The Joy Luck Club is an adaptation of the book by Amy Tan. The movie tells the story about four Chinese women who were born in China and came to America, as well as about their daughters. The narrator of the story is June, the daughter of one of the women. The movie covers such issues as mother love, abandonment, and self-respect. Joy Luck Club portrays Chinese culture, which the four main characters try to preserve in the modern American environment; despite containing some stereotypes, the movie is impressive and unforgettable due to its unique plot and skillful use of technical elements.
Four women who escaped from China’s feudal society many years ago to America find it difficult to preserve their traditions there, especially taking into account that their daughters grew up in American society and now represented “new generation.” Their Joy Luck Club was formed with the purpose of preserving original Chinese traditions in America by means of organizing regular meetings and sharing the joys and troubles of their lives.
“The central theme of the movie is the importance of keeping heritage and background alive throughout generations to come.” (Kibria 115)
The movie also presents the collision of two generations. The daughters consider their mothers to be stupid because they cannot speak English properly, whilst the mothers are angry with their daughters who do not appreciate their cultural traditions and who refuse to pass them to their children. Throughout the movie, every character puts forth one Chinese concept after another.
“The Joy Luck Club creates such a powerful sense of its older women’s suffering, and presents such brutalizing events in several of their lives, that its impact achieves a welcome degree of universality.” (Maslin 1)
Technical elements of the movie allow getting into the essence of it. Music and setting help the viewer perceive original Chinese culture. Chinese music is used throughout the movie; the movie contains a number of flashbacks to the past; this is why yellow lighting is used to mark these flashbacks. Most of the movies utilize black-and-white colors to achieve this purpose, but the use of yellow color added a certain movie mystery. Camera angles, as well as close-ups, brought an intense touch to the film. Different locations were used in the setting of The Joy Luck Club. A few scenes were shot in San Francisco, and some were shot in China since the movie is about Chinese people and their traditions. Wayne Wang chose the United States as the setting when the scenes with the women’s daughters had to be introduced. The movie depicts different eras; it starts with the depiction of the 1940s, then moves on to the 1960s, and ends up with the 1990s. Wayne Wang had to utilize different symbolic signs for the viewers to know the era of the scene they are watching. The actors wore Chinese clothes, which helped to represent Chinese culture in the best possible way. The make-up of different kinds was used in the scenes depicting different eras, which also created a sense of presence in the movie.
Asian American women who play the leading roles in The Joy Luck Club often express stereotypes regarding American and Asian culture and society. One of the women married an Asian American who never treated her right due to his beliefs that the role of a woman consisted in being a wife and a mother. Later, she married a Caucasian man and was absolutely happy with him. Even after marrying a white man, the woman still remained submissive to him, and it took some time for her to get used to the fact that men and women possessed equal rights in modern American society. This shows that certain stereotypes regarding Asian men’s attitudes towards women were present in the movie; such gender discrimination may be a part of Asian culture, but the representation of these facts in the movie makes it stereotypical. In fact, the depiction of all of the women in the leading roles of this movie is stereotypical; perhaps, this was the intention of the director who tried to make Chinese traditions recognizable for an American viewer (who, as a rule, has stereotyped ideas about Chinese culture). Some stereotypes about American society are also present in the movie.
“The scenes regarding marital conflict and generation gap seem to be extremely old, whereas the flashbacks to the mothers’ unhappy lives in China seem exaggerated.” (Michael 1)
Lucy Liu and Ling Woo are portrayed as typical Asian dragon-ladies, which is also a stereotypical representation. Therefore, the movie indeed contains a great number of stereotypes, most of them being either gender or racial.
In sum, the movie Joy Luck Club produces an unforgettable impression on the viewer who, being struck with the technical elements helping to depict Chinese culture, may not even notice the stereotypes which are present in the movie.
Works Cited
Janet, Maslin. The Joy Luck Club (1993) NYT Critics’ Pick: The Joy Luck Club; Intimate Generational Lessons, Available to All. 1993.
Nazli, Kibria, “Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco”. Journal of Asian American Studies 1.1 (1998): 115-117.
Karen, Wada. The Joy Luck Club’ takes to the stage in L.A 2008. Web.
Sragow, Michael. The Joy Luck Club. 1993. Web.