Gender Apparently: A Book Review on Heiress Apparently
When my mom brought home this book from the library, I didn’t expect much of it. The synopsis framed the story as a cheesy YA love novel, a genre I have never really cared for. However, what interested me in the story was that it is centered around an 18-year-old Chinese American actress whose first big break is to be filmed in Beijing, China. For the most part, I got what I expected–– a cheesy YA love story. But throughout the book, I found myself wanting something more out of it. Heiress Apparently touches on many aspects of life as an Asian––Chinese specifically––American that I thought were very interesting as a Chinese American girl myself. However, these aspects were touched on very briefly, all the while trying to give China more depth than how it is normally stereotyped.
While I do think that this is the kind of book that takes things at face value, I am especially critical of it during the times we are in. Published in 2020, Author Diana Ma mentions Asian-Americans’ belonging and COVID-19 in her author’s note. I think it is very important that we have (and are starting to get) more media by Asians and about Asians in the US and beyond, but I also think that this makes it all the more important to really dig into these things. Specifically, the shallow way this book tackled questions of gender and sexuality, especially in China, rubbed me the wrong way. There was an overshadowing influence of the western perception of gender, and the Chinese perspective, both historically and currently, was taken almost only at face value. With that said, here are some things I wished more out of in Heiress Apparently, by Diana Ma.
A book that I never would have picked out on my own.
(Thanks, Mom)
Some more background to the story––main character Gemma lands herself a role as Sonia Li in a film called Butterfly, which is to be a remake of David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly (which is, in fact, a play that actually exists and was produced in 1988, with a movie adaptation in 1993 by David Cronenberg). This play was very loosely based around Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, and sought to counter the Orientalism in that opera.
This was interesting, as I had recently read about M. Butterfly in a 2016 thesis paper from University of Vermont, subtitled “The Construction of Gendered Races in the United States.”
M. Butterfly concerns Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat assigned to Beijing in the 1960’s. He begins a relationship with a Chinese opera performer, Song Liling, that lasts for over 20 years. All the while, Gallimard is apparently (or willfully) unaware of the fact that Liling is a man, spying on him for the Chinese government. Eventually Gallimard is tried for treason, and is forced to publically face the truth about his relationship. Faced with the unbearable reality that Liling is a man, and the pursuant public humiliation, Gallimard reenacts the death of Butterfly in the famous Opera Madame Butterfly and kills himself while wearing a traditionally Japanese female kimono and Geisha makeup. (Takinami, 2016)
The author of this paper argues that M. Butterfly ultimately failed in trying to be anti-Orientalist, and cites David L. Eng. This led me to Eng’s book, titled Racial Castration, where Eng argues that Gallimard, despite being in a romantic relationship with Song for 20 years, was able to overlook Songs masculinity (namely in terms of *cough* physicality) because, “[through] racial castration, Gallimard need not see Song as anything other than a woman.”
(I’ll admit that I’ve never seen the play or the movie, though from what I know of them, these themes can still be seen in both Hwang’s play and Cronenberg’s movie.)
In our book, Gemma and her friends mostly mention Hwang’s play, and praise M. Butterfly for turning Madama Butterfly on its head–– “For one thing, an Asian woman doesn’t kill herself over a white man.” They also mention appreciation at the fact that it portrayed a gay relationship––which is an interesting point to make, as for the majority of the play Gallimard views Song as the “perfect woman,” thus in his mind, a heterosexual relationship.
Gemma finds out that her updated version will be “straight-washing” the plot, and another character guesses that “the romantic interest [will be] a white man and all the Asian men in [the] film will be sexless and nerdy.” While this is a horrible stereotype we see all too often, it still is not objectively worse than M. Butterfly, wherein:
When Song reveals himself (literally and figuratively) in Act 2, he taunts Gallimard, saying that Gallimard must have loved Song as a man, at least subconsciously. Gallimard then laughs, and corrects Song, telling him that he loved the woman that Song represented. Then Gallimard proceeds to drag Song naked off the stage.
Here, the Chinese male character is not sexless, but rather emasculated for sake of upholding the heterosexual hegemony (one could argue the white heterosexual hegemony as well).
While the feminization of Asians as a race is a topic I wish I could have seen discussed, the book for the most part glazed over this, and so now we move on to another interesting mention of China and gender in Heiress Apparently.
In her new film role, Gemma, similarly to Song, is called to cross-gender act, at least for a few scenes. Here would have been an interesting place to dive into the history of nandan, or male actors taking on female roles in Beijing Opera (as Song Liling’s role as a man playing a woman isn’t purely fictional). However, the controversy surrounding male dan actors has had a long political history, and so I can see why the topic might be avoided. (This won’t stop me from citing further readings at the bottom of this page, however, because I think it’s very interesting regarding historical gender expression and perception in both China and Japan.)
But the book does show some of China’s current climate in terms of gender expression and perception.
While in China, one of Gemma’s new friends brings her to see what she at first assumes to be a boy group.
Her friend tells her that “I wanted to [show] you that China isn’t just a repressive country with rigid views on gender and sexuality.” And here Gemma guesses that “there’s a sexiness the band has without being hypermasculine,” which is another good subject for discussion, as it dives into the topic of what defines masculinity, and how that definition differs between the east and the west (however the author leaves this rock unturned).
Then her friend tells her that the band members are in fact all girls. “As a boy band, they do nothing for me, but a band of girls? That’s hot,” Gemma notes, and realizes that the fangirls around her feel similarly. Afterwards, she and her friend have the following conversation:
“Do their fans know that Gen XX is made up of all girls?” It’s hard to reconcile everything I’ve heard about a conservative China with the popularity of a gender-nonconforming band of girls.
“Of course,” Eric replies. “Girls talk openly about their crushes on the group members. Gen XX is as popular and gets as much fan mail as any other boy band.” As I take that in, he adds, “You have to understand that there’s the Chinese government’s stance and policy, and then there are the actual Chinese people’s views and practices–– it would be a mistake to think the two are the same.”
I had, actually, heard of groups like these before, however, it seems to me a lot less about fluidity of sexuality and a lot more like playing the market. Example: Asian pop music is notorious for “queer-baiting”——which is to portray a non-heterosexual relationship in a way that is deniable. This is typically criticized as it is done in order to profit off of the implication of an LGBTQ+ relationship without having to face backlash for doing so.
In the case of these boy bands made up of girls, I’ve only heard of one group in particular, known as Acrush, (changed to FANXY-RED after leaving their company). While on the surface it seems open and progressive, the girls have said that their companies do not allow them to talk about their sexualities publicly. In other interviews, the girls have claimed to be straight (most likely to avoid backlash). Their fans (made mostly of girls), also often use heterosexual words when talking about the group, going so far as to call them “lao gong”, meaning husband–– the highest compliment, but for a boy group. Perhaps certain fans genuinely care for the girls as girls, however, there seems to be a lot of upkeep to maintain heteronormativity. While the Chinese group is now under a different label (which further questions the motives of the past label and the treatment of the group), the Chinese company that debuted them made their motives clear.
As Wang Tianhai, the founder of Zhejiang Huati Culture Media Company, has taken pains to note, “We have no intention to push a political message . . . We have no clue even what the term L.G.B.T. means.” The important thing, he said, is “just tapping into what the fans want.” (New Yorker)
I think that during this time period, with such political dissonance between the United States and China, it is incredibly difficult to find proper representation of Chinese-Americans that is fair to both parts of our culture and heritage. I also know that it is incredibly nitpicky of me to criticize an author’s debut novel so harshly, however, I think it is fair to say that halfhearted, inaccurate representation of China, no matter how positive, is not the kind of representation I want to see. I agree with Ms. Ma that there is nuance between what the Chinese government believes and what the Chinese people stand for, and despite the strict government, I do think there are ways to find examples of this. However, the examples used in this book did not do it for me. Gender and sexuality is still a fairly taboo subject in China, and in America, these things have a history of being used against Asian Americans, as in the Atlanta spa shooting. Gender and sexuality also looks different in different cultures, and I think all too often, we fall into a default of assuming LGBTQ means white, American LGBTQ——think about who in America is “allowed” to be interested in makeup and skincare, or who is “allowed” to hold hands in public. This topic has so much more depth than just “government bad, people good,” and when it isn’t navigated correctly, my interest in the book, regardless of plot, is automatically lost.
