The case studies within this monograph begin with the examination of a pair of films that initially make the process of remaking a film across cultures look like a very straightforward situation of translation, whereby a narrative is copied and transferred to another language and location. In the case of the Hollywood film What Women Want (2000) and its Chinese-language remake (我知女人心) (2011), indeed, upon first viewing, the remake seems to have made no major changes to the actual plot of the source film. It is not, in fact, the differences between source film and remake which initially strike the viewer of these films, but the similarities. A product of collaboration between US and Chinese production houses, it is easy to assume that the remake is perhaps nothing more than a Chinese copy of the original film.
While the film is now set in Beijing and characters speak Standard Mandarin, the Chinese-language remake readily seems to adopt the original Hollywood film’s plot. The film’s mise-en-scene is dominated by light, bright and shiny high-key lighting, with skies punctuated by tall, beaming skyscrapers, and spaces framed by sharp, clean lines, presenting a modern view of life in China today. Thematically, dysfunction, divorce, women in the workforce, and the sexual tensions of adolescence all make an appearance in the film. Scenes which seem very direct, including one where Andy Lau’s character walks in on his very young daughter, who can’t be much older than sixteen, and her boyfriend on the lounge room couch, perhaps indicate that this film might reflect liberal, modern Chinese attitudes towards gender, sexuality and the family. But is this actually the case? This chapter will compare and contrast representations of masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the family in the two versions of the film, with a view to better understanding the role of perceived cultural difference in Chinese-language remakes, and how the representations of gender and the family seen in the remake might connect with current values on these critical social elements.
The US film What Women Want (2000) directed by Nancy Meyers, and starring Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei and Alan Alda, is set in Chicago, and tells the story of a chauvinistic male advertising executive, Nick Marshall, and his struggle to function within a society which is no longer controlled by men. Nick’s personal life is dominated by difficulties with his ex-wife and daughter, and he engages in a string of meaningless relationships. At work, an advertising market increasingly dominated by the female consumer means a change of direction for his company, and Nick loses a big promotion to new female employee Darcy McGuire. While attempting to get in touch with his feminine side (part of a professional exercise in understanding the female consumer developed by McGuire), an accidental electrocution gives Nick the power to hear women’s thoughts. First seeing this as a curse, his (female) psychiatrist enlightens Nick to the power he could wield should he use this insider information to his advantage. Nick then sets about bringing down the woman who stole his promotion, copying her ideas and undermining her confidence and competence.
The Chinese-language remake (我知女人心), made in 2011, is also a mainstream commercial film, and follows the same plot line, with the male lead Sun Zigang (孫子剛) (played by Andy Lau) directing his new-found mind-reading powers at Li Yilong (李仪龙) (Gong Li). Like the American film, the Chinese remake also features a number of secondary characters, including a male sidekick for the male protagonist, the male CEO of the advertising company, an emotionally unstable coffee waitress, and a female employee with low self-esteem. In both films, by listening to the thoughts of women, the male lead is able to transform himself into a man who understands and appreciates his daughter more, along with winning the love of the female protagonist.
Filled with Frank Sinatra music, Chicago architecture, references to U.S. brands like Nike, and a plot which glorifies the endeavor of personal reinvention, the original film is “a very American movie,” according to director Nancy Meyers on the DVD’s commentary; “and the characters are very American” (Meyers, 2000). Given this description of the original film as being highly culturally specific, it could be reasonably inferred that it would be difficult to remake such a film in China, where there are different cultural, historical and social forces in action. However, upon viewing the remake, critics from media organisations such as Variety and the Los Angeles Times actually saw few differences in how the story was translated. Julie Makinen’s review leads with the title, “What women want translates easily now—in remaking the 2000 film for Chinese audiences, few details had to be changed” (Makinen, 2011). Variety’s reviewer Richard Kuipers evaluates the film as a “straightforward remake of Paramount’s 2000 money-spinner” (Kuipers, 2011), while Mark Olsen goes further to state that “Andy Lau and Gong Li are appealing leads, but this Chinese-language carbon copy doesn’t find a distinctive voice” (Olsen, 2011). Not only do these reviews identify a lack of substantial plot variation between the two films, but they also reflect the long-held notion that remakes are primarily commercial, sub-quality, unoriginal films with little substance, a myth which has already been discussed and dismissed in academia but seems to nevertheless persist in some critical circles.
Arguments regarding originality aside, when the two versions of What Women Want are placed under closer scrutiny, there are, in fact, a number of crucial differences between the two films. This chapter will discuss how gender and the family are constructed in What Women Want, in order to establish where changes are made and speculate as to why these may have occurred. To begin, representations of masculinity and femininity will be examined, and located within the socio-cultural contexts of the films’ regions of production. Following this, the chapter will examine how the two films approach the issue of sexuality, before moving to consider how the family is reshaped in the remake.
The Construction of Gender in What Women Want
Good, Ol’ Fashioned Masculinity: Men in What Women Want (2000)
In the original film, we are introduced to masculinity through the monologues of three women who know the male protagonist Nick Marshall well—his ex-wife, his personal assistant, and his daughter. The first image we actually see in the film is of a dirty, sweaty newspaper delivery man, smoking a cigarette while unloading his truck against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline. The voice-over narration from an as-yet unknown woman talks about an American cultural concept: “Do you know the expression, ‘a man’s man’? A ‘man’s man’ is the leader of the pack, the kind of man other men look up to, admire and emulate. A man’s man is the kind of man who just doesn’t get what women are about”.
We are then introduced to Nick Marshall—“Nick, my ex-husband, is the ultimate man’s man. I probably never should have married him. I don’t think he understood a thing about me”. His personal assistant continues: “So, do you want to check out Nick Marshall’s office? Don’t worry, he never gets in before ten. He will send you on more errands than anyone else in the office, because he can’t do anything for himself. He’s a real bachelor, and the least politically correct person in the universe. He’s the king of all the T&A ads that we do. You want babes in bikinis? He’s your man”. Nick is a man who objectifies women and views them as a collection of sexual body parts. But this attitude is not apparently all Nick’s fault—according to his ex-wife, “once you understand Nick’s mother, you understand Nick”. The viewer is then taken back to Nick’s childhood, which was spent in a Las Vegas burlesque theatre, surrounded by half-naked women, pimps, and black money. “While other kids were out riding their bikes and playing ball, Nick was backstage, hangin’ with the girls”. We see Nick beaming as he receives kisses and attention from the female performers.
The introductory minutes of the film thus give a clear impression of Nick’s character. He is a “man’s man”, a big shot, who doesn’t understand women and doesn’t really want to. He is infantile in many respects, using a baby voice and a pout to beg his housemaid to make him breakfast. We hear in the voice-over that he has a bad relationship with his daughter, who sees him more as an Uncle than a father. The next shot, set to sexy jazz music, is of Nick asleep in bed. Nick rolls over, and we see a lipstick stain on his cheek. We then meet the fourth woman in his life, his Latino housemaid, who spends equal parts of her time chastising Nick, cleaning up after him, and rejecting his sexual advances. Our introduction to Nick concludes with an interaction between Nick and the doorwoman Flo, who gets him a cab to his office every morning.
Nick’s problem with women appears to partially stem from his attachment to the ‘past glory days’. His behaviour and attitudes are a ‘throw-back’ to a previous generation, when men were socially and economically dominant, and masculinity was not under attack from increasingly active women. Masculinity in the American original film is thus framed through the male lead’s nostalgia for the past—in this case, a past which is unmistakably American. The film strongly roots its version of masculinity in American cinematic culture, through references to Frank Sinatra music (Nick’s idea of “an antidote to too much oestrogen”), Vegas showgirls, and recognizable Chicago architecture. The film’s verbal sparring between the lead protagonists and the physical comedy of Nick’s character harks back to classic Hollywood screwball romantic comedies like The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Pillow Talk (1959).
This connection to memory and nostalgia is a characteristic associated with 1990s America, a part of what Harrison calls a ‘crisis of historicity’ which was indicative of American anxieties “about the relationship to the past, and a declining ability to imagine the world to come” (Harrison, 2010, p. 2). This period was a time in which America underwent great social change, and identities which were once firmly fixed and united were being eroded by globalisation, resulting in “fragmented communities with their own distinct histories … (Harrison, 2010, p. 2), and ‘culture wars’ over issues such as minority rights, multiculturalism and national identity” (Harrison, 2010, p. 18). Harrison argues that as they witnessed the repeated failures of these utopian dreams, citizens became less enthusiastic to engage with unifying narratives of progress. In short, “the 1990s were a period of exuberance and uncertainty … but while America may have been richer, its citizens were more divided and insecure” (Harrison, 2010, p. 7).
In terms of women’s rights, the 1990s was the decade where standards generally improved, but the goals of the feminist movement were yet to be fully realised. Women’s participation in the workplace was ever-increasing, but there were still inequalities particularly in political representation and in relation to race. These social changes manifested themselves in cinema, with “films which produced nostalgic reaffirmations of traditional gender norms of masculinity and femininity, in response to the anxieties created by change, particularly in movies which dealt with the ‘predatory woman’ or made the reconstitution of masculinity their subject” (Harrison, 2010, p. 16). The American version of What Women Want appears to be consistent with this latter form of film, whereby Nick’s crisis and his refusal to let go of past glory days is connected with this broader notion of identity crisis in the face of a changing world for men, where women were expected to now be treated as equals.
The New Chinese Man: Remaking Masculinity in What Women Want (2011)
Rather than affording women the first word, the beginning of the Chinese remake gives Sun Zigang the opportunity to introduce himself to the viewer. He is first seen on the set of an advertising shoot for a luxury foreign car. Dressed in a business shirt, vest and jeans, he sits in the director’s chair, smoking a cigar. Zigang observes the shoot with disapproval, before finally interrupting to take command from his younger female employee. He encourages the male model to be more arrogant, more masculine, and the women to be sexier. He justifies this intervention with the statement that his clients are not high-end customers, but coal miners with money—“the car is black. The suit is black. It’s the essence of coal. You wouldn’t get it”, he says to the female employee. We see him receiving praise and support for his work from his male colleague and best friend Tip, and we also begin to see the womaniser in Zigang, as he flirts with the female models. In the following scene, Zigang and Tip drink whisky at a bar and discuss “what women want”. Tip is insecure, and functions as a contrasting, effeminate character against Zigang’s masculinity. Zigang is confident that he understands both men and women—what women want, in his opinion, is simple—“men with money”.
We are then introduced to a somewhat different perspective on Sun Zigang from his ex-wife. Wearing a wedding dress, she is preparing to remarry, and is giving her bridesmaids and the viewers an insight into her ex-husband’s personality. Their daughter Doudou (豆豆) is also present. According to his ex-wife, “Doudou’s father only sees himself. Like all men, he never listens, and he never lets people finish a sentence. His ears are just for decoration. Sun Zigang was raised by his father. Even when he was young, he knew how to placate women”. Her narration is intertwined with a flashback of Zigang being raised by his father. She comes to the conclusion that while Zigang is flawed, “that’s just how he is, with the typical faults of any man”. The scene cuts to Sun Zigang in bed, being awoken by his landlady. Late for work, a groggy Zigang is framed next to his watch and a near-empty glass of wine, and she questions him over his evening’s activities. Unconcerned, Zigang orders her to make him breakfast—“since the management fees on his apartment are so high these days, it’s the least you can do”. Confident, arrogant, charming and successful, this is a man who usually gets what he wants.
The remake of What Women Want, while maintaining the same masculinity in crisis theme as the original film, adopts a different method of approach for its predominantly domestic Chinese audience. Instead of constructing Sun Zigang’s masculinity with reference to the bygone past, it is the present that takes centre stage. Zigang’s character is thus surrounded by symbols of a 21st century man, from his uptown lifestyle to his modern workplace and attire. Rather than dancing to an old Frank Sinatra song, Sun dances to an English-language pop/dance track, and even performs a ballad in English for love interest Yilong later in the film. Rather than attempting to go back in time, Zigang is trying to move forward into a way of thinking which matches his otherwise contemporary lifestyle. The film reflects what Kam Louie has identified as a greater shift in Chinese society, whereby the traditional ideals of wen and wu in China have evolved to more strongly identify business success, wealth and a high-flying, travelling lifestyle as important features of masculinity (Louie, 2014). As will be discussed later in this chapter, Zigang’s father provides the counter-point for the past version of masculinity in the film’s narrative.
Performing Gender in What Women Want
A very significant aspect of how gender is constructed in both versions of the film centres around performances. While Nick Marshall has an office full of pictures of women in bikinis, and dances around his living room to an old Frank Sinatra song, the Chinese remake draws attention to the performative nature of gender through the exaggerated notions of masculinity and femininity encouraged by Sun Zigang’s coaching of his models. Both films feature drag scenes where the male protagonist dresses as a woman—in the original film, Nick Marshall tests out the beauty products given to him by his new female boss, with comical results. This scene is replicated in the Chinese remake, and an additional drag scene added where Zigang’s work colleague Tip arrives in drag at a work meeting. The internal monologues of women throughout the film also serve to highlight the performative nature of gender, contrasting the external appearance and verbalisations of these women with their ‘real’ gendered characteristics revealed through their thoughts. Important aspects of characters’ personalities are therefore conveyed through various performances within the film, and in general, gender is shown to be a form of performance, in the sense that men and women both perform the perceived qualities of their gender at different points throughout the films.
This exploration of masculinity and femininity raises deeper questions of how gender is in fact constructed in the films, and the use of drag scenes to interrogate gender strongly connects with the theory one of the most significant post-feminist scholars, Judith Butler. Butler, in her works Gender Trouble (Butler, 1999a), Bodies that Matter (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004), discusses the theory of ‘performativity’, articulating how gender is not a pre-ordained, natural category, but is instead discursively constructed; through the use of certain statements, gender is brought into being, and it is in this sense, ‘performative’. In Butler’s theory, “gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which ‘sexed nature’ or ‘a natural sex’ is produced and established as ‘pre-discursive’, prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts” (Butler, 1999a, p. 11). Thus, the performative nature of gender makes the traditional binary gender system open to challenge from groups that do not conform to hetero-normative standards. Butler uses the example of the drag queen, who becomes another gender through the performance of behaviours associated with that other gender (Butler, 1999a). In this way, gender “becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one” (Butler, 1999b, p. 346). However, importantly, a drag queen who mimics perfectly the female gender does not deconstruct the binary of gender but rather reinforces it.
As already mentioned, the two versions of What Women Want both feature a drag scene involving the male protagonist. Through this scene, we gain an understanding of some of the rituals involved in being a woman (and conversely, the rituals not involved with being a man). Waxing, using sanitary pads, and applying make-up, all form part of the social rituals involved in distinguishing women from men—from a young age, these acts are signifiers of gender difference and thus, as Butler argues, contribute to the construction (and maintenance) of gender itself. By unsuccessfully and humorously performing ‘woman’ through this drag scene, both the male protagonists establish that the differences between the genders are in part, attributable to learned behaviours—behaviours these men never engaged in, and are therefore not very skilled at. However, there is a slight difference in the use of the male body which speaks to the broader issues of gender construction that appear across the two films.
While Nick Marshall’s masculine, hairy body only emphasizes the difference between his masculinity and the female body, Sun Zigang projects a slightly different form of masculinity, which is more consistent with the remake’s Jungian approach to gender. While his conversion of a tampon into a toy cigar could be read as an attempt to masculinise a very feminine product, this initial desire to dominant the feminine fades over the course of this scene—Zigang struggles less with the application of makeup Nick Marshall did, and after an initial period of hesitation, seems to relish the opportunity to engage in some of the behaviours and rituals that are associated with the ‘anima’—a point which will be explored further later in this chapter. However, while the gender boundaries in the Chinese remake are redefined, they are nevertheless also reinforced by a second scene where Zigang’s workmate Tip misunderstands a directive and appears in drag to a work meeting. The subsequent ridicule and embarrassment he suffers makes very clear the attitudes towards this alternative construction of gender. In practice, none of the men in What Women Want genuinely have their sexuality questioned through the way the films’ construct their gender.
What Do Women Want? Femininity in What Women Want
Both versions of What Women Want have introductions that use female characters to induct the viewer into a certain view of masculinity—the premise being that we are introduced to the male characters from a ‘feminist/feminine perspective’. But through these introductions, we also gain an insight as viewers into the construction of femininity. In the original film, we meet no less than six female characters in the first ten minutes of screen-time. The ex-wife, the personal assistant and the daughter all seem to have particularly scathing opinions of Nick, drawing upon anti-male sentiments and notions of female superiority with comments such as “he can’t do anything for himself” or otherwise employing sarcasm to describe his personal behaviours and values. He is, according to them, incompetent, sexually promiscuous, and totally incapable of maintaining what these women consider to be quality relationships. Child-like, in the past he has been totally dependent on them, and is thus rather pathetic.
But, in the introductory monologue of Nick’s ex-wife, it is also evident that femininity also involves an element of criticism directed at women by other women. Nick’s mother is derided for her unorthodox lifestyle—her openly sexual behaviour is condemned, and she is ridiculed in her role as mother, by another woman. Thus while Nick himself is subject to some criticism throughout the film, his mother is condemned for being the source of Nick’s behaviour. She has displayed what is clearly considered to be an inappropriate version of femininity and of motherhood in particular. The acceptable form of femininity, as defined by those women whose behaviour is not questioned or is condoned within the film, is sexually chaste (or at least, keeps her thoughts to herself), insecure and dependent. These women supposedly both love and hate Nick Marshall, and are easily fooled by his charms. At one point early in the film, Nick accidentally spills coffee on a woman’s breasts and subsequently gropes her under the pretense of helping her. From her reaction, we can see that this behaviour is interpreted naively by the woman as him kindly helping her clean herself up, rather than as sexual assault. Thus for a film which purports to be about what women want, the American original is very male-fantasy oriented, with little room for substantial female characters.
Further evidence for this view can be found in the most important vehicle the film has for constructing femininity—the thoughts of women, as overheard by the male protagonist. As the women in the film do not know that Nick is able to hear them, their thoughts are presented as being unfiltered, authentic female thoughts. In the context of the original film, American women have thoughts which are primarily neurotic or sexual. Neuroticism appears primarily in the form of anxiety over how colleagues or other people perceive them, for example “I hope I am doing this right, Oh God, what am I doing? This is so embarrassing” and similar ideas. There are also a number of thoughts which relate to the performance of simple, everyday domestic tasks, such as “Did I remember to turn the oven off?” Finally, the bulk of the rest of female thoughts are concerned with sex, involving fantasizing or concealing one’s desire for another person—apparently women have sexual thoughts too, but often do not, or cannot, express them. The one woman who isn’t discreet is the coffee waitress, who sleeps with Nick and as the film goes on is portrayed as a desperate sexual predator. Anxieties about the increasing role of women in external society, and the desire to re-affirm traditional gender roles in response to this threat, are thus again reiterated through the construction of femininity.
What Do Chinese Women Want?
In the Chinese remake, what is interesting but almost goes unnoticed is an early scene in a bar, where Zigang casually writes on a bar napkin the words “What do women want? What do Chinese women want?” (“女人要什么? 中国女人要什么?”). It seems there is a clear distinction being made here between women broadly and Chinese women particularly. In this film, while recognizing that there are common desires shared by all women, the viewer is directed to note that there is something specific about Chinese society and culture which warrants a separate category addressing the expectations and goals of Chinese women. In the Chinese remake, these expectations and goals are framed through the representation of a number of female characters, particularly the ex-wife, the protagonist Li Yilong, and the coffee waitress Yan Yi, but also significantly by several of Zigang’s female co-workers. Aside from Yilong, who is depicted as being relatively strong, reasonable, intelligent and classy (albeit rather sentimental), the remake follows a similar depiction of femininity to the source film, where women perform a version of femininity that is shallow, self-obsessed and gullible. There is, however, a definite change in focus between the themes featured in the American source film’s female monologues and those in the Chinese remake.
Zigang’s best friend Tip acknowledges this change in his response to Zigang’s musings about what women want—what women want is “money”. What Chinese women want is “men with money”. The Chinese film, in contrast with the American original, emphasizes women’s internal thoughts as being highly materialistic and consumerist. It is of course necessary to acknowledge that the Chinese remake of the film would have been subject to more strict censorship rules than its American counterpart, and it was tailored for a broader audience, therefore the sexual content which could appear in the film would have been restricted. Many of the sexual thoughts which were a feature of the original film would have been removed as a consequence of this. However, in re-writing the script, there was a decision made to replace these thoughts with materialistic ones, driven by issues of self-image, rather than other themes.
Woman, as she appears in the Chinese remake, is a very vain creature. Many of the thoughts of everyday women, even as they pass by Zigang in the street, are aspirational and revolve around buying or receiving material possessions. When he is first discharged from the hospital, he overhears the thoughts of women who want to be bought cars if they aren’t going to be bought houses (“不买房也得给我买辆车”), and later, women who are overspending on their credit cards comparing notes and judging others on their purchases. The thoughts of these women are less related to a fear of doing things right or wrong, and are instead much more heavily oriented towards self-image, materialism and status than what is conveyed in the original film. Many internal thoughts involve criticizing the female body (both self-criticism and criticism directed at others), with references to poor women dressing like “peasants”, women who wear a lot of make-up as “working girls”, and plastic surgery as an option for unattractive women. Interestingly, these comments are not only about self-image, but are also embedded with a form of class elitism.
If Shuqin Cui’s argument that ‘woman’ in Chinese cinema acts as a “visual and discursive sign in the creation of the nation-state in twentieth-century China” (Cui, 2003, p. xi) is applied to this 21st century remake, the representation of women could be read as indicative of the nation suffering from a self-image issue. The characterization of the remake’s women as shallow and vain is symbolic of the increasing influence of the discourse of consumerism that has become associated with the rapid economic and social changes which have occurred in China over the past thirty years. Thus, the Chinese woman in What Women Want fiercely defends her right to her new-found materialism and prides herself on her appearance, but at the same time, worries about being ‘overweight’—an allegory for over-consumption. The changes that have been enacted upon femininity in the remake thus could be read as the cinematic manifestations of these cultural and social changes in China more broadly.
Sexuality in What Women Want
As can be seen in the different versions of masculinity and femininity presented in the two films, much of the narrative of What Women Want is fundamentally concerned with defining and re-defining gender. In both films, what was seen as a legitimate form of masculinity, with its misogynist tendencies and societal dominance, is established as being no longer the appropriate approach for modern men in contemporary society. However, while the primary plot remains the same, the two films tap into two distinct psychological concepts to explain the behaviour of their protagonists, which again reflect perceived differences in cultural approaches to gender.
Freud and What Women Want
The American source film, set in the 1990s, is built on a structure which very closely follows Sigmund Freud’s understanding of gender and sexuality. The most obvious acknowledgement is in the film’s title, a reference to an unanswered question purportedly posed by Freud himself—“What do women want?” The Freudian interpretation of human behaviour centred on the belief that the driving force within all humans is the ‘libido’. Freud argued that the life energy of humans originates from, and is shaped by, sex. Every personality or physiological disorder suffered by individuals is the product of a traumatic sexual event or unfulfilled sexual desire/s, often stemming from childhood, where limitations or prohibitions on sexual behaviour from adults influenced the sexual development of children (Kline, 2014).
In the Hollywood film, it is the absence of a father figure that defines Nick Marshall’s attitudes towards women. It is established early in the film that Nick suffers from a complex related to his mother. This stems from her not providing a strong male role model for him, and raising him in an overtly sexualized environment. The American film is built around this Freudian interpretation of parent-child relations, which vilifies the mother for her incompetence and for the subsequent failings of her son. Nick’s ex-wife gives us a detailed explanation of this attribution of blame in her opening monologue—“Once you understand Nick’s mother, you understand Nick. Nick was actually born and raised in Las Vegas. Nick’s mother was a real, honest-to-God Las Vegas showgirl. When other boys were outside riding their bikes and playing ball, Nick was backstage, hangin’ with the girls. He was their mascot, their little pet. They couldn’t get enough of those baby blues. If you ask me, Nick’s mother just about killed it for any other woman Nick would ever meet. She had a lot of sugar daddies in her life, but only one true love—the boy with the family jewels. And since Nick didn’t have a father, his mum made sure he was always surrounded by strong male role models that her little boy could really look up to. There is nothing normal about the way Nick Marshall was raised. So what do you expect? You don’t have to be Freud to figure out that this was one cock-eyed way to enter the world.”
The visuals of this scene make it clear that these comments are sarcastic. The conditions described have actually stunted the normal process of Nick’s sexual growth, and he seems to be unable to progress beyond what Freud called the ‘phallic stage’ of development. In this stage of development, Freud theorized that the libido found expression through the subject becoming obsessed with matters concerning the phallus. As can be seen throughout particularly the early stages of the film, all of the film’s characters, but most especially Nick, are highly concerned with sex, and there are frequent references to the phallus in terms of size and performance. In just the two minute monologue above, there are already two references to ‘the family jewels’ and a ‘cock-eyed’ way to enter the world used to describe Nick. The coffee shop where we meet Lola (the unstable barista) sets up a gag about the size of Nick’s ‘coffee’—“grande, or at least I like to think so”. Nick is thus clearly very ‘tuned in’ to matters relating to the phallus, and failing to progress beyond this point of development has, according to Freudian analysis, resulted in him becoming an aggressive, over-ambitious, vain man (Kline, 2014).
In representing women, the film also filters female characters through a Freudian lens. The women in What Women Want also have sexual thoughts and needs, some of which we are privy to in their internal monologues. Many of these needs go unexpressed, which Freud believed led to personality disorders such as neuroticism, obsessive behaviour and sexual repression. All of the female characters in the film, from the lead protagonist through to the coffee waitress and the doorwoman, display these qualities to some extent. They frequently question themselves, and are highly concerned with what other people think of them. Lola, while having sex with Nick, is unable to express her sexual needs, and is fortunate that he is literally a mind-reader at this point in the film. Protagonist Darcy is even caught by Nick at one point looking at his crotch while they are in a professional setting, for which she must immediately (mentally) chastise herself. But while Nick’s sexualised behaviour is seen as misogynist but somewhat ‘natural’, women have been most affected by a social context which has shaped them to be ashamed of these kinds of thoughts and desires. The women are thus conflicted and often unable to express themselves clearly to get what they need in a relationship, and it is up to Nick instead to give them what they need by ‘reading’ them.
For the period from his first significant lecture in 1909, through the translation of his works in the early twentieth century, to the peak of his popularity between the 1940s and 1980s (Ross, 2012; Skues, 2012), Freud’s theories became a very significant part of American approaches to understanding the psyche. According to Elizabeth Lunbeck, despite the American obsession with “distinctively optimistic mental therapies—touting self-esteem, enjoining self-help, promising self-actualization … paradoxically, America is the nation in which, among all others, Freud’s science of psychoanalysis has arguably enjoyed the greatest purchase, the most far-reaching cultural influence, the most powerful institutional instantiations” (Lunbeck, 2012, p. 209). With the decline of his work in the 1970s and 1980s, American psychology saw the rise of narcissism as an ideal. The prioritization of love of the self over love of others became the focus of rhetoric about a culture of rampant individualism which was seen to be becoming a feature of American culture (Lunbeck, 2012, p. 217).
Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to gender and sexuality, while useful in some contexts, also had a significant weakness, in that it was reliant on the concept of inherent, hierarchical gender binaries. In the case of the Hollywood film What Women Want, the film’s narrative is structured around this gender binary, with the male and female assigned certain qualities which should not overlap. When they do, this is considered ‘strange’, a transgression of the socially accepted gender boundaries. Darcy McGuire, with her career focus and single status, is thus considered a transgressor until she shows the empathy and caring qualities expected of a woman towards a man. Nick is certainly out of his depth wearing female clothing and performing female routines such as waxing, and his attempts to empathize with women are initially met with strange looks and derision (for example, when he tries to steal a colleague’s idea for marketing a female product, which ends in all of the women being offended by his bumbling attempts to relate to their needs). Both characters are positioned as somehow ‘abnormal’ if they demonstrate characteristics which are associated with the opposite sex. Research on remakes and gender has shown that this binary approach is often evident in Hollywood films, and is connected to particular social, political and cultural factors in America. The American version of What Women Want is thus both simultaneously a tribute to Freud’s work in as much as it replicates his method of constructing gender and sexuality, and a critique of his theories, as was fitting for a film produced after the perceived decline in his relevance. Thus, despite the criticism of Freud, his theory remains a highly valuable tool in reading this film’s representations of gender.
Jung and What Women Want
In the Chinese-language remake of What Women Want, we also see a re-orientation of gender, with the introduction of theory which is not as binary-oriented as Freud’s work. In the remake, while the English name of the movie remains the same, the reference to Freud in the Chinese name has been removed, with the title instead literally translating as ‘I Know a Woman’s Heart’. Lead character Sun Zigang’s main problem is that he has failed to reconcile himself with his ‘anima’—that is, the feminine which exists within the masculine, thus he is unable to understand the world from a woman’s perspective.
The theory of contra-sexuality, attributed to Carl Jung, states that anima and animus are complementary parts to a healthy whole. The remake overtly references this theory through Li Yilong, when she explains it early in the film as a part of her first speech to her new employees. Gender, according to Jung, is a much more fluid concept than Freudian psychoanalytic theory recognizes. Jung argued that individuals constantly engage in a process of Individuation, the “development towards a wholeness that necessarily remains a potential state”. According to this theory, an individual is sexually and psychologically healthy when they acknowledge and accept both the masculine and feminine sides of their psyche. Unlike Freud, Jung’s theory argues that the ‘masculine’ aspects of the psyche such as autonomy, separateness, and aggressiveness were not superior to the ‘feminine’ elements such as nurturance, interrelatedness and empathy” (Ward, 2006, p. 16).
That Jung is substituted in favour of Freud in the Chinese remake is perhaps an indicator of the perceived difference in how gender is constructed in Chinese culture more broadly. Carl Jung was in fact influenced by the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, which emphasizes balance between energy and forces. He perceived these Chinese Taoist concepts as forms of precursors to his own theory of individuation, with “re-establishing a balance between the opposites of yang (warmth, light, maleness, heaven) and yin (cold, darkness, femaleness, earth) in the Tao and the goal of the individuation process, a balancing of compensating psychic opposites in the experience of the self, being parallel processes” (Schlamm, 2010, p. 485).
Sun Zigang’s process of transformation is reflective of a Jungian approach to gender, with the incorporation of the feminine into the masculine in a balanced way being the goal. His characterization moves towards acknowledging the feminine aspects of his personality such as empathy, kindness, and the ability to listen. The anima and animus are neither positive nor negative, rather, they reflect continually changing states of being based on “whether the opposite sex is feared or idealized” (Ward, 2006). From a Jungian perspective, the thoughts he hears which are negative are in fact projections of his own fears relating to the opposite sex, rooted in his own anima. This Jungian perspective may be another explanation for the significant amount of criticism we hear from women in the film, as Zigang may actually be projecting his flawed understanding of his anima onto the members of the opposite sex that surround him.
The Paratextual Construction of Gender in What Women Want
The varying approaches to the representation of gender discussed in this chapter are aptly symbolised by the paratexts of the What Women Want films, specifically, their DVD covers and advertising posters.
The cover of the American What Women Want, which was widely distributed for European, American, Australian and New Zealand audiences, features a head shot of Mel Gibson smiling directly at the camera, his blue eyes shining. Helen Hunt is captured in profile, eyes closed, with an affectionate smile directed towards Gibson. Both are dressed in black. While Helen Hunt’s body might be positioned in front of his, the focus of this picture is squarely on Mel Gibson. He is afforded a front-on view, while Hunt’s body language is that of supportive female. The back of the DVD cover is dominated by another image of Hunt and Gibson, this time backlit in a romantic embrace. Hunt leans into Gibson’s strong frame, and he grips her arm as if to support her.
The second cover is a variation on the first, using a similar image of Hunt and Gibson in an embrace. This time, their relationship is located against the distinctive Chicago skyline, and they become the image of the quintessential American couple. Hunt’s face is partially obscured and her body positioned side-on, while Gibson again dominates the image through the opening of his shoulder and face toward the camera. Taken together, these images strongly evoke the traditional happy couple, one in which the male is dominant. They play down the manipulation and exploitation undertaken by the male lead against the female protagonist within the film, and emphasise the unity and love within the couple. This is echoed in the phrase, “a naughty and nice romantic comedy”, implying that Nick’s behaviour, while childish, is essentially harmless.
The Chinese remake’s DVD covers feature the lead couple of Andy Lau and Gong Li, but the way they are positioned gives a radically different impression of their relationship compared to the American source film. Using a back-to-back medium shot of both Andy Lau and Gong Li, and a shot of them beside each other, these images present the lead characters as equals who share both a connection and a rivalry. The balancing of their bodies against each other also reflects the theme of the balancing of anima and animus that the film focuses upon. The second image similarly achieves this through its symmetry, both characters posed with their legs and arms in complementary positions. The representation of the Chinese couple thus emphasises balance, rather than idea of the male being dominant and the female supportive which form the basis of the advertising of the source film.
The Family in What Women Want
In the process of constructing the gender relations and sexualities that have so far been described in this chapter, both the original and remake films also strongly relay ideas pertaining to the family unit. Perhaps the most obvious social issue raised in the films is divorce, through the representations of ‘broken’ families—parents who are divorced, and children who relate more to their mother, and have difficult relationships with their father as a result of his absence. This issue, however, is treated differently across the two films, and how and why this occurs is important in understanding how perceptions of cultural difference may impact upon the construction of the family in the context of Chinese-language cinematic remakes, as well as how these depictions might tie into social and political discourses on the family.
In the American film, divorce is culturally and socially no longer considered to be a taboo subject. While it is an obvious and continual indication of Nick’s failure to understand women, being divorced is not a barrier to him establishing a relationship with someone else. Communication with his ex-wife, who has since re-married, occurs on a number of occasions, both in person and on the telephone, when his daughter is having difficulties. Divorce itself, however, is not the subject of criticism via any attempt to actually re-unite the parents or preserve the structure of the traditional family. Darcy, Nick’s new love interest, never meets Nick’s daughter, and Nick’s roles as father and lover are allowed to exist more or less simultaneously in two separate and distinct familial/ relationship contexts.
While the Chinese film seems to also be relatively accepting of divorce, the relationship between Zigang, his daughter and ex-wife, and Li Yilong, the new love interest, is of a different tone to the source film. Zigang and his ex-wife (who has re-married) seem to have a much greater sense of distance between them, with direct communication (on the telephone) only occurring once during the film. While there is also no attempt to re-unite these two parents, there is a distinct sense of closure associated with their relationship which is established before Zigang and Yilong’s relationship starts to develop. The incorporation of Sun’s daughter into this new relationship via a chance meeting between her and Yilong, and the establishment of these two women as friends or ‘allies’ through their mutual dislike of Zigang’s behaviour, points towards an underlying discomfort with the issue of divorce, particularly when children are involved. Rather than operating in two different contexts simultaneously, Zigang must consolidate his role as father into his new relationship. While the right to divorce has been enshrined in law in China since before the 1950s, the representation of divorce in the Chinese-language remake of What Women Want is consistent with a society in which the familial structure of mother, father and child (and grandparent) is still considered the ideal.
The ‘Traditional’ Chinese Family
These family-related discourses within the Chinese-language film can be read with reference to some of the most salient points in the historical development of the Chinese familial system. From the early 20th century, and culminating in the Communist Party’s takeover in 1949, a number of drastic changes occurred within the structure of the family within China. Traditionally, families had been multi-generational households, and for the upper class, also included extended family members and concubines (Yang, 1959). All members were governed by “a principle of dominance by the parents, and stratification of status and distribution of functions by sex and age” (Yang, 1959, p. 10). It was this patriarchal, feudal family structure which was identified as being incompatible with the modern, industrialised state imagined by China’s leadership after the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Successive governments capitalized on broader changes which were occurring in social structures, and with the arrival of the Communist regime, attempted to usurp the family and replace it with its own bureaucratic structures (Xiao, 2014). In this way, “state power inserted itself into the private sphere to revolutionize people’s everyday practices” (Xiao, 2014).
While divorce was already legal in Republican China in the 1920s, it was not until the 1950 Marriage Law that a nation-wide push towards reshaping the family system occurred (Xiao, 2014). This law made arranged marriages, child brides and polygamy illegal, and gave women the legal right to property and the ability to initiate divorce proceedings. This was part of a coordinated effort to break down (or accelerate the breakdown) of the traditional family system, first by removing the patriarch’s power to choose family members and consolidate power through arranged marriage, and then by a system of state allocation of jobs in the new collectivized and nationalized industrial and agricultural sections which further weakened the power of the family and often caused the involuntary physical separation of family units. These conditions often resulted in extended families no longer being able to reside in the same house, and the One Child Policy implemented in the 1970s, further restricted the ability of the family unit to gain power and influence within wider society.
This is not to say that the power of the family has entirely disappeared within modern Chinese society; it is important to acknowledge that a class system whereby family ties and ‘connections’ (guanxi) are pillars of success is still in effect, and many powerful people in China have family members who also have significant related business interests. There is also a great divide between rural and metropolitan areas on their adoption of modern ideals of the family. It is more accurate to say that the influence of the family has been weakened in comparison to its position in traditional China, and that current public opinion reflects a change in attitude towards previously accepted behaviours. Reflecting on these changes, it can be argued that “[n]o institution has experienced the vicissitudes of the political, economic, and social changes that have marked the PRC’s first half century more sharply than the family” (Alford & Shen, 2004, p. 238).
The ‘Modern’ Chinese Family
While the majority of characters from the original Hollywood film are retained in the remake, there is a significant addition of one character who does not appear in the original film—Sun Zigang’s father, Sun Meisheng (孫美聲). So what happens when the Chinese remake presents us with a living father figure for its male protagonist? At first glance, very little. Sun Meisheng’s character is an unremarkable one. Throughout the film, he appears five times, with two of these occasions involving very little dialogue, and a third mostly seeming to be for comic relief. He does not drive the narrative, and earlier in the film seems to just be there to give the audience an understanding of where Zigang’s attitudes might have come from. Later, he acts more as an enabler to the main protagonist, telling him to be honest with Yilong. The Hollywood film shows that neither of these activities is necessary for the general plot of the film to work, and there is no equivalent figure in the original movie. This added character does not have a great deal of screen-time, so the question is, why include him?
Sun Meisheng’s role can really only be understood with reference to the preceding discussion of the changing nature of the Chinese family. At around seventy years of age, Sun Meisheng would have borne witness to a period of great social upheaval in China, and his characterization is a poignant reflection on the tension between traditional and more modern discourses on the family, and the re-negotiation of ideals within Chinese society. In the film, he lives in a nursing home on the outer rim of Beijing. His son visits his father a few times over the course of the film, both alone and with his daughter. In the nursing home, Sun Zigang’s father is seen teaching other residents to sing, and seems, for the most part, to be sociable and healthy. On the surface, it seems that this process of children leaving home and the patriarch living in a nursing home is being normalised. There are no overt objections or accusations of abandonment from anyone over this issue within the narrative. The separation of the family, physically and emotionally, is portrayed as being a feature of a modern Chinese lifestyle.
The audience first meets the character of Sun Meisheng as a young man through a flashback. In this scene, he briefly shows his hardline approach to discipline and parenting, which has left a deep impression on Zigang. A later flashback strengthens associations with the past, with the setting of a traditional building shot in dark lighting, in a kitchen with paper latticed windows and an outdoor stove. Costumes are from the 1950s, and there is an argument between Sun Meisheng and his wife about his participation in a Communist choir. Sun Meisheng still participates in a choir in the nursing home, and listens to Chinese folk songs from the traditional era. In his characterization, we see a blurring of traditional and Communist time periods, whereby both pre-Communist and Communist China are categorised together under the banner of ‘the past’. While mostly seen in modern, informal clothes, and being technologically adept enough to use an iPod, Sun Meisheng is, for the best part of the film, living in the past, and most of his dialogues are concerned with his treatment of his wife and son in a period long ago.
Zigang, on the other hand, is more closely associated with ‘modern China’—divorced, employed in the fast-paced advertising industry, listening to and performing songs in English, smartly and formally dressed in a suit for the majority of the film. As we know though, despite Zigang’s criticisms of his father, in many ways they are very similar in terms of their attitudes towards relationships and family. His relationship with his daughter, like that of him and his father, is strained, and he is accused of the same crimes as his father (failing to listen) by his ex-wife in the film’s opening scene. The responsibility for Zigang’s wayward lifestyle shifts from the mother figure to the father in the remake, however, this is done more delicately than in the source text. In place of the sardonic criticism of Nick’s mother, the remake uses implication, filmic montage and flashbacks within the opening scenes, combined with the statement “Zigang was raised by his father”, to establish the role of the male parental figure in shaping Zigang’s attitudes and behaviours. It is left to the viewer of the Chinese remake to conclude whether this constitutes blame or is merely a representation of how sons follow in their fathers’ footsteps.
The comparing and contrasting of father and son comes to a head in a scene where they argue at the nursing home. Sun Meisheng is bragging about his “special gift” of being able to understand what Zigang’s mother was feeling— shown to be a lie through a flashback from when Zigang was a young boy, watching his parents argue. Through stepping back in time here, it is obvious that Sun Meisheng’s view of their family history is very different from his son’s. But we can also see the origin of Zigang’s attitudes towards relationships and family, and the root of the problem between him and his father. While Sun Meisheng states “like father like son”, and tries to draw parallels between them, the two men are contrasted in their clothing (Zigang is very formal, wearing modern business attire, while Sun Meisheng is dressed informally). An initial connection is established between father and son in body language, as their seated positions mirror each other. But distance is created between them through the positioning of the characters apart from each other in the frame. The prop of an iPod is used by Sun Meisheng to further alienate Zigang by having both earphones in and not listening as they argue. The scene ends with Zigang speaking on behalf of his mother, saying “What was she thinking then? She was thinking ‘why did she marry such a selfish and arrogant man?’” Zigang gets up to walk away before the conversation has even finished, with Sun Meisheng calling out—“she may have married a man like me, but look what kind of son you are”—implying Zigang has somehow failed his father.
In Sun Meisheng’s representation, China’s traditional and Communist eras are compressed together. The difference in values between father and son are a comparison of the concepts associated with ‘traditional’ China of the past, as compared to ‘modern’ expectations of how men and women should relate to each other. In a later scene in the film, Sun Meisheng and Zigang meet again, with Zigang again creating a link to traditional Chinese culture by passing on a gift of a CD of old Chinese folk songs from his daughter. Sun Meisheng chooses this time to expose his true feelings about his own management of his role as father and husband: “I admit I was a bad father, and a bad husband. I never knew what your mother was thinking, and I didn’t want to know. My only regret in my life is that I didn’t listen to anything your mother said”. Sun Meisheng thus creates a link between traditional culture and the treatment of women—and becomes a representative of a whole system of cultural practices and attitudes towards women which are now judged to be inappropriate. The son is in danger of continuing such ideas, and both must reform in order to function in the contemporary social and familial context. This revelation is an important step for both men, and the audience gets to see Sun Meisheng in particular in a new light—literally, as the lighting in this scene is much warmer than the two earlier scenes featuring these men. The dialogue is much softer and more melancholy, compared to the anger and bitterness of their earlier confrontation. The men are situated in a closed, private space, emphasizing the increased intimacy of their relationship.
Sun Meisheng further instructs his son in their final dialogue on how he should be honest with Yilong about stealing her ideas—“unless you want to regret it your whole life like your father, you will go and tell her the truth”. The father’s inclusion in the film thus serves a secondary function as educator—he has learned the secret of ‘what women want’ (which is to be listened to, and to be talked to honestly), and is thus compelled to teach (or re-educate) his son. The traditional function of the parent as teacher is thus reinforced, as Sun Meisheng provides the encouragement needed for Zigang to be honest with Yilong. As a result the couple eventually reconciles, and the film ends neatly with all three generations—Yilong, Zigang, and his daughter, attending Sun Meisheng’s choir performance.
The cultural and social implications of the father figure in the Chinese remake are brought even more sharply into relief when one compares the two versions of What Women Want. The Hollywood source film has no older male character who acts, as Sun Zigang’s father does, as a point of reference to traditional views on the family. Instead, Mel Gibson’s character functions as part of a couple, as opposed to part of a family unit. Unlike Yilong, Gibson’s female counterpart Darcy never meets his daughter, so there is no implied affirmation of the traditional family as appears in the Chinese remake. Instead of relating his behaviour to a wider social problem or need for reform like the Chinese film, the Hollywood original focuses more on Nick Marshall as an archaic man who is out of touch with contemporary values. The Hollywood film is, in essence, the story of one particular man who treats women in a particular way. This particularist approach of American cinema has already been associated with America’s (and Hollywood’s) fascination with ‘the couple’ as an independent unit, rather than ‘the couple’ as a part of broader society as it appears in, for example, French film (Durham, 1998, pg. 65–58). By introducing the figure of the father, the Chinese film takes the investigation from one specific person to a whole cultural tradition of attitudes to, and treatment of women. The father character plays a significant role in the film remake that results in the restructuring of the entire narrative around the family rather than the couple.
Despite the film’s modern façade, the inclusion and representation of Sun Meisheng thus still reflects some very traditional Confucian views on the family. To respect and care for your elders is paramount in the Confucian moral order—to relegate them to someone else’s care is shameful. Despite the earlier mentioned breakdown of the traditional family system, the importance of filial piety still lingers over Chinese society. It is therefore interesting to consider how the Communist Party has reconciled itself with this issue. After helping to break down the family system as the main structure of society, the Party has struggled with the economic and social burden of taking responsibility for the elderly (“Fulfilling promises,” 2012, 11 August). The consequence of the elderly receiving inadequate social support has resulted in a high suicide rate among the older demographic in China (“Alarming elderly suicides in rural China,” 2014). The Party is thus in the process of shifting responsibility back to the children to care for their parents, despite the fact these children now work full-time, and have less time than ever to devote to caring duties. The administration has recently legislated to make it mandatory for children to visit their parents ‘often’, or else risking being sued by them for neglect (“China: Parents can sue children for neglect” 2012). Sun Zigang’s regular visits might be read as a moral guide for how a busy person should behave towards their parents. The difficulties in their relationship perhaps in part reflect the difficulties of negotiating between Confucian ideals of respecting one’s elders, and more modern interpretations and pressures on the family.
Commerciality and the Modern Family
In bringing into the spotlight the “modern” Chinese family (in all its paradoxical forms), the remake also introduces a distinctly commercial aspect to gender and the family which is not evident in the original film. Aside from a prominent feature on Nike, the original What Women Want does not feature a large degree of product placement or advertising. The Chinese version of the film, however, again reflects a change in emphasis between source and remake, whereby advertising has become much more prominent. Products are directly linked to expressions of gender and the family in ways which create associations between femininity, masculinity, family, success, love and consumption.
Examples of these connections can be seen from quite early in the film, such as Zigang’s ex-wife wearing jewellery by 3D Gold at her wedding, making sure the logo is visible when she takes it out of the box. When Zigang and his daughter visit the shopping mall (a bonding experience), we see the storefronts of 3D Gold (a Chinese jewellery store), Five Plus clothing, and Costa Coffee. Exactly the same sequence in the original Hollywood film does not feature any overt branding at all—only those who were very informed would know which brands were on the shelves. Zigang and Yilong’s romantic interludes almost always feature alcohol with labels prominently displayed, with red wine and champagne being two of the film’s sponsors. Cars are also prominent, with Zigang’s chase of Yilong to the airport featuring him driving his Renault. The Apple iPhone features in an interaction between Zigang and an unknown woman at a bar. His comparison of her highly embellished phone is used as an allegory for her appearance, and his reference to his phone as ‘naked’ might be as close as the film comes to sexual innuendo.
Both the director and the producer of the remake have been interviewed on record saying that these commercial aspects of the film reflect the significant changes which have occurred within China in relation to attitudes to consumption in the last twenty years. They both point to a “convergence” between American and Chinese lifestyles, and position the film as a form of “satirical”, self-aware social commentary on this phenomenon (Makinen, 2011). However, the film doesn’t show any obvious indications of being a satire. There is no humour associated with the use of particular products to speak of, nor are there any consequences for the lead characters for living such overtly consumerist lifestyles. It seems that rather than satirizing consumerism as an ideology, the film is actually just a vehicle for promoting consumerism.
According to Shuyu Kong, this consumerist approach may be related to developments in the ‘Chinese New Year comedy’ genre over the past decade (2007). Through her study of Feng Xiaogang’s films, Kong shows how “the advertising business is now so close to film production and consumption, that advertising has become an integral part of the formal features and content of commercial films” in China. New Year comedies, like other genre films in China, have “evolved into brand name products following a Hollywood-style marketing strategy, carefully tailored to satisfy the entertainment needs of domestic and international audiences” (Kong, 2007, pg. 227). This evolution has only been able to occur since the strict state-controlled film industry has broken down in favour of a more market-based approach, in line with the overall economic and cultural opening up of China (Kong, 2007, pg. 240).
What Women Want, while technically of the same genre, is quite different from the first Lunar New Year films created by Feng Xiaogang, which were commercial films that simultaneously undercut their own commercial agenda by using comedy to highlight serious social and cultural issues such as infidelity, the poor/rich divide, the Chinese diaspora and criticism of rampant consumerism (Berry, 2009; R. Zhang, 2008). The list of sponsors involved in What Women Want is comprehensive and diverse in its range of products, and extremely interesting, with brands that combine to create a very particular vision of China. What Women Want could be described as ‘aspirational’ in terms of its social function, encouraging viewers to associate consumption of certain products with success and happiness, as well as legitimising certain products as being for the modern Chinese man, woman and family. As Chris Berry notes:
One form of realism in contemporary Chinese cinema manifests a new faith in modernity—however, instead of class-based revolution, it is driven by material acquisition … The dominant genre for this mode of realism is the romantic comedy, set among ‘ordinary people’ who live a lifestyle considerably more affluent than that of real ordinary people, but not beyond their imagination. This could be called ‘aspirational cinema’— it encourages not only the dream of finding the perfect partner, but also the perfect car, the perfect dress, the perfect sofa, and so on.
Berry, 2009, p. 117
Within the film’s narrative, women are presented as the new powerful consumer, and the target of today’s advertising. The film thus directs its own advertising towards female viewers by constructing a particular view of femininity which associates consumption with success. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the inner thoughts of women, aside from Li Yilong, are almost totally concerned with issues of consumption and the judgment of others based on material possessions. On several occasions, female-oriented products are associated with happiness and positive new beginnings, such as 3D Gold Jewellery at the wedding at the beginning of the film, and the bonding shopping trip between Sun Zigang and his daughter. What the remake of What Women Want thus presents is the myth of modern China, a nation which is highly competitive, capitalist and consumerist, while still attempting to maintain its traditional family ideals. It is an aspirational film, encouraging Chinese viewers to continue to support ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’, an idea promoted by Deng Xiaoping, to build a stronger, united, successful Chinese nation—part of which currently involves generating domestic consumption to support a slowing Chinese economy. Overall, What Women Want strongly encourages consumption and consumerism, but moderates this with Chinese cultural and political traditions. While using and purchasing international brands, the characters are not also buying into a capitalist ideology. They are in fact, as Mao would say, “using the foreign to serve the Chinese” (洋为中用). Thus, in today’s modern transnational, post-socialist China, the remake’s lead protagonists, and even minor characters, are adept at using foreign products, technologies, and languages, but they themselves are nonetheless distinctly Chinese, particularly in their loyalty to the traditional family structure. In promoting this particular vision of China to a primarily domestic, Mandarin-speaking audience, the remake also connects with a broader “meta-narrative of the Chinese renaissance that is visible in the cultural industries that is not only leading China’s global soft power offensive—shaping how the world sees China—but is also helping to shape how China sees itself”(Rawnsley & Rawnsley, 2010, p. 6).
Reflections
The difficulties in translating the gender and family values embedded within the source film are no more apparent than in the remake’s slightly forced ending. Zigang goes to Yilong’s apartment to admit that he has been stealing her ideas, and at the same time, he extends an invitation to Yilong to attend his father Sun Meisheng’s concert. Through this invitation, he and his father both demonstrate a remarkable lack of foresight regarding Yilong’s likely reaction towards Zigang’s confession. Yet, Yilong does eventually attend, and so the film seems compelled to reinforce the continued legitimacy of some of the more traditional aspects of the family. As a consequence, the film’s contrived ending sees Zigang, Doudou and Yilong, who are all predominantly associated with modernity, tied together into a traditional Chinese multi-generational family structure. Filial piety, a very long standing cultural value, is affirmed as a crucial part of maintaining good familial relations. The patriarch appears as educator, as seen in the reconciliations and advice between Sun Meisheng and Zigang, and Zigang and his daughter. The inclusion of the patriarch Sun Meisheng is imperative for this to occur, and thus the Chinese-language remake restructures the original film to accommodate these traditional Chinese family values. Simultaneously, the family is mobilized as a commercial unit, with key characters and events connected with aspirational consumption. As discussed throughout the chapter, these families are made up of individuals whose gender roles and sexualities are altered across the two versions of the film. The analysis of the two versions of What Women Want in this chapter thus provides an example of how Chinese-language remakes approach perceived cultural difference and questions of social change through the (re)construction of gender and the family. The following chapter will complicate this picture through the discussion of how other factors such as genre and the auteur might be influential in reshaping a source film into its intercultural remake in the Chinese-language cinematic context.