“In the theatre, one can say, 'this is just an act,' and de-realize the act, make acting into something quite distinct from what is real.” (Butler, 527)
If performances are received by audiences as distinct from one another and form what is real, could we argue about the influence of transgression of gender roles on the stage to define what is proper outside of a performance space?
Roles on stage - Roles in everyday life
Song manipulates Rene into disclosing secret diplomatic information and spies him for the Chinese government. Gallimard is unaware or willfully ignorant of the fact that in traditional Chinese opera, all roles are performed by men, so their affair lasts for many years. Since, Gallimard betrays his country; he is tried for treason, which led him to learn the truth about that Song is actually a man employed to pose as a woman in order to extract state secrets from him. At the end, Gallimard dresses like a woman and commits suicide by stabbing his heart with a dagger. This kind of a suicide performance is generally associated with woman, so we could say that the European, white masculinity's fantasy of the Oriental woman intervenes a homosexual desire. M Butterfly constitutes a distance between the gender and the body; the play deconstructs the binary oppositions, which structure the meaning. Hence we could say that the play challenges the perceptions about social, political, cultural and especially gendered identities of the Western audience.
Does crossgender performance keep the existence of the dominant masculinist hegemony, just by defining the genders as different and unequal? Or does the use the transgressive energy on theatrical presence destabilize accepted categories? Hwang's play as a transformation from Madame Butterfly into M Butterfly could be read as a play of repressed homoeroticism that elaborates the construction of a marginalized sexuality. And, in my opinion this deconstructivist example is crucial to understand the work of Butler, who states that appearance contradicts the reality of the gender.
Hwang’s play is a contemporary example of transgression of gender roles on theatre; however the situation is as much as complicated in the works of Shakespeare and also in the Ancient Greek Theatre. Boys were the central female figures in Shakespeare's day; their high voices and smooth skins without hair differentiated them from the mature male actors and gave them the advantage on the stage. Additionally, in Ancient Greek the hypocrites were always men. Female roles were played by males before puberty and before their voices changed. Since the hypocrites were all male, the mask was necessary to let them to play female roles (the mask hides the identity or puts the ambiguity of M.) it was necessary to make them look female for female roles.
We are all M. Butterflies – (are we?)
In the previous part I try exemplify Butler’s ideas on performance and gender construction on the stage, to prove the impossibility of strict definitions or failure of guesses about the gender categories, gender preferences and sexuality. Butler states that gender is not a fixed category but one continually constructed in social interactions. Actually RuPaul was right, “We are born naked. Everything else is drag.” or the rest is performativily defined from a Butlerian perspective. In this part I am going to ask my questions without referring any artistic performance.
Butler claims that there is no essential category for gender. Gender is not something that is internally built but something that is achieved and is always reproduced by the body. The body creates an illusion of these true social scripts and identities through repetition. Her attempt to refigure the body moves from the periphery to the center of analysis, so that it can be understood as the very point of subjectivity. Also, Butler argues that, this illusion is the dichotomic relationship between fe/male, and it is constructed through a performative fulfillment by social sanction and taboo; and there is social punishment for not conforming. But what about those people with non-conforming gender identities, practices? If there is punishment and there is nothing internal provocating his/her gender identity how would someone be socialized into the wrong gender or decide to express the wrong gender?
On the other hand, in my opinion there is something lack about those who challenges these gender roles, in her article. Would I have to be a part of a sexual or racial or any kind of minority community, to criticize the corrupted mentality of heteronormativity? What about those who are heterosexual, are not they able to challenge their given gender identities?
The body is constantly doing new acts, and gender is in a constant flux. So, Butler’s idea of performativity has then constituted the idea that gender is always moving and shifting. Based on her theory, gender is not a stable and an innate fact. And I am definitely agreed on the importance of Butler’s theory and concepts since they deconstruct discussions of body’s and gender’s essential sameness or difference. Overtime, we believe that gender is something that we rely on, and must have a concrete definition; however Butler’s ideas on body and gender, open a room to shift and move freely; additionally her framework explains gender beyond heterosexual ideals. But I still have questions about those who are aware of the vitality of body as a political site for representation and socially-culturally construction of gendered categories through reiteration in everyday practices, but those who reject to be M. and instead prefer their gendered bodies, their Madame or Monsieur.
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