Art and Intellectuals

In his tortured, overly intellectual review of the Chinese film Red Sorghum, critic Yuejin Wang, in a rare instance of clarity, openly characterizes the film as “. . . a cinematic milestone that proposes a powerful Chinese version of masculinity as a means of cultural critique.” He is right of course, though perhaps not exactly in the manner in which he intended to be right.

According to fellow Chinese film critic Chris Berry, “Wang Yuejin reads the [predominantly male] characters of Red Sorghum as answering a long-felt lack of masculinity on the Chinese screen.” Thus, upon this reading, the cultural critique Wang avers lies in the supposition that masculinity has been given short shrift in Chinese art and film.Wang posits a Chinese cultural “lack” or void–an unabashed virile masculinity–that Red Sorghum allegedly presumes to fill or remedy.

This is not my reading of Red Sorghum’s depicted masculinity as a means of Chinese cultural critique. My interpretation of Red Sorghum masculinity is that of a deeply flawed Chinese notion of masculinity. Indeed, the film seems to equate masculinity with all the vulgar qualities of a brute. Here, masculinity is crudity, nastiness, and drunkenness. It is pissing in a wine vat. It is kidnapping, robbery and rape. It is murder and mayem–the flaying of live human beings.

What we have here is a primordial, atavistic vision of masculinity–a reflection of China’s historical evolution perhaps. It is certainly not the refined, evolved, and sophisticated Western–one might even say British, ala James Bond–notion of masculinity that we see here. In the film, the “Grandpa” character who carries his woman off to his side, like a bushel of wheat, is reminiscent of a caveman brute, not a refined, cultured, civilized, noble and, yes, heroically masculine, British gentleman the Chinese, ironically, once called “barbarian.” A true gentleman–a modern masculine man–would have cradled his woman in his arms, her doting face submissively facing his, paying proper homage to his superior manhood, which need not stoop to such barbarisms in order to prove or affirm himself. She comes willingly, drawn by his obvious strength, which need not be so caricatured.

Highly intellectual film critics, of course, will liberally expound on fanciful notions of femininity and masculinity, of feminist theory and patriarchy, of the “viewing subject,” ad infinitum. But that’s precisely the problem with so many intellectuals today: they see way too much into simple things.

The intellectual’s job is often to “creatively” see more to a thing than is actually there–and to convincingly make us all believe it, ala “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Hence the stereotypical image of heavy drug experimentation; all the great poets, including Lord Byron, smoked dope, snorted coke, or did the equivalent in their day. Hemingway himself was a drunk, was he not?

This is the problem with postmodern intellectuals and their arrogant but absurd art vs. crass commercialism dichotomy. They expect truly good art to be unprofitable ventures, which must inevitably be subsidized by the State to cultivate culture, civilization, dissent. They, in turn, also expect to be hired by the State–as academic intellectuals in public universities–so that they can then explain the greatness of their “complicated” works to us, mere simpletons.

But strong, powerful, worthwhile art should be apparent to almost everybody. It should cry out to be celebrated (profitable). It should not be so bloody esoteric.

Down with the intellectual! Cheers for the businessman!

Strictly a personal view. Charles Reyes Jr. is a regular columnist of Saipan Tribune. Mr. Reyes may be reached at charlesraves@hotmail.com