To the editors:
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Like Joan Chen, I also grew up during the Cultural Revolution, although I was 11 years old while she was 5 in 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began. I was one of the millions of sent-down youth and spent five years in a village growing vegetables with peasants while Joan Chen was an actress chosen to perform for the Shanghai film studio. After watching Xiu Xiu, I was disturbed, offended, and humiliated. Even though the film was artistically well-done, the message it sends to American audiences (it is banned in China) is misleading and reinforces stereotypes of Asian women.
The film presented two problems to me. First, the character of Xiu Xiu is self-contradictory, pessimistic, vulnerable, and weak. When she’s first sent to live with Lao Jin in a tent on the Tibetan plain, isolated from the rest of the inhabitants, Xiu Xiu expresses to Lao Jin that she would never choose to live there and that her wish is to return to the city. However, she never tries to leave the place by herself. Instead she’s at the mercy of men who have sex with her and never return. Also, although she supposedly needs a permit to go home, the audience is told that many “educated youth” rioted and went back to the city at that time on their own. I could not help asking why Xiu Xiu did not join these other “educated youth” to achieve her goal. And why did she choose to be so completely cut off from her family, friends, and the rest of the world?
Lucy Xing Lu
