Document Type
Article
Abstract
An examination of the work of Chinese diasporic gay filmmaker Yonfan, with special attention to his Bugis Street (妖街皇后Yao jie huang hou, 1995) and Bishonen (美少年之戀Mei shao nian zhi lian, 1998), leads to a reappraisal of the meaning of gay authorship. Making use of the various intertextual discourses, Yonfan locates queer connotations in a historically sensitive, transnational framework, suggesting as he does so that recurring themes and particular stylistics are inscribed in terms of queer space, queer temporality/affect, and queer aesthetics and pleasures. These, I contend, are foundational to the "mise-en-scène of desire" that notably privileges non-normative desires and subjects for an emerging Sinophone queer counterpublic. That is to say that he performs his gay authorship within a queer time and place where we might find intimate connections and belonging beyond the heteronormative social institutions.
Repository Citation
Chao, Shi‐Yan. "Performing Authorship in a Queer Time and Place: A Case Study of Yonfan." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 16, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1–17. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol16/iss2/15