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Aesthetics and Gender Politics in "Raise the Red Lantern"
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Table of Contents
Introduction
In the film, Raise the Red Lantern by Zhang Yimous, aesthetics and gender politics are central aspects. However, as Fan acknowledge the precariously challenging nature of the dialogue and the end aimed by the dialogue (1). The same is present in establishing the linkage between aesthetics and gender politics in the film. While gender politics are present in the competition and jealousy among wives, housekeepers, and concubines, the film’s emphasis on color and pattern contributed immensely as well in capturing the plot intricacies that exhibit the gender politics (Yimou). The director, Zhang, was keen on these issues and the extent that their links comes out exhibits the effectiveness of their utilization. The employment of aesthetics in the film Raise the Red Lantern contributed in amplifying the gender politics that were prevalent in the feudal China.
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Aesthetics and Gender Politics in "Raise the Red Lantern": Film Analysis
Aesthetic Expression as a Lens for Gender Politics
Conventionally, politics in a family setup are definitely hierarchical with family traditions, customs and rules binding them. In the film Raise the Red Lantern, Zhang exhibits the oppressiveness that characterized feudal China personified by the degree of unreasonable and domineering male figure. The male’s treatment of women typifies the oppression. In the film, men have the license to abuse, purchase wives, use them for reproduction and pervasive sexual pleasure, and even murder them when deemed inconvenient or abusive. As Chow exhibits, the various tactics of visuality should exhibit a nearly militaristic insight of how time relates to mass culture.
The Role of Color and Visual Design in Storytelling
For the film to succeed Chow establishes the need to communicate automatically and unmediated, which necessitates aesthetics in the form of sophisticated colors and color patterns. Zhang effectively managed to establish a grasp of the illusion of transparency that would enable the viewer to follow the Raise the Red Lantern film effortlessly. In a subject where gender politics are central, such evident grasp enables the film audiences get access to what they are after (Chow 160).
For any film, Chow acknowledges that establishing the linkage of an expression with a period is critical. Such explains the contrast of the screen designs adopted in the film by Zhang (143). In Raise the Red Lantern, Zhang deploys exquisite colors in a manner that will be able to depict “backwardness” of the manner the females are impressed easily by color and color patterns (Chow 143).
Cinematic Techniques and Emotional Engagement
Hereby, the prominent, symmetrical screen organizations that Zhang employs to exhibit architectural details and redefinition of utensils, costumes, food, and furniture come across as the recognizable aesthetics that Zhang adopts in an attempt to exhibit the experiences that males would subject women (Chow 143).
As Fan acknowledges, the roles that a film plays entail harmonizing and aestheticizing life with the best representation and avoidance of the subject matter focused on such purposes. The employment of aesthetics in the film aims to represent the life. Bearing in mind the context in which the film operates and the plot, the film, Raise the Red Lantern manages to cultivate an attitude of concubines’ life by attempting to elevate and represent the quality and aesthetic of their experiences (Fan 8). In this case, the gist of the film entails the destiny of life of young women ruined in the male-dominated society.
The application of visualization is spectacular even though restricted to one primary setting. Such results from Zhang being able to utilize character manipulation to capture audience attention. Through aesthetics, it becomes possible to portray the image that prompts depression and sympathy from the audience towards the characters.
Conclusion
In the Raise the Red Lantern film seeking to bring out traditional Chinese gender relationships, the intricacies of gender politics and associated aesthetics were bound to feature. The most outstanding of such is the large extent to which the power in the Chinese relationships lies in the hands of men. As the head of the households, men could decide on everything. In the film, only men qualify as part of the society’s public life, with women restricted to household roles in private life. Such is evident considering the family estate in which the film is set. The accompanying aesthetics tend to enhance this power imbalance between genders.
Works Cited
Chow, Rey. “The Force of Surfaces: Defiance in Zhang Yimou’s Films.” Primitive Passions. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 143-172.
Fan, Victor. Approaching Reality: Epistemic Distance, Political Crises and Temporal Imaginations in the Sino-French Dialogue on Cinema Ontology. n.d. <http://www.worldpicturejournal.com/WP_7/PDFs/Fan.pdf>.
Raise the Red Lantern. Dir. Zhang Yimou. 1991. Film.