunny’s death. They ridicule Roy/Rose as a femme without noticing the gender transgressions Roy/Rose has. Their boss wonders why a feminine masquerade on a male should be condemned since with a masculine masquerade the boss puts on make-up to perform as a male-role actress for the salvation ceremony for Sunny’s ghost. This scene invites the queer spectatorship to problematize the internalization of patriarchy for the spectatorship’s self-affirmation and enjoyment.

Flamboyantly Nostalgic “Splendid Float”

Apart from “epicene”, Sontag regards “glamour” and “deterioration” as other features of a “camp” taste (28, 31). With reference to Sontag, the costumes, the choreography and the songs of the camp musical Splendid Float deliver a sense of vicissitudes and extravagance and nostalgia.

Regarding the performing costumes, the performers wear feather boas and fringed and beaded dresses to transpire the grandeur of the performance. Without such glittering clothes, the Splendid Float is not splendid enough to attract a bunch of party animals to follow them. Regarding the choreography, the S-shape body and the twirl of hands and arms illuminate the Splendid Float on the glimmering stage on the pantechnicon equipped with flickering patterned neon lights of the rainbow colors (a resemblance of the Gay lib rainbow flag) portrays a extraordinary performance in comparison to another (rather plain and boring) performing pantechnicon written with the Chinese character of “Sister” the Splendid Float encounters when they are on the way to visit Sunny’s grave. Regarding the songs, the Splendid Float sings in Min dialect to establish an aging and nostalgic sense of gangster “jianghu”.

Creating a mood of decay for sympathy, the theme song “Flowing Water, Glittering Lights” narrates the performer, as a wanderer of life, whose weakness and sorrow are disguised by the conscious masquerading and performance of the performer. By confessing of the difficulties in the queer life as wandering, the songs of the Splendid Float serve as a campy metaphor for addressing the adversity of the Taiwanese queer community faces: the use of Min dialect is dedicated for an indigenous identification of Taiwan and the “wandering” theme indicates the detachment of the queer community from the mainstream. The final line of the lyrics of the theme song - “Because here, I am the most beautiful around” - glorifies the campy “character” for locating a site for the queer spectators to identify with their subjectivity in a non-discriminatory and nom-heterosexist context and affirm their happiness and pride of being “camp” and “queer”.

Tragedy as Queer Salvation

In a traditional Hollywood mode of linear narrative development, a coupling between the male protagonist and the female protagonist resolves all the conflicts through out the development of the relationship and glorifies the heteronormative way of love into a happy ending. (O’Shaugnessy 130-2) The film Splendid Float is absolutely not the case.

The tragic death of Sunny, the use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, the costume of dead Sunny and the uneasy formal dress code revisit Sontag’s thoughts on the “camp”. Although “camp” is usually associated with “comic vision” as what Sontag puts, the tragic mood, owing to the accidental death of Sunny, fights against the hegemonic narrative mode of happy ending. By means of a tragic scene, the melodramatic plot relives the anxiety of homophobia the queer community suffers. Moreover, Rose’s flashbacks and flash-forwards intensify the tragic and ironic mood.

When the Splendid Float visits the funeral parlour, they find that Sunny wears the traditional Qing style clothings. Some people of the Splendid Float laughs at Sunny’s clumsy look and exclaim that they do not want to dress in this way when they are dead since the traditional way is ugly. This offers a critique of patriarchy in Chinese/Taiwanese society. The mismatch of Sunny’s twink style and the Qing costume tells that the reinforcement of the traditions (patriarchy) is ill. In addition, in deciding what to wear for Sunny’s funeral, the Splendid Float faces a problem of dress code. They find it difficult to dress formally since the formal dress code is uncomfortable and not enjoybale. This mismatch triggers their appropriation of performing as their own salvation ceremony for the ghost of Sunny beyond the Taoist one.

Conclusion: Camp as Liberation and Salvation

Illuminatingly, Tolentino highlights the significance of queer theory for understanding subcultures and sexual/gender minorities. In his article “Transvestites and Transgressions: Pangagaya in Philippine Gay Cinema”, Tolentino writes that “[t]he consignment to, yet prevalence in ‘low’ culture is a marker of the transvestite subculture that involves a process of peripheralization and survival tactics in the margins. Homosexuality is a modality to analyze this working class gay subculture, but it is also limiting – it negates class, among others, as a factor in transvestitism.” (327) What Tolentino concerns with is that there has always been a misunderstanding of transvestitism and homosexuality. Being “non-straight”, transvestitism and homosexuality are associated by their ontological “queerness”; however, transvestitism is often mistaken as homosexuality like Samshasha’s father’s ideas of homosexuality and cross-dressing. Coherently, Sontag asserts that homosexuality is a pioneer in creating a campy taste; yet homosexual taste does not equal “camp” taste (Sontag). Although “camp” and “homosexuality” are associable, it is not necessary to have a conversation between the two. In Splendid Float, the campy taste performs as a sub-cultural element of gay (sub-)culture.

Intersecting Sontag’s opinion on “camp”, the Splendid Float is not what Samshasha’a traditional father thinks and not what the clinical definitions of “trans” could understand. What makes Splendid Float internationally and locally acclaimed is its campy representation of “epicene”, a transgressive identity, for voicing the subjectivity of queer people.

Besides, Sontag proclaims, in terms of “camp”, “[t]he discovery of good taste in bad taste can be very liberating”. (Sontag) Being “queer” (non-straight), regardless of being as “homosexual”, “trans”, “camp” or “epicene”, marginalization is a social process the communities as a whole have to face. Since procreation is regarded as a duty, non-procreative activities are considered to be insane. It is the reason why “queer” have to be condemned as “so-called “bad taste”. Nevertheless, the Splendid Float, a “campy” depiction of the queer community, in the film is flamboyant in showing the people how well they live as “queer” and how firmly they wish to live in the way they want. Unlike some films in the Asian Queer cinema, the film Splendid Float does not consider “straightening” as salvation. By exhibiting the “campy” taste, the Splendid Float tells that they have the “good taste” in the so-called “bad taste” the “so-called” mainstream accord vis-à-vis the cinematic tragic mood for the relieving the homophobic inquietude.

Differentiating from unintentionally queer mainstream film in Asian cinema, the alternative queer cinema is “more inclined to represent explicit sexuality” in “creative, unrestrained and at times humorous ways”, “moved away from the melodramatic plots more typical of mainstream features”, “dwell on themes like the difficulty of coming out, the tension with family, the tragedy of unrequited love” (Leung 16). Coherently, the camp musical Splendid Float is an example of this alternative. Conclusively, the “camp” in Splendid Float serves as the forces of liberation and salvation. The triumph of Splendid Float thus strikes the glocal Golden Horse and other film events for claiming a discursive space, articulating the consciousness and subjectivity of queer as folk.

Notes

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York & London: Routledge, 1990.

Doane, Mary Ann. “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator.” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. Ed. Sue Thornham. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. 131-45.

Esposito, Jennifer. “The Performance of White Masculinity in Boys Don’t Cry: Identity, Desire and (Mis)Recognition.” Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies. 3.2 (2003): 229-41.

Farewell to My Concubine. Dir. Kaige Chen. 1993.

Fleeing by Night. Dir. Lin-kong Hsu and Chi Yin. 2000.

Jones, Chris. “Lesbian and Gay Cinema.” An Introduction to Film Studies. Ed. Jill Nelmes. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. 2^nd ed.

Leung, Helen Hok-sze. “Queer Asian Cinema.” The Bent Lens: A World Guide to Gay and Lesbian Film. Ed. Lisa Daniel & Claire Jackson, Crowsnes, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003. 14-7.

Marchetti, Gina. Lecture. “Gender Outlaws.” CLIT2014 Feminist Cultural Studies. Department of Comparative Literature, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 20 November 2006.

McLelland, Mark. Interview with Samshasha, Hong Kong's First Gay Rights Activist and Author. 9 October 2000. 7 May 2007.

O’Shaughnessy, Michael. Media and Society: An Introduction. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Smelik, Anneke. “Gay and Lesbian Criticism.” The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Ed. John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 148-52.

Sontag, Susan. Notes on Camp. 1964. 9 November 2005.

Splendid Float. Dir. Zero Chou. Perf. Zhong Yihing and Chen Yumin. 2004. DVD. Hoker Records, 2004.

Tolentino, Rolando B. “Transvestites and Transgressions: Pangagaya in Philippine Gay Cinema.” Queer Asian Cinema: Shadows in the Shade. Ed. Andrew Grossman. New York, London & Oxford: Harrington Park Press, 2000. 325-39.