Investigating the Intersectional Representations of Queer Asian Characters in American Cinema with a Focus on The Half of It (Wu, 2020).

This dissertation contains an investigation of the intersectional representation of queer Asian characters in American cinema with a specific focus on The Half of It (Wu, 2020), through textual analysis of key sequences and themes. Wu’s use of religion and domesticity as complex aspects of intersectional identity are interrogated within this analysis. This dissertation draws upon the work of theorists such as Russo (1987), Dyer (1984), and Benschoff and Griffin (2006) to engage with the rich history of queer theory, critics such as Feng, Marchetti, and — to understand the complexities of Asian American cinematic representation, and the work of Crenshaw, Eng, and Bui to introduce an intersectional perspective to these topics. These theorists form the basis of this dissertation’s theoretical approach and textual analysis, applying these niche areas of study to contemporary American cinema while engaging with a lesbian protagonist.

Based on the current wider societal discussions on racism, discrimination, and representation concerning both Asian and queer identity, there is a pertinent relevance to an interrogation of the representation of these identities within American media. At an early age I discovered a passion for diverse representation, specifically of queer characters in mainstream media. With a focus on queer characters, there was an evident lack of sympathetic Asian representation within the same media. From this perspective this dissertation offers a crucial intervention overlooked by academic scholarship as an investigation of how the representations of these identities collide within American cinema.

It is well documented that ‘western society is told from a white, heterosexual, male perspective’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 240) in which ‘white’ connotes innocence, purity, and advancement while ‘non-white’ connotes dirt, sin, and sex. This unthinking centrism of whiteness in American culture, explored in Richard Dyer’s White (1997), is reflected by the dominant cinema. Films encourage us to interrogate ‘how we think about ourselves and the world around us’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p.11). Just as film influences society, ‘Hollywood is too deeply embedded in America’s culture to be isolated from its politics’ (Brownstein, 1990, p. 391). As Maltby states, the representation of race in cinema reinforces systems of oppression and can have violent consequences for racial minorities, such as how The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915) inspired the real world lynchings of black people (2003, p. 272).

This dissertation concerns the cinematic representation of multiply oppressed American minorities. Stam and Spence define oppression as where ‘difference is transformed into “other”-ness and exploited or penalised by and for power’ (2009, p. 753). For oppressed minorities, cinematic representations affect how they are treated by wider society which, in turn, influences cinematic representations. Within a heteronormative, patriarchal, ‘systematically racist society [where] few escape the effects of racism’ (Stam and Spence, 2009, p. 766), it is imperative to interrogate cinematic representations of minorities such as harmful stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood. Originally studied by Bogle in 1973 (2016), racist stereotypes are ‘damaging because they reduce [groups] to essential components’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 234). Many theorists have responded to cinematic stereotypes through textual analysis such as Russo (1987), Dyer (1984, 2009), and Marchetti (1993), forming the base of much of queer theory and race studies.

Hollywood has a fraught history with images of both Asian American and queer characters for a number of institutional and political reasons. Though images of queer people were restricted in the silent age, there was no enforced censorship of all motion pictures until the conservative Christian backlash over the morality of cinema resulted in The Motion Picture Production Code in 1930, officially banning ‘sexual perversion’ from the screen until its repeal in 1969 (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 214). At this time, filmmakers relied on subtle in-jokes and effeminate stereotypes to code characters as queer, such as the effeminate ‘sissy’ archetype, figures presented as ‘symbols for failed masculinity’ (Russo, 1987, p. 33). The so-called ‘sissy’ is discussed at length in Vito Russo’s seminal investigation into the history of homosexuality in cinema, The Celluloid Closet (1987). Queer characters at this time were ‘either restricted to the avant-garde filmmaking or ... heavily coded within the mainstream’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 214). The lack of sympathetic queer representation in American cinema after the repeal of the Production Code during the gay rights movement resulted in responses from critics such as Russo (1987) and Tyler (1972) examining these representations.

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework used to discuss how multiple oppressions overlap within society. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 1989 legal article ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex’ introduced the concept to expand upon the legal and political implications of being a black woman in America, where anti-racist and feminist politics act as oppositions. With the development of the concept of intersectionality, there is a wider lexicon to help investigate the intersection between multiple marginalised identities in film studies. This way of discussing representation when dealing with multiple oppressions and identities is a helpful tool for analysing the ways in which queer and Asian identities are presented. An intersectional approach provides an opportunity to ponder the future of queer Asian American representation in cinema, it is used by critics such as Bui (2014), and Eng (1997) to interrogate film texts which occupy ‘multiple spaces of exclusion’ (Bui, 2014, p. 130).

Due to America’s history of slavery, there is an abundance of writing on black images in cinema and society, such as the work of Du Bois (1995), Bogle (2016), and hooks (1993). Comparatively, while ‘Asian Americans have been prominently involved in the US film industry since the 1910s’ (Feng, 2007, p. 123), there is a smaller academic field with ‘shockingly few books and articles [concerning] Hollywood’s treatments of Asia and Asians’ (Marchetti, 1993, p. ix). Based in political propaganda, the demonising, emasculation, and objectification of Asian Americans on screen aligns with the representation of queer characters in American cinema, where race, sex, and gender are ‘embedded in discourses of Asian cultural inferiority’ (Feng, 2002b, p. 10). The investigation of images of both queer and Asian characters on screen began with activist groups of the 1960s, a time of great political unrest in America (Hamamoto, 2000, p.1).

This dissertation investigates the intersection of queer Asian identity in contemporary American cinema through a textual analysis of The Half of It (Wu, 2020), a queer retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac. The film follows Ellie Chu/Leah Lewis who, in order to pay off overdue bills, agrees to help loveable jock Paul Munsky/Daniel Diemer woo the object of his affections by writing a love letter under his name. This allows the socially ostracised Ellie to fraud her way into a text-based relationship with her crush, Aster Flores/Alexxis Lemire, while masquerading as a straight relationship. The film was hailed as ‘groundbreaking for its representation both in front of and behind the camera’ (Raju, 2020, par. 5). Ellie’s role as a Chinese-American, lesbian protagonist of a film set in small-town America is the focus of my textual analysis found in Chapters Two and Three.

Both queer and Asian characters belong to two ‘othered’ minorities facing oppression and limited representation within American cinema. Rare instances of queer Asian characters occupy mostly insignificant roles or appear in obscure independent films. Increased visibility and theoretical exploration of intersectional identities and filmmaking practices have spurred on newer generations of queer and Asian filmmaking. With the introduction of alternative distribution through streaming services, underrepresented filmmakers such as Alice Wu can reach wider audiences with diverse stories as the boundaries between mainstream and independent cinema blur and become unrecognisable (Perkins and Schreiber, 2019). It is in the hands of these queer, Asian filmmakers that niche intersectional identities are presented with authenticity, though they remain outside of the true mainstream. These filmmakers explore the role of home and religion within distinctly queer Asian perspectives, highlighting the similarities within the oppression of different minorities within America.

Chapter 1: Queer and Asian Representations

Queer film theory concerns the study of queer images, themes, filmmakers, spectatorship, and representations in a cinema that ‘rarely acknowledges anything but heterosexuality’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 13). This interrogation of ‘gay attributes within the mise-en-scène and narrative’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 227) takes many forms. While some critics call for better representation (Russo, 1987), others dispute the concept of positive images, stating that ‘there is no such thing as a positive [gay] image’ (Hanson, 1999, p.8). Dyer proposes an alternative, a self-representation that is nuanced and diverse (1984). A subset of critics focus on the rise of independent queer filmmaking of the 1990s (Rich, 1992), while others interrogate codified images of queer identity in classical Hollywood (Russo, 1987; Benschoff, 2011; Dyer, 2001), some of which investigates genre cinema and queer actors to decode queer identification within American cinema (Dyer, 2001). This approach was criticised for how it ‘categorically excludes lesbians from queer culture’ (Finley, 2004, p. 78). Queer theory’s focus on permeable gender boundaries acts in opposition to the ‘binarism’ of psychoanalytical feminist theory critiqued by many queer theorists (Stam, 2000, p. 141). Feminist theory’s use of psychoanalysis is problematised by its contribution to ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Rich, 1980) through unthinking heteronormativity.

Queer theory is an offshoot of cultural studies ‘which seeks to challenge or deconstruct traditional ideas of sexuality and gender’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 210). Building upon activism originating from the 1969 Stonewall riots, ‘many theorists developed a gay and lesbian approach to culture generally, and to film in particular’ (Stam, 2000, p. 141). These activists ‘shaped Queer Theory and its practice’ (Sullivan, 2003, p. 37). Originally referenced as Gay and Lesbian studies, critics in the 1990s reclaimed the previously considered ‘slur’ ‘queer’ for academic uses to foreground the fluidity of gender and sexual identity, ‘an argument against certain normativity’ (Butler, 2001, par. 7).

This broad definition reflects the codified queer representation of American cinema shaped by the moral censorship of the Motion Picture Production Code that enforced Christian ideals onto Hollywood cinema from 1930 to 1969 (Maltby, 2003, p.62). This censorship created a cinema which ‘rarely acknowledged the existence of queer people’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 16), rendering queer identity ‘invisible’ (Russo, 1987, p. 71). Some filmmakers chose to codify their characters as queer without stating their sexuality, such as Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941), Brandon and Philip in Rope (Hitchcock, 1948), and Plato in Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955). This ‘connotative homosexuality’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 16) used mannerisms, speech, and costuming to imply sexuality. The origins of a true queer cinema can be traced back to the Stonewall riots of 1969, the birth of the gay rights movement, coinciding with the repeal of the Production Code (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 215).

While mainstream cinema ‘mostly ignored the burgeoning gay rights movement all together’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 140), underground filmmakers made experimental queer media, and independent cinema gave rise to what B. Ruby Rich conceptualises as ‘New Queer Cinema ... a flock of films that were doing something new’ (1992, p. 15). New Queer Cinema is a film ‘moment’ (Pick, 2004, p. 103) defined by defiance aimed at both ‘homophobic practices of mainstream western culture [and] bourgeois gay men and women’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 198). The characters do not conform to the rigid structures of sex and gender in wider society. This was exemplified by filmmakers such as Todd Haynes, Greg Araki, and Gus Van Sant. Monica B. Pearl argues that ‘New Queer Cinema is AIDS cinema’ (2004, p. 23, original emphasis), as a film moment of the 1990s, the epidemic of the 80s was a lived experience of the filmmakers. Pearl’s link between New Queer Cinema and AIDS reiterates the ‘structural bias in the funding and distribution’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 212) as the patriarchal structures of society allow gay men the privilege to make films. As Russo contends in the context of American filmmaking, ‘homosexual behavior onscreen, as almost every other defined “type” of behavior, has been cast in male terms’ (Russo, 1987, p. 4).

While New Queer Cinema ‘paved the way for more queer images’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 222), the few mainstream gay protagonists were ‘desexualized, depoliticized, and removed from any sociocultural context’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 234). This lack of authenticity was the new focus of queer theory as queer representation evolved. Most queer theory is concerned with the representations of queer characters within cinema, with more overt societal consequences, such as violence caused by damning depictions in films such as Cruising (Friedkin, 1980) (The Celluloid Closet, 1995, Epstein and Friedman, 1:12:26).

Benshoff and Griffin (2006) outline genres within queer independent cinema from the turn of the century, such as ‘young love’ (p. 241), AIDS (p. 242), and race films (p. 243), which all ‘ask its audience to consider how other discourses of social difference ... impact upon the representation and understanding of sexuality’ (p. 246). Here, a beginning of an intersectional understanding of identity is hinted at through queer theory’s understanding of its own films. This was developed further by theorists who focus on queer Asian identity (Eng, 1997; Bui, 2014; Eng and Hom, 1998). Intersectionality acts as a tool to interrogate power and systems of oppressions in instances of multiple marginality. This concept originates in legal theory and was popularised in the 1990s. With this framework gaining popularity in film studies, there are more opportunities to write about the ‘multidimensionality’ (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 139) of complex identities and the construction of them in cinema, as this dissertation examines.

Since its inception in 1989, intersectionality has been used to discuss the complexity of multiple oppressions overlapping. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the legal article ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex’ (1989), in which she discusses the legal implications of being a black woman in America while feminist and anti-racist practices seldom intersect (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1242). These concerns within legal theory developed into critical race feminist theory in the 1990s, a theory dependent on the use of intersectionality (Ng, 2007, p. 1330). Concerning the ‘multidimensionality’ of ‘marginalized subjects’ lived experiences’ (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 139), intersectional approaches are largely applied within feminist theory and activism to acknowledge the complexities of different oppressions. Crenshaw’s approach had a profound ‘methodological impact’ (Clark, 2013, p. 476) on surrounding theories, as a rejection of the conventional ‘single axis framework’ (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1244) used to investigate singular oppressions. Intersectionality favours a ‘“crossroads” framework to analyze multiple forms of oppression and bigotry’ (Clark, 2013, p. 477).

As a ‘lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects’ (Crenshaw, 2017, par. 4), intersectionality has many theoretical applications in fields discussing representation and oppression. It is a useful tool for analysing the intersection between marginalised identities in American cinema as ‘[i]n American popular culture, gay identity is synonymous with middle-class Whiteness’ (Bui, 2014, p. 136). Intersectionality has been used to analyse the cinematic construction of queer Asian identity by critics such as Bui (2014), Eng (1997), and Eng and Hom (1998). Here, intersectionality is applied to textual analyses of film texts to decode meaning in independent queer cinema. Bui analyses Ethan Mao (Lee, 2004) with an explicitly intersectional lens, Eng investigates The Wedding Banquet (Lee, 1993), and Eng and Hom’s book compiles interviews, historical accounts, social studies, and textual analyses of films such as White Christmas (Magnaye, 1993), M. Butterfly (Cronenberg, 1993), and The Wedding Banquet.

Eng’s interrogation of home, diaspora, and queerness in his textual analysis of The Wedding Banquet acts as the introduction to intersectional queer Asian perspectives in film studies. Though the term intersectional is not used within the text, Eng interrogates the ‘intersection of queerness and diaspora’ (Eng, 1997, p. 31), investigating a similar ‘multidimensionality' (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 139) to Crenshaw’s approach. Eng interrogates the intersection of race and sexuality utilising an intersectional perspective to investigate the fraught concept of home and belonging. Eng argues that ‘configured as either unassimilable aliens or perversely assimilated ... Asian Americans have at best a dubious claim to citizenship and place within the U.S. nation-state’ (1997, p. 31). Asian Americans are ‘treated as perpetual foreigners ... no matter how many generations ago the first immigrants arrived’ (Aguilar-San Juan, 1998, p. 33). As Ngai’s term ‘alien citizen’ (2004, p. 8) foregrounds, the diasporic Asian American understanding of home is linked to perceptions of being ‘never fully “American” or normative citizen subjects’ (Bui, 2014, pp. 133). This ‘vexing’ (Eng, 1997, p. 31) understanding of home through a queer, Asian lens is further developed by Bui (2014).

Bui (2014) uses an intersectional perspective to interrogate the role of queer Asian men in film, ‘from an intersectional queer of color perspective’ (2014, p. 130). He uses a textual analysis of Ethan Mao and builds upon Eng’s work on the queer Asian diaspora. Home is seen as a symbol of and origin of ‘Asianness’ (Aguilar-San Juan, 1998, p. 25) in a way that is complicated for queer individuals. Bui states that many queer Asian Americans occupy ‘spaces of estrangement from traditional notions of “home”, where home refers to both the domestic spaces of kinship and the nation’ (2014, p. 146, original emphasis). Eng’s work regards the ‘numerous problems of home’ within this intersectional context as a ‘lost heterosexual “origin”, questions of political membership, and the impossibilities of full social recognition [within] compulsory heterosexuality’ (Eng, 1997, p. 31). These concerns are touched upon in Bui’s analysis which includes a focus on ‘the “coming out” process for gay Chinese men’ (2014, p. 129). However, this, once again, does not include women and marginalised genders within film criticism.

The complex experience of home for queer Asian Americans is also explored by Otalvaro-Hormillosa in her 1999 article ‘The Homeless Diaspora of Queer Asian Americans’, in which she explores ‘queer diaspora as a critical practice’ (p. 103). Bui identifies home as a ‘contested symbolic terrain that requires us to think about how “queer” subjectivities are constituted through race’ (2014, p. 130). The intersection of racial and sexual identity is touched upon further in Eng and Hom’s book Q & A: Queer Asian America in which they note ‘where dominant images of emasculated Asian American men and hyperheterosexualised Asian American women collide – the Asian American lesbian disappears ... unseen and unrecognised’ (1998, p. 1). This is reiterated as Ng investigates ‘[t]he invisibility of lesbians and gay men of colour’ (2007, p. 1331).

Analysing Asian American representation requires a wider understanding of race and the surrounding critical debates. Discussions of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are complicated by their changing definitions. Race and ethnicity are ‘social constructions’ (Hearne, 2007, p. 369) used to classify groups of people by either shared racial ‘physical characteristics’ (O’Brien, 2008, p. 4) or ethnically categorising ‘a people or nation’ (Cashmore, 1996, p. 119). In Race, the Floating Signifier (Hughes et al., 1997), Stuart Hall rejects the concept of race as biological difference, defining it as a signifier that constantly changes in a ‘fluid’ manner. Racial affiliation changes based on ‘location, historical moment, personal presentation, or situational context’ (Hearne, 2007, p. 369). The interrogation of the way race is constructed in society is crucial to understandings of Asian American cinematic representation.

Cinematic race studies emerged at the end of the civil rights movement, interrogating the representation of racial identities in cinema ‘in order to expose, and make sense of, underlying power structures’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 232). This investigation is one of constant relevance in a society that acknowledges race and is therefore ‘invariably racist’ (Cashmore, 1996, p. 298), as people link racial identity to intelligence, behaviour, and morality. Established as a system of oppression, the fluid social category of race ‘cannot be separated from racism’ (Hearne, 2007, p. 369). American cinema relies on cultural and racial stereotypes ‘depicted through iconography and fetishisation’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 233). Iconography, as a ‘system of recurring visual motifs’ (Maltby, 2003, p.86), can inaccurately represent a group, while fetishisation relies on body parts and objects to ‘signify the whole’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 233). Marchetti notes, ‘Hollywood has long been fascinated by Asia, Asians, and Asian themes’ (Marchetti, 1993, p. 1). Asian fetishisation includes slanted eyes, small bodies, and exaggerated buck teeth. Similar to cinematic depictions of black characters in minstrel shows, these characterisations were widely used by white actors in ‘yellow face’ (Feng, 2007, p. 126), such as in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Edwards, 1961). Stereotyping, defined by Neale as ‘a stable and repetitive structure of character traits’ (1993, p. 41), enforced onto racial minorities, results in a ‘two dimensional caricature that teaches prejudice and discrimination’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 234). Black stereotypes in American cinema were investigated by Donald Bogle in 1973 (2016), setting a precedence for academic investigations of other racial stereotyping.

An offshoot of race studies, the 1990s established a theoretical field focussing on the representation and construction of Asian American cinema. This field’s early works include Marchetti’s categorisation of interracial relationships within Hollywood cinema (1993), Feng’s search to define Asian American Cinema (1995; 1999), and Tiana Alexandra’s exploration of the fraught relationship between Hollywood and Asian American actors (1995). Feng notes how the contested term ‘Asian American’ came into being as a ‘name of a coalition of Americans who have come to realize their political situation’ (1995, p. 32), a collective diaspora in response to a ‘racism that treated them all as “Orientals” despite their differences’ (1995, p. 32). This term gained popularity in the 1960s due to the generationally emerging English speaking Asian diaspora, a term which is ‘inherently political ... calling attention to the temporal and spatial migrations that brought us here’ (Feng, 2002a, p. 18).

When discussing Asian American cinema, the concept of grouping cinema requires interrogation. This dissertation follows Feng’s definition of Asian American cinema, defined in similar terms to Benshoff and Griffin’s definition of queer cinema: as films produced by Asian filmmakers, with an Asian sensibility, and/or Asian American subject matter (2007, p. 123). As Hamamoto states, ‘independent Asian American film [emerged from] the passionate political struggles and counter-culture practices ... of the 1960s and 1970s’ (2000, p.1). As one of the first scholars of Asian American cinema, Marchetti notes Hollywood’s depictions of Asian men as either ‘rapists or asexual eunuch figures [while] females are often depicted as sexually available to the white hero’ (1993, p. 2). This mirrors Feng’s claim that ‘sexual and racial stereotyping are mutually implicated and embedded in discourses of Asian cultural inferiority’ (2002b, p. 10). Marchetti links this to the concept of the yellow peril, which ‘combines racist terror of alien cultures, sexual anxieties, and the belief that the West will be overpowered ... by the irresistible, dark, occult forces of the East’ (Marchetti, 1993, p. 2). This reiterates the notion of nonwhite being ‘morally suspect, heathen, licentious, disease-ridden, feral, violent, uncivilized, infantile, and in need of guidance’ (Marchetti, 1993, p. 3). In this way American attitudes towards race invade cinematic depictions of Asian characters through their sexuality and gender presentation, which can be considered ‘“queer” as such’ (Eng, 1997, p. 41), no matter their sexuality.

Attempts to identify ‘positive images’ is a ‘virtual impossibility’ (Feng, 2002b, p. 5) as supposed ‘positive images’ portray oppressed characters accepting their minority status and become more than others of their race. Through a depiction of a ‘good’ minority, they are implying a ‘bad’ minority. This binaristic approach also lacks nuance, as ‘some representations can be both positive and stereotype-confirming’ (Besana, Katsiaficas, and Loyd, 2019, p. 221). Feng proposes that rather than positive or negative images, there are ‘representations that are mobilised positively or negatively depending on discursive context’ (Feng, 2002b, p. 5). Doughty and Etherington-Wright assert that these issues will only be resolved once the film industry ‘adopts a more inclusive approach and afford racial and ethnic minorities a chance to represent themselves’ (Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018, p. 245).

As this dissertation looks at American cinema from the perspective of the construction of representation, The Half of It will be analysed as a key text through the theoretical/methodological lenses of identity and intersectionality. Textual analysis will be employed to highlight the presence of the cinematic othering of queer Asian characters in American cinema. Within the context of the film, this dissertation will interrogate ‘otherness’ in relation to the intersection of identities and the symbolic role of religion and home as community and conformity in small-town America. Textual analysis, originating from literary criticism, allows films to be seen as texts and thus suggest that ‘film as a medium deserves serious study’ (Stam, 2000, p. 104). This process involves investigating supposed meanings of a text through a close reading of the formal elements such as the mise-en-scène and cinematography. This allows us to ‘attempt to understand the likely interpretations of texts made by people who consume them’ (McKee, 2003, p. 2).

The use of textual analysis allows for an interrogation of how representation is constructed within film texts. This approach has been utilised by critics to discuss cinema in general (Benschoff, 2011; Doughty and Etherington-Wright, 2018; Maltby, 2003), race in cinema (Bogle, 2016), Asian representation (Feng, 2002a; Marchetti, 1993), queer cinema (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006; Pearl, 2004; Russo, 1987), and the intersection of queer Asian cinema (Bui, 2014; Eng, 1997). Some theorists do not use textual analysis as they use historical (Dyer, 1997), sociological (Butler, 2001; Besana, Katsiaficas and Loyd, 2019), or legal analysis (Crenshaw, 1989). However, it is through textual analysis that this dissertation uses these readings to understand the film text.

When focusing on two academic fields in film studies almost always relegated to independent film until recently, the intersection of these identities will inevitably produce a small field of research. With the lack of theoretical investigation of intersectional identity of queer Asian characters, and women in particular, within American cinema, this dissertation provides a crucial intervention to the limited academic field through the use of the methodological approach of intersectionality, using textual analysis, through a close reading of The Half of It.

Chapter 2 - Home and multiple identities

The visual othering of Ellie in The Half of It reflects Eng, Aguilar-San Juan, and Ngai’s assertions that Asian Americans are seen as ‘perpetual foreigners’ (Aguilar-San Juan, 1998, p. 33) and ‘alien citizen[s]’ (Ngai, 2004, p. 8). While Ellie initially finds acceptance through Paul, who protects, reassures, and cares for her, he later ostracises her when his religious beliefs oppose her sexuality. The concept of Ellie as a multiply ‘othered’ character is reinforced through the film’s focus on liminal space, religion, and transport, aspects this dissertation interrogates through textual analysis of key sequences, drawing upon the theoretical debates discussed in the literature review. This analysis explores intersectional queer Asian identity as presented within the film as both oppositional and adjacent to the white, Christian society of small-town America.

As Eng writes, a sense of home and nationhood for Asian Americans is complex, the phrase ‘Asian American’ drawing attention to the lack of a fixed national identity. This complex concept of home and belonging also applies to queer identity, as home is synonymous with the established order of the heteronormative family. As Bui states, from an intersectional perspective, queer Asian Americans occupy ‘estrangement from traditional notions of “home”’ (2014, p. 146). This chapter analyses this estrangement through textual analysis of The Half of It.

One of Ellie’s main concerns within the film is whether she should leave her small town or not, a popular thematic tradition of the coming of age film (TV Tropes, no date, par. 7), a genre which focusses on ‘major shifts or milestones in a character’s life’ (Kench, 2022, par. 4) as they enter adulthood. Many crucial scenes in The Half of It take place in trucks, corridors, and on roads; this staging reinforces the importance of liminal spaces and thus allows the protagonist to occupy a metaphorical ‘homelessness’. This is reinforced by the use of trains as a motif central to the protagonist’s metaphorical and literal journey.

After the opening animation, the sound of a train horn cuts through the silence of the first epitaph. Ellie is then seen acting as the signalman before her face is revealed. This allows trains, and their relation to Ellie, to be foregrounded within her first on-screen appearance. As she acts as the signalman and stationmaster, trains are a constant presence in the film, connected to the domestic through the position of her house above the station. The station is a liminal space, mirroring Ellie’s lack of belonging, reinforced by other uses of liminal spaces such as trucks, roads, corridors, old train cars, and changing rooms as settings for important scenes. The first shot of Ellie connecting to the train motif parallels the end of the film, where Ellie is on the train, thus bookending the film and Ellie’s character arc.

The opening sequence continues through a montage of the house chores and Ellie’s journey to school. Transport is again a key aspect as she rides her bicycle along the road. She rides past the Squahamish sign, representative of small-town America oppositional to her queer Asian identity. This shot is bisected by the line of the horizontal train-tracks in the sky, signifying how escape is out of reach. Train horns and squeaking bicycle wheels are key aspects of the sound design. This rhythm is disrupted by the truck, another symbol of small- town America, containing white teenage boys who shout “Chugga chugga Chu Chu” at Ellie, conflating Ellie and trains, tying her to the concept of travel and momentum. It is also a micro-aggression, something that is not outwardly racist, but holds racist connotations as they make fun of the ‘otherness’ of Ellie’s ‘ethnic’ name. The bicycle reinforces her individuality, while the train she is on at the end can symbolise community as she is ushered off into her future at university where she will find like-minded peers.

As mothers are synonymous with home and domesticity, Ellie’s dead mother further complicates these concepts. Ellie believes that life is “meaningless” at the start of the film, stated while a close up picture of her dead mother is on screen. This insinuates that this pessimism has its routes in trauma and a loss of the figure of domesticity for a child who already has a fraught relationship with home due to her status as a lesbian Chinese immigrant. However, she is not without domestic influences, as Paul and her father act as domestic figures. This is most obvious in their passion for cooking and Paul’s ability to choose out clothes for her. In some scenes Paul and Ellie’s dad are positioned within the kitchen with matching aprons, cooking side by side. As the men do not share a common language they are able to communicate through the act of cooking and thus the domestic sphere.

Poverty also defines Ellie’s sense of home and identity, established through the opening sequence. Her first full face appearance on screen is seen through the reflection of the mirror she is writing her chores on, a face of concern, someone on the line of poverty. The house is small, utilising warm colours despite the imminent threat of the electrical power being shut off because of overdue bills. She writes other student’s essays because it is a necessity so that she can look after her father, foregrounded by her act of covering him with a blanket while he sleeps in the opening montage. This motivation is why she agrees to help Paul woo Aster, even though it is morally questionable. A simplistic analysis of Ellie Chu could identify her as an Asian stereotype as she gets straight A’s. However, this excellence is possibly a survival skill as she needs to provide for her dad and herself. This is only a necessity because her dad is unable to find work as an immigrant who does not speak English. Though these characters prescribe to certain racial stereotypes, these characters never exist as caricatures as they have nuance and dimension. This can be seen as an authentication version of race on film.Thus, this is a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Asian identity explicitly tied to the troubles of a diasporic link to home.

Ellie’s ‘otherness’ is reinforced by the dialogue, as characters greet her as “The Chinese girl” and “Paul’s Chinese friend”, unthinking acts of ‘othering’ by white characters. As an only child to her widowed father, Edwin Chu/Collin Chou, Ellie and her father are the only Asian characters in both the film and the entire town. When Ellie explains to Paul that Squahamish was a “jumping off point” for her family, it is understood that she and her father do not belong in the small-town America represented by the fictional town of Squahamish. Ellie is an example of the queer Asian American diaspora, a character whose final moments on screen is that of leaving home and small-town America to venture out into the world for university. The importance of Ellie leaving town for an out of state university is revealed earlier in the film, as Ellie insists that she is going to university where she will be able to get a scholarship and stay at home to look after her dad. It takes encouragement and personal growth for her to apply to Grinell and leave town, linking her character arc to travel and a search for home.

The final sequence begins with Ellie on her bicycle, mirroring the opening of the film. She is no longer a “Russian doll of clothing”, instead wearing a simple shirt without a helmet. Ellie is without her striped shirts and jackets she wore for most of the film, removed after her confession. It is now Aster who wears a jacket and is less sure of herself, crossing her arms and keeping a distance. This is in contrast to the hot springs scene, where Aster was naked and Ellie was the one keeping her distance. This changing dynamic is first signified by Aster borrowing Ellie’s shirt by the end of the sequence. It is Ellie at the end of the film who comes back and kisses her. By the end of the film, Aster is explicitly unsure about a lot of things, and the use of the general phrase of “how do I know I’m different?” could mean that she is questioning her sexuality, or her religion, a point explored in the next chapter of my analysis.

While previous shots of Ellie cycling have been long shots, at the end of the film she is seen through a low angle close up, connoting a newfound control over her life and an openness reinforced by her costume. This choice of costuming and framing highlights her development as a more confident person and mirrors the risk and boldness she and Aster associate with love. After the communal confession Ellie made at the church at the climax of the film, she confronts Aster at the “Turning Point” in town during the final sequence as they stand on either side of the open road. The central framing draws attention to the double yellow lines between them, a sign to not cross. This framing of an open road reiterates their place in liminal space as young adults on journeys of self-discovery looking towards an uncertain future. They are stood on either side of the road as they are going in different directions to discover their sense of home and identity as Ellie is going to university in Iowa and Aster is applying to art school. Here they are seen as equals as their outfits match and they walk side by side, rather than Ellie’s tendency to cycle while Paul runs beside her.

The first moments of the final scene are heralded by the sound of the train bell as it arrives into the station. The train is no longer wizzing past Ellie’s station, it is now stopped at the station. The final scene foregrounds the best friends and their close relationship, the emotional core of the film. He hands her the box of dumplings from her dad, who Paul reassures her he will take care of and keep busy. This reinforces the skewed gendered domesticity of the film as the men are cooks, links to national identity, and carers while Ellie and Aster occupy roles in the academics and arts. This subversion of traditional domestic roles can be seen as a ‘queering’ of home and identity, mirroring the film’s position as a queer retelling.

Ellie leaving on a train at the end of the film is a symbolic resolution to the repetitive cinematic othering of her character. The use of the train as a central motif and its use in the final moments of the film allows the image of her on a train to persist, mirroring the emphasis on diaspora and journey foregrounded by the lack of hyphen in the term ‘Asian American’ and the intersectional queer Asian American ‘estrangement’ (Bui, 2014, p. 146) to home. However, Paul running alongside the train foregrounds the sense of belonging she gained through their friendship. She exists both inside and outside of the metaphorical home, similar to how her bedroom is placed above the rest of the house. Her identity, much like intersectionality, is defined by multiplicity.

Compared to the start of the film, she is now onboard the train rather than allowing it to pass through Squahamish. She is the one with forward momentum, rather than being stuck in place like her dad. She is also less cynical, established by her crying over Paul’s running beside the train. This scene is mirrored by an earlier instance of Ellie and Paul watching a classical romantic film in which the same action plays out onscreen, to which Ellie remarks that it is a romantic cliche. Paul thought the character’s actions were sweet while Ellie proclaimed they were both “morons”. The ending sequence also allows Paul to show his development as he went from one of the weakest runners to the fastest on the football team. He has trained enough so that he can run along side her as she leaves her home behind. This also mirrors the first moments Paul is on screen, where he stops running to listen to Aster sing, now he is instead running for Ellie.

Chapter 3 - religion and sexual difference

From the 1980s, far-right Americans saw Hollywood as a ‘godless industry whose products were corrosive to the spiritual health and values of the nation’ (Prince, 2002, p. 364). Christian conservative family values rebelling against ‘deviant’ sexuality or racial identity in American cinema links to central themes of The Half of It. From the opening scene, religion is established as one of the defining aspects of the film. Ellie explains the theory from Plato’s symposium that humans were divided to search for their other half, “[t]he Gods, fearing our wholeness would quell our need for worship, cleaved us in two”. Thus, the title of the film refers to a spiritual longing for the “other half of their soul”.

The setting of small-town America allows white Christianity to represent community, with the church representing the heteronormative patriarchal institution of marriage. Wu uses religion as a metaphor for sexuality and conformity within the heteronormative white suburbia presented by the film. The lesbian character is seen as a “sinner” who is “going to hell”, while the girl she flirts with begins to question her religion. This development is foregrounded in two important sequences, the hot springs scene and the climactic confrontation at the church. The othering of Ellie through her role as a queer Asian character in a white Christian society is the subject of my analysis in this chapter, building upon the cinematic othering of her as a ‘perpetual foreigner’ in search of a home, discussed in the previous chapter.

Religion represents community within Squahamish, othering Ellie. She is established as oppositional to religion in scenes where Aster refers to her as a “heathen”, a phrase Marchetti connects to white views of non-white identity (1993, p. 3). The hot springs, a place without phone service and thus connections to religious, heteronormative society, allows Aster to de-center conversations about “boys” and thus move away from heteronormativity. It is in this sequence that Ellie admits that her atheism makes her “lonely”, though Aster’s agnosticism bonds them together, separate from the homogenous religious community. This conversation establishes religious beliefs as a metaphor for sexuality in a society that equates queerness with “sin”. At one sermon, Aster’s dad says “[h]ow does Satan get his message through? ... Does he write letters? No, he causes us to ... question our lives and ... our faith in god”. This reflects how, through letters, Ellie causes Aster to question both her sexuality and her religion. Aster’s initial belief in God is representative of the Squahamish community at large, “everybody in this town fears God”, as well as her family, as she is the deacon’s daughter. This sermon effectively conflates the character of Ellie to some kind of devilish force, mirroring The Production Code’s Christian backlash to queerness in Classical Hollywood cinema as ‘perversion’.

The metaphor of religion as sexuality established in this sequence culminates in regression and the first moment where Aster is denying her affections for Ellie and thus her sexuality. After the girls separate, Aster approaches Paul from the intelligent position of her discussion with Ellie, asking him if he believes in God, to which he replies that “[o]f course” he does. What seems obvious to him establishes the characters’ beliefs mirroring their sexualities, where atheism, agnosticism, and Catholicism are representative of queer, questioning, and straight identities. Aster’s confirmation of Paul’s belief in God, “[y]eah, of course”, and her subsequent act of kissing him represents a suppression of both religious doubts and queer sexuality in the same moment. These attempts to assimilate into the dominant society are ultimately unsuccessful, as she has already started to doubt religion and thus her sexuality. this sequence firmly establishes the religious metaphor which extends to the final sequence.

During Aster and Ellie’s conversation at “The Turning Point”, they reiterate the fact that Aster is unsure about herself. Ellie’s impersonation of Aster, saying “Am I sure I’m different? How do I know I’m sure?”, lacks a definitive subject and thus could be applied to both her religious and sexuality crisis over the course of film. She remains unsure of her identity and place in the world, as the concept of difference foregrounds, she asserts that “[i]n a couple of years, I am going to be so sure”, thus she will be sure of her queerness and her religious beliefs. The scene culminating in Ellie surprising her with a kiss and the words “I’ll see you in a couple years”. This gives narrative closure to the moment while also establishing that there will be a future for the two of them. Aster’s final line of “[f]ind something good in Iowa to believe in, heathen”, through the lens of this metaphor could mean that Aster hopes Ellie finds romance and queer companionship. Paired with their kiss, this reinforces the extended metaphor of religion as sexuality.

The hot springs sequence also offers resolution to the opening animation. Through Ellie’s statement that “this is not a love story” and her disillusionment over the concept of religion and being someone’s “other half”, it is possible to decode that the other half of the self is more of the self, foregrounded by the motif of reflections and water. The opening animation shows someone mistaking their reflection for their other perfect half, an image that parallels the hot springs scene as Ellie and Aster lie on their backs in the water, both appearing to have two faces and bodies through the clear reflection of themselves in the water. This mirrors Ellie’s opening words, “[t]he ancient greeks believed humans once had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces”. Rather than needing to “complete” each other, they complete themselves. Through this sequence it is possible to decode the title of the film, as the half of it they are searching for is not external love, but self acceptance. This focus on character rather than relationship allows Wu to reappropriate and deconstruct romcom features and tropes through the intersectional lens of queer Asian identity.

As discussed by Petro in reference to a documentary account of a 1989 Manhattan protest, ‘[f]eminist and gay activists have become the major purveyors of new prejudices against the Catholic Church, faulting its “traditional” stances on contraception, abortion, and gay rights’ (2017, p. 922). In the 1970s ‘Many gay liberation manifestos view gender as a societal straightjacket; critique the limitations of heterosexual institutions such as marriage’ (Benshoff and Griffin, 2006, p. 141). This separation of church and queerness is foregrounded by Wu’s use of the church as, like other liminal spaces, a reoccurring setting used in key moments of the film. The church also acts as a symbol of heterosexual marriage, made explicit through the marriage proposal. This setting represents the heteronormative patriarchy, which Ellie is placed in cinematic opposition with in several ways.

The all white congregation is separated from Ellie as she is placed on a level above and behind everyone else, segregating her visually and spatially. She is out of sight despite the piano placed beside the alter, which Ellie only uses for practice. There are times where the camera moves from the congregation level to Ellie’s level, foregrounding religious differences and Ellie’s position as “heathen”, ironically placing her closer to God. She is cut off from any sense of community despite messaging back and forth with Aster during the church service, as Aster believes she is talking to Paul, a character who exemplifies religion without being hateful as he comes to recognise Ellie’s strength and apologises for his assertion that she will go to hell.

The separation between the congregation and Ellie is most notable at the climax of the film, where Ellie objects to Trig/Wolfgang Novogratz’s proposal to Aster. In this action Ellie is interrupting not only easter service but also Aster’s final effort to conform into heteronormative, homogenous, religious society. Easter symbolises a time of rebirth and change, as ‘the sins of humanity were paid for by the death of Jesus’ (Hillerbrand, 2022, par. 2). This separation from sin could link to Ellie’s act of confession, effectively divulging herself of her sins. This scene acts as a turning point for many characters, as Ellie confesses to Aster, Paul apologises to Ellie, and Aster leaves Trig and the institution of the church. Both the importance of easter as a religious holiday and the use of the church setting for the climax of the film allows Wu to reinforce the central motif of religion, expanding upon this through the use of a proposal. Marriage as a christian institution reflects a heterosexual religious conformity oppositional to Ellie’s character.

The idea that Trig would propose to her was originally discussed by Aster in the hot spring, as she mentions that she heard him talking. At this point she is upset that he did not consider asking her about it, which is reflected by his choice of words during the proposal. He does not ask, it is an announcement that she will marry him with a question, “will you?”, added to the end. This strips Aster of her autonomy in a similar way to how, historically, the church strips women of their power. Trig asks this in a public setting in front of everyone they know, also stripping her of her ability to say no .This is an example of the patriarchy defined by the church which is reflected in the way that Aster is stripped of her voice during this scene. Originally, she believes she should marry Trig, but doubts herself when Ellie is surprised by this conclusion. Ellie does not try to convince her of anything, but she sees her doubt and thus intervenes at the proposal, saving Aster from a conformity she would never wholly belong to.

The climactic sequence of the film starts with the congregation singing “hold, holy, holy” as the camera lingers on the stained glass window of three figures, possibly saints. The congregation continue, “merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed trinity”, possibly implying that the three figures represent the central characters, a man of the church, and two long haired scholars engaged with either writing or reading. In the rest of the church, Trig is on one side of the isle and Aster is on the other. Ellie is seen side on and positioned in frame directly above Aster. With the job of accompanist, Ellie is a constant invisible presence.

Trig’s proposal starts with a bible quote, “Love is patient, love is kind” and his assertion that Aster will make a lovely wife, an act of objectifyication before she is asked if she will accept him. Rather than speak, Aster merely nods her head, representative of her hesitation to accept. During Ellie’s objection to Trig’s, and thus the bible’s, notion of love, she comes down the stairs onto the same level of the congregation, allowing her to be level with Aster as the truth is finally revealed. She moves towards white society while also rejecting heteronormative religious traditions and conventions. “Love isn’t patient and kind and humble. Love is... Love is messy. And horrible and Selfish and... bold”. During this speech she overcomes her fear of being perceived. She no longer has nothing to believe in, reaffirming that romance and belief are linked as Aster is the object of affection and contemplation. The only dialogue Aster has in this scene is to ask Ellie if she is the one she has been falling in love with. When Ellie asks if this is the boldest stroke that Aster can make, Aster responds with a simple “you”, which is said with a resigned finality. She already guessed. But it still hurts. Aster slaps Paul and then leaves without a word. The only thing she says in the scene is the “you” to Ellie. These words are codified so that no one else truly understands their conversation, mirroring the codified queerness found in classical Hollywood.

An intersectional focus ‘highlights the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed’ (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1245). This dissertation uses an intersectional approach to analyse the construction of queer Asian identity within The Half of It. The nuances of sympathetic representation are established through Ellie’s ‘deep interest in the arts and her backstory of being a Chinese immigrant, therefore making her stand out from the many other LGBT characters seen on screen.’ (Yun, 2020, par. 6) Wu uses reoccurring motifs of domesticity and religion to touch upon the multifaceted queer Asian American identity as she ‘subverts both romcom and teen movie conventions for a story that is refreshingly original and deeply relatable’ (Steiner, 2020, par. 4).

Ellie Chu’s othering is cinematically communicated through the use of religious, domestic, and vehicular motifs and metaphors to establish the complex relationships between religion, home, and identity for queer Asian Americans. The use of trains, the church, and alternative portrayals of family domesticity allows Wu to add to and reinterpret common aspects of the coming of age and romance genres through an intersectional lens, interrogating notions of oppression and difference within small-town America.

Unlike work that came before it, this dissertation’s focus on Wu’s film and an intersectional analysis of queer Asian female characters in American cinema sets it apart. The relatively small field of Asian American cinema studies requires expansion through an intersectional approach used by critics such as (Bui, 2014) to interrogate constricted identity in independent cinema. As the cinematic landscape changes, critics should work towards inclusive scholarly debates and include varied filmmakers within their analysis and from different approaches. This analysis of queer Asian American cinema opens the field for further investigation.

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