Shitou (activist)

Last updated

Shitou (born 1969) is a Chinese activist, actress, filmmaker, multimedia artist, [1] and gay icon. [2] She has been active in the Chinese gay scene since the 1990s and was the first lesbian to come out on Chinese television.

Contents

Biography

Shitou (石头) was born in 1969 in Guizhou to an ethnic Miao family [3] and graduated from the Guizhou Art Academy. Shitou was a part of the Yanmingyuan artist colony in 1992 before its dissolution in 1995. [4] In 2000, Shitou was featured on a Hunan Satellite Television talk show program called "Approaching Homosexuality." According to scholar Hong Wei Bao, this was "the first time that a self-identified... lesbian 'came out' in PRC's official media." [5] Shitou became one of the most prominent figures for lesbian activism in China. [6] Scholar Tingting Wei points out that while Shitou’s ‘coming out’ was broadcast on television, cultural attitudes and the PRC viewed homosexuality as a crime and a mental disorder at the time. [7]

In 2001 Shitou had a starring role as Xiaoling in the Chinese lesbian film Fish and Elephant. [8] She later went on to direct several films, many in collaboration with her partner, Ming Ming. Her first was Dyke March (2002). [9] In 2006 Shitou released the documentary/essay film Women Fifty Minutes (女人五十分钟) [10] and in 2015 directed the film We Are Here. Shitou helped found the Beijing Queer Film Festival and the China Queer Film Festival Tour. [3]

Activism

1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women

Shitou documented the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in her film We Are Here (2015), co-directed by Zhao Jing (赵静). [11] In the documentary, Shitou and Zhao Jing film and interview attendees who recount how the most controversial topic at the conference was lesbian rights, especially in the context of women’s rights at this conference that took place in Beijing, China. [12] Lesbian organizers claim that lesbian rights were not intended to be a part of the conference at all. Shitou is known for using documentary film as a tool for activism and political change, and in her film, she draws attention to lesbian rights issues and highlights how lesbian rights cannot be separated from women’s rights. [11]

As one key part of the conference, there was a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Forum that was scheduled. The NGO Forum was meant to take place in downtown Beijing, but instead its activities and organizers were moved to Huairou, located about 50 kilometres outside of downtown Beijing. [7] At this location, there were seven ‘diversity’ tents that were set up. Lesbian organizers and international LGBT NGOs were able to set up a lesbian tent, which happened to be one of the most popular spots at the NGO Forum. The lesbian tent provided an opportunity for lesbians from China to interact and meet international lesbian organizers for the first time. During the NGO Forum, international lesbian organizers connected to host fundraising workshops, movie screenings, discuss challenges, strategies for activism, and more. [7]

As a result of this collective organizing, lesbians were acknowledged in the United Nations conference. More than 300 people visited the lesbian tent and more than 500 people participated in the lesbian parade, where individuals and groups called for the recognition of lesbian rights. [7] Lesbian voices were also represented and supported during the process of creating the Beijing Platform for Action/Beijing Declaration amongst government officials and international representatives. [7]

Beijing Queer Film Festival

Both a feminist and a lesbian activist, Shitou helped to create the first Chinese gay and lesbian film festival in Beijing with collaborators Cui Zi’en and Wan Yanhai, along with the help of many other Chinese LGBT creatives. [13] Five movies were screened at the first Beijing Queer Film Festival that took place in December 2001 on the Peking University campus, which is also known as the Beijing University campus. [13] At the same time, alternative versions of queer movies were sourced and screened at a nearby bar. [13] When the Public Security Bureau discovered that the film festival was happening on campus, they immediately intervened and put an end to the movie screenings.

The second time around, in April 2005, the number of movies selected for the film festival increased from 5 to 12 domestic and international films. [13] Participants and filmmakers from Hong Kong, Taipei, Jinan, and Beijing were invited to the film festival.  Once again, Chinese authorities were alerted of the film festival, and they intervened to order attendees to evacuate the premises of Peking University. However this time, key organizers like Shi Tou, Cui Zi’en, and Wan Yanhai had prepared a backup plan. Using resources and financial support from Wan Yanhai’s organization, they shifted the film festival’s venue to “798”, an old factory that had no affiliation with the university. [13]

In 2011, they were met with the same conditions and evacuation demands from Chinese authorities. Key organizers continued to prepare backup locations for screenings, but they soon realized that the city of Beijing was not an ideal location to host an organized LGBT film festival. [12] After the film festivals in 2013 and 2014, the Beijing Queer Film Festival was redesigned and moved to the Institut Français Beijing. By relocating and rebranding the film festival, organizers were able to avoid government interference. Shitou and many of the original organizers are no longer directly involved with the film festival. [12]

Filmmaking

Method and collaborators

Shitou uses documentary filmmaking as a tool for social and political change, particularly in her lesbian activism. Due to limited resources as an independent filmmaker, Shitou began her filmmaking career by using non-traditional methods such as digital video technology to film her projects. [14] These tactics were shared amongst filmmakers in the region, where they collaborated to learn how to take advantage of DV technology when there was no blockbuster budget available for independent queer filmmakers. [14] DV technology was also widely available, cheap, and an accessible method to produce and create films.  

With an educational background in the creative arts, and Shitou created many works in the fields of photography and oil painting, but when it came to filmmaking, she was self-taught. [12] She has made three documentary films. Themes that are often found in her films include feminist and queer histories, and broader social and political issues like the loss of culture and uneven development in different regions in China, as seen in her film Women 50 Minutes (2006). [12] In Dyke March (2002), Shitou uses her personal experience as a Chinese lesbian and a participatory approach to embody what the real-life experience is like for a lesbian. [12]

Modes of production and distribution

State censorship was and continues to be a major barrier for queer filmmakers in China. In China, the censorship system for films means that new films must pass inspection from the Beijing Film Bureau [13] and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. [12] Institutions and organizations within the censorship system have the power to ban queer films from being produced and they can control where and how films are released. [12] To bypass some of the censorship laws, organizers acquired and screened pirated versions of queer films from the black market and various unofficial channels. [13] Domestically produced Chinese queer films like Shitou’s have a better chance of reaching an international audience rather than a Chinese audience due to the strict censorship laws. [12] Both domestically produced and illegally sourced queer films have therefore been distributed in underground channels, such as semi-organized film festivals like the Beijing Queer Film Festival. [12]

Reception

Scholar Hongwei Bao proposes that lesbian filmmakers like Shitou were not creating documentaries and queer films with the intent of seeing commercial success for themselves; rather, they were creating films to represent themselves and to create an archival historical record of lesbian existence. [12] Queer Chinese films were met with support and allyship from international audiences and creatives. [13]

Filmography

Shitou Filmography [3]
FilmYearRole
Fish and Elephant 2001Xiaoling
Dyke March2002Director
Gu Wenda: Art, Politics, Life, Sexuality2005Director
Women Fifty Minutes2006Director
Gate, Mountain, River2006Director
Queer China, Comrade China 2008Herself
We Are Here2015Director

See also

Related Research Articles

Homosexuality has been documented in China since ancient times. According to one study by Bret Hinsch, for some time after the fall of the Han dynasty, homosexuality was widely accepted in China but this has been disputed. Several early Chinese emperors are speculated to have had homosexual relationships accompanied by heterosexual ones. Opposition to homosexuality, according to the study by Hinsch, did not become firmly established in China until the 19th and 20th centuries through the Westernization efforts of the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China. On the other hand, Gulik's study argued that the Mongol Yuan dynasty introduced a more ascetic attitude to sexuality in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hu Jia (activist)</span> Chinese activist

Hu Jia is a Chinese civil rights activist and noted critic of Chinese Communist Party. His work has focused on the Chinese democracy movement, Chinese environmentalist movement, and HIV/AIDS in the People's Republic of China. Hu is the director of June Fourth Heritage & Culture Association, and he has been involved with AIDS advocacy as the executive director of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education and as one of the founders of the non-governmental organization Loving Source. He has also been involved in work to protect the endangered Tibetan antelope. For his activism, Hu has received awards from several European bodies, such as the Paris City Council and the European Parliament, which awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to him in December 2008.

Cui Zi'en, born 1958, in Harbin in the People's Republic of China, is a film director, producer, film scholar, screenwriter, novelist and an outspoken LGBT activist based in Beijing. He graduated from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with an MA in literature and now is an associate professor at the Film Research Institute of the Beijing Film Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wan Yanhai</span>

Wan Yanhai is a Chinese AIDS activist.

<i>Fish and Elephant</i> 2001 film directed by Li Yu

Fish and Elephant is documentary filmmaker and former TV hostess Li Yu's feature film directorial debut. The film is also often referred to as the first Chinese mainland film to broach the topic of lesbian relationships in China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ShanghaiPride</span> Annual LGBT event in Shanghai

Shanghai Pride is a Chinese LGBT NGO who organize LGBT pride events in Shanghai, mainly in the form of art exhibitions and film projections. It was one of the first LGBT event to take place in mainland China. The events organized by the NGO in Shanghai under the appellation 'Shanghai Pride' have been on hiatus since 2020.

Queer China, 'Comrade' China, directed by Cui Zi’en, is a 2008 independent Chinese documentary about homosexuality in China. The film features interviews with prominent academics and activists. Interviewees include the film's director Cui Zi'en, actress and activist Shitou, sociologist Li Yinhe and director Zhang Yuan. It covers 80 years of evolution of Chinese attitudes on LGBTQ people, ending with the 2003 Same-sex Marriage Bill.

The history of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in China spans thousands of years. Unlike the histories of European and European-ruled polities in which Christianity formed the core of heavily anti-LGBT laws until recent times, non-heterosexual states of being were historically treated with far less animosity in Chinese states. For a period of the modern history of both the Republic of China and People's Republic of China in the 20th century, LGBT people received more stringent legal regulations regarding their orientations, with restrictions being gradually eased by the beginning of the 21st century. However, activism for LGBT rights in both countries has been slow in development due to societal sentiment and government inaction.

Amber L. Hollibaugh is an American writer, filmmaker and political activist, largely concerned with feminist and sexual politics.

Star Appeal (星星相吸惜) is a 2004 Chinese gay-themed science fiction film, by Chinese film director Cui Zi'en. The film was recorded on video rather than film, using a series of long, static shots. The main characters are E.T. and his Chinese friend, Xiao Bo, and the film reveals the full-frontal nudity of both characters.

My Fair Son is a 2005 Chinese gay-themed film, by Chinese film director Cui Zi'en. The main characters are Rui (Ray) and the object of his affection, Bo, an employee of his father. The film contains full-frontal male nudity.

The city of Shanghai, China, a global center for finance, technology, manufacturing, and transportation, has a presence of LGBT people.

This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Asia and the Pacific Islands and in the global Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked. Please note: this is a very incomplete timeline, notably lacking LGBTQ-specific items from the 1800s to 1970s, and should not be used as a research resource until additional material is added.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wei Tingting</span> Chinese LGBT rights activist

Wei Tingting is a Chinese LGBTI+ and feminist activist, writer and documentary filmmaker. She is one of the Feminist Five.

Beijing Queer Film Festival (BJQFF), (Chinese: 北京酷儿影展), is an LGBT film festival, held annually in Beijing, the capital city of the People's Republic of China. It was the first LGBT film festival to be established in mainland China, founded in 2001 by the Chinese author and LGBT film director Cui Zi'en, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverley Palesa Ditsie</span> South African activist

Beverley Palesa Ditsie is a South African lesbian activist, artist, and filmmaker. Ditsie is one of the founders of the gay rights organization Gay and Lesbian Organization of Witwatersrand.

Shanghai Queer Film Festival, (SHQFF), established in 2017, is an annual LGBT film festival, based in Shanghai, the most populous city in China. The first festival was held from 16—24 September 2017. It is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit community event, offering 'a week of screenings, parties, workshops and discussions'. The festival is directed by founder Tingting Shi. There are two other separate and unconnected LGBT film festivals in the city, ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival, and CINEMQ, established in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fan Popo</span>

Fan Popo is a Chinese filmmaker, film critic, and LGBT activist. Fan's documentaries have focused on performance-based activism and coming out as LGBT in the Chinese filial context. He is known for the documentary Mama Rainbow and his well-publicized legal case against the Chinese state media regulator over censorship of it.

Xiao Xian, better known simply as Xian, is a Chinese activist best known for founding Tongyu, a Beijing-based lesbian/lala organization. Outside of Tongyu, Xian has been active in the Chinese LGBT community, and in the international LGBT community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Feminist Five</span> Chinese womens rights activists

The Feminist Five is a group of five Chinese feminists who were arrested in Beijing on March 6, 2015 for planning a protest against sexual harassment on public transportation. The quintet is composed of Li Maizi, Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting and Wang Man.

References

  1. ↑ "A History of Lesbians Organizing in China – China Development Brief" . Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  2. ↑ Engebretsen, Elisabeth Lund. 2008. Love in a big city: Sexuality, kinship, and citizenship amongst lala ('lesbian') women in beijing. Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom), p.234.
  3. 1 2 3 Bao, Hongwei (1 March 2019). "Queer eye for Chinese women: Locating queer spaces in Shitou's film Women Fifty Minutes". Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. 6 (1): 77–96. doi:10.1386/jcca.6.1.77_1. S2CID   194349760. Gale   A587974889.
  4. ↑ "woman on film". www.fridae.asia. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  5. ↑ Bao, Hongwei (2019). "Queer comrades: towards a postsocialist queer politics". Soundings. 73 (73): 24–37. doi:10.3898/SOUN.73.03.2019. S2CID   213226285. Project MUSE   742550.
  6. ↑ Shi, Liang (2004). "Beginning a New Discourse: The First Chinese Lesbian Film Fish and Elephant". Film Criticism. 28 (3): 21–36. JSTOR   44019136.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Wei, Tingting (3 July 2015). "A Look at the Beijing Conference through Lesbian Eyes". Asian Journal of Women's Studies. 21 (3): 316–325. doi:10.1080/12259276.2015.1072944. S2CID   155370554.
  8. ↑ Shi, Liang (2014). Chinese Lesbian Cinema: Mirror Rubbing, Lala, and Les. Lexington Books. ISBN   978-0-7391-8848-4. OCLC   894895375.[ page needed ]
  9. ↑ Tan, Jia (2016). "Aesthetics of queer becoming: Comrade Yue and Chinese community-based documentaries online". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 33 (1): 38–52. doi:10.1080/15295036.2015.1129064. S2CID   147187211.
  10. ↑ Reynaud, Bérénice (18 October 2020). "The Good Cats of Chinese Documentary – Senses of Cinema" . Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  11. 1 2 Bao, Hongwei (3 July 2020). "'We Are Here': the politics of memory in narrating China's queer feminist history". Continuum. 34 (4): 514–529. doi:10.1080/10304312.2020.1785079. S2CID   221054770.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Bao, Hongwei (2 September 2019). "The 'queer generation':queer community documentary in contemporary China". Transnational Screens. 10 (3): 201–216. doi:10.1080/25785273.2019.1662197. S2CID   203044540.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Zi'en, Cui; Liu, Petrus (2010). "The Communist International of Queer Film". Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. 18 (2): 417–423. doi:10.1215/10679847-2010-008. S2CID   142909791. Project MUSE   393900.
  14. 1 2 Zhou, Yuxing (2 January 2014). "Chinese Queer Images on Screen: A Case Study of Cui Zi'en's Films". Asian Studies Review. 38 (1): 124–140. doi:10.1080/10357823.2013.865703. S2CID   143490039.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.