To analyze the production of M. Butterfly and how it represents Asia Essay

To analyze the production of M. Butterfly and how it represents Asia through the story, scenic design, costume design, movement, sound, and lights - Essay Example M Butterfly play is one of the most popular plays and which was a highly applauded Asian American plays during the late 20th century. The importance of this play and the new visibility of Asian American theater reveal the growing attention given to cultural, political and intellectual issues. The intellectual issue includes ethnicity, gender, race, and sexualities (David pg. 12). The main strategies of understanding the play depend on the background of political histories between North America, China and Europe as well as on the cultural political of Orientalism. Critical reading of M butterfly varies from debates over the re3prewsentation of sexualities and ethnicity, theories of performance, politics of Orientalism, and the notion of the masquerade. This paper intends to look at how M. Butterfly represents Asia through several things. The image of a woman of Asia as both dangerous and sensual is important. The clash in this combination of need for fear of Oriental women gives some light on the manner in which inter-racial relationship get viewed in America (David pg 24). The plot of an Inter-racial romance that is seen in this play about a European American mans fateful love affair with a lady from another culture and race, almost ended in the nonwhite tragic pregnancy of a woman or her final sacrifice. It depicts the best of the two worlds like Gina Machetti states while apparently confirming a complete separation of the races; it also gives way for the possibility of assimilation through adopting mixed-raced child. This kind of unfortunate love between white men and Asian women becomes an efficient cultural means of accepting the interracial relationships; it is a method that emphasizes the splendor of love as an ideology and, concurrently, introduces the transitory and the tragic nature of inter-racial love. T he symbol of Butterfly serves well the cultural trends of her time: she reflects the persistent fantasy on the submissive,