M Butterfly Essay

M. Butterfly, a play written by David Henry Hwang, took place at a prison located in Paris. Although it was filmed in a modern day setting, the audiences were traveled back to 1960 through 1970 in Beijing (Hwang 815). This play was based off a true story, which a French diplomat fell in love with an opera singer. The two main characters, Gallimard and Song fell in love after seeing each other for the first time. Along the process of falling in love with Song, Gallimard was tricked by thinking Song was a woman when she was not. Song portrayed a view of a modest Asian woman to Gallimard. M. Butterfly examines the plays’ positions on race and colonialism. In the society we live in today, we hardly see any homosexual Asians. Asians are usually seen as hard working and successful individuals. With that, barely any Asians fall into the category of homosexual. Asians and queers rarely have a connected relationship with one another. It is difficult for Asians to choose upon which side they belong to, straight or gay. As Butler presents that gender is categorized on an individual’s actions,

At the beginning when the two first met, Song played the role of Butterfly representing an ideal woman, as her hidden identity is a male. Gallimard sees Song as his idol because she’s an Asian portraying a “modest Asian” woman. Throughout his affair relationship with Song, he has never seen her as a man, but rather sees her as his butterfly. It would break the Asian stereotype of “normal Asians”. Song performs her femininity during the whole play by knowing how to manipulate herself to Gallimard using Western fantasy as an advantage to hide her true character as a male Chinese spy. Whenever Gallimard tries to get Song naked, she would reject saying it’s a shame in her culture. However, one day when Gallimard sees Song naked from top to bottom, his imaginary of her had