Christianity and its accompanying homophobic arguments had little influence, except in Hong Kong. Psychiatric discussions aside, Westernization translated into a realignment of mores with the “civilized” habits of the Victorian nineteenth century, as well as a desire to “eliminate the barbaric elements of the past” and a leap to follow the latest foreign fashions. Thus, the only permissible relationship was a strictly monogamous, heterosexual one, resulting in marriage. The traditional marital obligation, now reinforced, took on a homophobic pallor; young boy lovers were no longer silently tolerated, nor were same-sex games between boys and between girls. One was only to court (or be courted by) a member of the opposite sex. Moral conventions dictated that the unmarried and the homosexual, because they contradicted the procreative, patriarchal norms, were pushed to the outermost fringes of society; in this way, homophobia was expressed more through ostracism than laws. Constrained to marriages of convenience, Chinese homosexuals lived in fear of being discovered, which would result in a loss of face as well as employment. The impossibility of privacy in a society that focused on the family, not to mention cramped lodgings within plain view of anyone, did not help matters. However, there were almost never any violent public reactions against homosexuals, no “gay bashings.” Even certain examples of homoeroticism were tolerated, provided they did not advocate a different way of life, nor use the word “homosexual” (considered barbaric and taboo).
Repression
If social norms were the greatest enemy of Chinese homosexuals, the courts were not far behind. From 1865, then again in 1901, the English introduced their own legislation in the colony of Hong Kong, condemning those convicted of sodomy to life in prison, of crimes of indecency between men to two years’ isolation, and of attempted sodomy or indecency to a maximum sentence of ten years. Most of these laws were finally abolished in 1991 (however, men younger than twenty-one who engage in sodomy can still be jailed for life), bringing local laws in line with legislation in Britain passed in 1967, but not before drawing fierce opposition from the colony’s Chinese elite.
The modern Republican civil code established in 1929–30 (still in use in Taiwan), based on the European continental model, removed sodomy as a crime. However, this legislation was not always recognized (even in recent years in Taiwan), nor did it stop police harassment in gay and lesbian locales.
Referencing the Soviet model, the communist People’s Republic of China after 1949 took its own repressive approach to homosexuality. The communists’ preoccupations were often the same as those of the Qing lawmakers, but imprisonment did not play as large a role as in other totalitarian systems. No article of law expressly forbade homosexuality, contrary to what could be found in the Soviet Union’s laws. This did not prevent homosexuality from being repressed in China (as was any expression of sexuality outside of wedlock), but the absence of a strict legal qualification confused the issue somewhat. In a country where communities handled their social problems without need for regular recourse to a judicial system, the “work units” (
danwei
), the name given to places of employment in communist China which also held sway over individuals’ entire way of life, had access to an efficient arsenal of control over its subjects: the maintenance of personal files, warnings, exclusion from the Party, demotion, and exile. In this system entirely run by the state, these chastisements which targeted an individual’s (and his or her family’s) reputation and means of existence were formidable. Most moral offenses were (and still are) handled in these ways. Keeping in mind the general arbitrariness of the regime, as well as its periods of anarchy, an entire range of legal punishments were applied to “bad elements” and other “counter-revolutionaries.” It was in this way that transvestite performers popular before the communists took power were deported and many homosexuals were executed (under aggravating circumstances, it seems, the latest being in 1977) and sentenced to prison or internments of variable length at camps for “re-education through labor” (
laogai
). Evidence of homosexual behavior was enough to justify extending a convict’s prison sentence, on the basis of political crimes. Article 160 of the 1979 penal code “clarified” the issue somewhat, establishing the crime of “hooliganism,” a catch-all phrase to describe brawls, mob violence, the undermining of public order, violence against women (from indecent behavior to conducting orgies), and other acts. It was under this article that the legal repression of homosexuality continued, resulting in lengthy prison or internment sentences until the 80s. The criminal code reform of 1997 abolished the crime of “hooliganism” but at the same time criminalized “gatherings resulting in
debauchery
.” As a result, there were widespread police crackdowns on homosexual gathering places, resulting in fines, detention, and even blackmail. Further, the suspicions of those in power regarding any citizens’ initiative not under their control essentially doomed any attempt to form gay associations.
Opening Up to Change (and its Limits)
China’s much-vaunted openness since 1978, two years after the death of Mao Zedong, has been rather selective. Foreign motion pictures, television programs, and the latest trends were all making their way into China with increasing ease, with the exception of the gay liberation movement. The popular image of Americans as perpetuated by the
media
was that of the well-groomed, “normal” heterosexual couple which included a blond-haired, heartthrob male hero; China’s view of popular culture was (and is) seen through rose-colored glasses, and as a result was blind to anything that swayed from the heterosexual norm. Cultural standards have already changed, though. Fifteen years ago, two men or two women holding hands in the street would not have shocked anyone; it was simply an expression of friendship. A man and a woman holding hands, however, was shocking, given the Chinese abhorrence for public displays of sexuality. Now, the opposite is true; the former is now viewed as evidence of homosexuality.
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, homosexuality was condemned to absolute silence by the press until the 1980s. In the People’s Republic, the silence was lifted only partway, enough to popularize the word and the concept. In commercial businesses, homosexuality became acceptable because it helped to drive voyeuristic and sensationally-inspired media, which increased sales. But at the same time, homophobia thrived, given that homosexuality was linked to a wide range of criminal behaviors and social ills: murder, rape, prostitution,
suicide
, and
AIDS
. News on gay rights demonstrations and the gay movement in the West simply served to illustrate how commonplace foreign
vice
was; the image of the gay community was summed up in the image of the drag queen. Vigorous action on the part of the
tongzhi
(“queer”) movement, which started in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1990s, obliged journalists to exercise more objectivity, though not consistently.
The universal decline of classical schooling, combined with a general lack of education, has cut the Chinese, gays and lesbians included, off from their roots, and the silent
tolerance
of homosexuality in the past has fallen to the wayside without need for
censorship
. It would seem that ancient texts remain available, but the most erotic passages (heterosexual as well as homosexual) are banned or excised. This, coupled with the complicity of scholars, has led to distorted heterosexual interpretations of the known texts and anecdotes. In this way, what is nothing more than imported puritanism takes on the guise of custom or Confucianism. Many Chinese leaders have preached with sanctimonious and ethnocentric zeal on how homosexuality “violates Chinese tradition, and the natural way of things,” and in doing so (since the 1970s) cast it as a foreign vice from a decadent West. Accordingly, gay or lesbian activists are portrayed as being uniquely Western or Japanese.
Despite having been inspired by concepts both foreign and traditional, homophobic discourse in China, supported by the regime, seems to be firmly established and resistant to change (no matter how highly praised in the Western world).
—Laurent Long
Domenach, Jean-Luc.
Chine: l’archipel oublié
. Paris: Fayard, 1992.
Insch, Bret.
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China
. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Cammbridge: Univ. of California Press, 1990.
Chou, Wah-shan.
Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies
. Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 2000.
Diköter, Frank.
Sex, Culture and Modernity in China: Medical Science and the Con
s
truction of Sexual Identities in The Early Republican Period
. London: Hurst & Company, 1995.
Long, Laurent. “Manches coupées” et “Repas en tête-à-tête,”
La Revue h,
no.4 (1997).
Matignon, Jean-Jacques. “Deux Mots sur la pédérastie.” In
La Chine hermétique
;
superstition, crime et misère
. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936.
Ng,Vivien W. “Homosexuality and the State in Late Imperial China.” In
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past
. Edited by George Chauncey, Martin Duberman, and Martha Vicinus. New York: Penguin, 1990.
Pasqualini, Jean.
Prisonnier de Mao, sept ans de camp de travail en Chine
. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
Sommer, Matthew H. “Qing Sodomy Legislation.” In
Sex, Law and Society in Late Imperial China
. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2000.
Wu, Chunsheng. “La Vie gaie et lesbienne en Chine,”
La Revue h,
no. 4 (1997).
Zhou, Huashan.
Histo
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;
les homosexuels en Chine
. Paris: Paris-Méditerranée, 1997.
—Buddhism; Communism; Heterosexism; Japan; Korea; Medicine; Russia; Southeast Asia.
CHRISTIANITY.
See
Bible, the; Catholic Church, the; Orthodoxy; Protestantism; Theology
CINEMA
Artistic creation is always a concern of the state. All the arts are eventually confronted by this reality, whether it be in the form of
censorship
or taxation measures. As a means of self-protection, some artists engage in a form of self-censorship, even during more favorable periods by force of habit or out of caution. Cinema is no exception to this rule. From the beginning, films which openly depicted sexuality were censored, although this did not keep some amateur cinematographers from privately circulating pornographic films, in which it was not rare at all to find homosexual scenes—and not just of lesbians, as one might expect.
It was after the industrialization of cinema and its eventual mass production and distribution, however, that the state would seriously get involved. Censorship was particularly concerned with artistic productions containing sex scenes, sometimes with surprising effects, such as in theater, where for a long time the profession of actress was highly stigmatized, leaving the female roles to be played by men in drag. This subterfuge, guaranteed to be comical, sometimes allowed a paradoxical freedom, especially with regard to feminist questions (demonstrating what might happen if you, the male audience member, were a woman). In film, transvestite characters were originally men as women (e.g., 1915’s
A Woman/Mademoiselle Charlot
by Charlie Chaplin and 1933’s
Twice Two
with Laurel and Hardy), but could also be women as men (e.g., 1919’s
Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don’t Want to Be a Man)
by Ernst Lubitsch and Reinhold Schünzel’s
Viktor und Viktoria
in 1933, which was remade the same year in France [
Georges et Georgette
], then in England in 1935 [
First a Girl
], and by Blake Edwards in the US in 1982 [
Victor/Victoria
]); cinema found a creative gold mine in the innuendo of gender switching between masculine and feminine. American feminism provided examples which would allow transvestites to be unmasked without ruining their roles, which was the triumph of “camp” movies: a means to depict homosexuality while maintaining the appearance of heterosexuality. The culture of excess was also represented, where primarily women (but also occasionally men) portrayed caricatures of their traditionally-assigned roles to the point of the absurd (e.g., Marlene Dietrich in 1930’s
The Blue Angel,
Mae West in 1933’s
I’m No Angel
, and the numerous films of Bette Davis).
Given the rarity of motion pictures about them, gays and lesbians had to be content with cryptic depictions and sly nods, such as the dialogue between John Ireland and Montgomery Clift in Howard Hawks’
Red River
(1948), where the two men compare the calibers of their respective revolvers; the ambiguous rapport between Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in William Wyler’s
Ben-Hur
(1959); the effeminate Fatty Arbuckle, in the comedy
Good Night, Nurse!
(1918); the “close friendship” of Laurel and Hardy in
Their First Mistake
(1932); and Cary Grant’s declaration in Howard Hawks’
Bringing Up Baby
(1938): “I just went gay all of a sudden.”
In the United States, from 1930 to 1966, censorship guidelines regarding motion pictures were determined by the industry’s production code (also known as the Hays Code), which directors had to sign; the code outlined “general principles” that had to be followed, including: “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” It wasn’t until 1952 that the US Congress decided that motion pictures could benefit from the freedom of expression granted by the First and Fourth Amendments. In 1965, the bare breast made its first appearance in mainstream American cinema (in Sidney Lumet’s
The Pawnbroker
); the following year, a woman’s pubes showed up in Michelangelo Antonioni’s
Blowup
(1966), as straight critics and commentators tell us. But when would the time come when cinema would begin depicting homosexual encounters, whether male or female? But homosexuality was doubly “pornographic,” first as sexuality, then again as homosexuality. This has been evident in various uproars over cinematic homosexual depictions over the years, such as in 1987, when there were attempts to ban Pedro Almodóvar’s film
Law of Desire
, which showed two men together in bed. In an attempt to better address the new sexual frankness in films without resorting to censorship, in 1968 the Motion Picture Association of America replaced the production code with a film rating system that included “R” and “X.” In France, the “X” rating was established in 1975, whereby such films were obliged to be shown in specialized theaters which then had to pay a surtax of half the ticket price for the privilege. Many directors had their films threatened with “the X,” such as Philippe Vallois’ 1976
Johan, carnet intime d’un homosexuel
(Johan, the Intimate Journal of a Homosexual); it was defended by Jean-Louis Bory and Yves Navarre. And the folks from the Société des réalisateurs de films (the French Association of Film Directors) decided to show it as part of the category “Perspectives du cinéma” at Cannes. Finally, it was only restricted from those under eighteen years of age.
Race d’Ep
(1979), by Lionel Soukaz and Guy Hocquenghem, suffered the same fate (see also
Bout tabou
[2000], a short piece that has been censored and rated X). It should be noted that it always seems to take pressure from an illuminated intelligentsia, or by screening it at a festival, for censorship to be lifted from a film (in part or in full).