Saturday, December 3, 2011

Class Representation on the River

After class on Friday, I started to think more about the representation of the Chinese people in Up the Yangtze. I really enjoyed the documentary as it gave me a chance to look at a culture that I admittedly do not know much about. Although the filmmaker might not have made the movie with the intention of creating a representation of Chinese culture, the characters he featured really functioned to mold an image of the people.
The two featured workers on the cruise ship, Jerry and Cindy, are products of very different lifestyles: Cindy coming from an extremely impoverished family and Jerry from an economically stable family. I thought the filmmaker's choice to have representation from two extremes was an interesting choice. While they function well to allow audiences to compare the difference in attitudes from poverty vs. stability, only having two perspectives seemed very limiting to me in terms of representation. The narrow view perpetuates the stereotypes of arrogance matched with wealth and ignorance matched with poverty; which reminded me of a part from Gates's Writing Race, where he writes, "Race has become a trope of ultimate, irreducible difference between cultures, linguistic groups, or adherents of specific belief systems which - more often than not - also have fundamentally opposed economic interests"(5). Although this idea of tropes is applied to race in Gates's piece, it functions also in the discussion of class. The class distinction between Jerry and Cindy are extreme, especially with the shocking story of Cindy's family provided in the film. This creates quick stereotypic tropes that are memorable and effective.
The obviously large gap in class representation led me to wonder if maybe the director was trying to prove a point about the nature of the cruise ship industry on the Yangtze. There is a great amount of unification that happens due to the problems with the river, and perhaps the filmmaker chose Jerry and Cindy as presentations of their class in order to create an overall representation of the flowing of life down the ambivalent river. One scene that sticks out as an example of this idea is the scene when the river is slowly rising and the boat s shown in the distance, carrying all to one destination. Working on the boat, it didn't matter where you came from or who your parents are because everyone is going to the same place. In choosing highly disparate characters, this representation is possible.

1 comment:

  1. Annie,

    I agree that “Up the Yangtze” actually serves as a representation of the current social classes in China and the various challenges they face based on their socio-economic and educational standing. You mention the shopkeeper and the way in which he attempts to explain the process of events. At first, he appears to be removed from the situation by simply just stating facts and professing how it will eventually benefit the country as a whole; however, as he continues speaking, he exposes his true feelings about the government’s actions and the oppression the “common people” must continually face. While he was emotionally discussing the ways in which authority figures are able to take control of people of lesser standing, I was reminded of Nathan Asch’s piece “In Search of America” as it relates to the working class, or “common people”, and how they view those who either employ or govern them. In regards to “Up the Yangtze”, Chang explains how China is currently filled with “nationalist fervor,” meaning that people view the government’s dam as the best thing for the country and “the small family must sacrifice to help the big family-the nation”(Chang 2). Similarly, in “In Search of America,” Asch’s narrator ventures to various poverty-stricken areas, mainly places that employ great numbers of people at once, in hopes to find the truth about America’s working class and develop insight of the lifestyle. When speaking about his job, one angry lumberjack went as far to say that if “the purchasing agent ever comes to camp 2, [he’ll] cut him into pieces and make him over again” (Asch 301). This depicts the angst and hatred felt by the workers towards those in higher standing. However, the major difference between the two pieces is that the characters in Asch’s story are choosing to work in hopes of creating a better lifestyle for themselves one day, where as the people portrayed in “Up the Yangtze” are forced by the government’s desires and goals to act and obey in a particular way.

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