Screening LGBTI hope in China
Life speaks to filmmaker and activist Fan Popo about his documentary on drag queens
Fan Popo handed out two postcards to those he talked to. One of them has a picture of two women — both dressed in wedding gowns — in each others loving embrace. The other was a group picture of drag queen performers. “It’s a souvenir,” said the 31-year-old gay Chinese filmmaker, who was recently in Bangkok for the screening of Be A Woman, his 2011 documentary on Chinese drag queens. The film revolves around a group of drag queen performers at a bar called Only Love in Nanning, southern China.
It took Fan three years to get all the footage. At the same time, he was working for the Beijing LGBT centre, as well as organising a queer film festival around China.
“I also had to take a part-time job to survive,” said Fan with a laugh. Despite life’s other callings, he reverted back to the drag queen bar almost religiously.
With his small HD camera, Fan followed his subjects on and offstage. One minute, they were swaying and singing beautiful tunes for the cheering crowd. At others, they took off their hairpiece to reveal their short hair underneath, recounting the stories of their lives.
Drag queen performances, said Fan, used to be quite popular in China. In the 2000s, a few bars in Beijing would offer drag queen shows in ancient and traditional styles with flowing Chinese costumes similarly to that of the Peking opera, a long tradition in which men perform as female characters. The world got a glimpse of this tradition in Ba wang bie ji ( Farewell My Concubine). And now Fan has documented the realistic, modern take of the tradition.
These performances have been overtaken by go-go dances and upbeat DJs in recent years before returning in a Westernised format. “It’s quite sad for us to see the show disappearing,” Fan said. The show is funny, ironic and full of people lip-syncing their way through the show. In his film, we witness performers singing in their real voices.
Cross-dressing and drag queen performances receive a certain level of understanding and tolerance in China, said the filmmaker. “Some people view them as very artistic.” But when the issue transcends into matters like homosexuality and transsexuality, it strives on an entirely different route with the people.
He mentioned a famous Chinese TV host and transwoman Jin Xing (the “Chinese Oprah Winfrey” as Fan describes her). Some Chinese LGBTI, despite the seeming intolerance in the country, are accepted and respected by society. Tragically, other transgender individuals live on the street, picking up garbage to survive.
“People have this image that the transgender have to be beautiful to get respect. If not, they are then discriminated against by mainstream society.”
Even gay men in China do not take too well to the trans community. As Fan is on the committee for the Beijing Queer Film Festival, in the past he received suggestions to now screen transgender films as some gay men say these films make them look bad.
“They said they are only in love with people of the same gender. They didn’t want people to mistake them as wanting to change their sex,” said Fan in a half angry, half disappointed tone. “No matter how normal you think you are, for mainstream society, we are all freaks. We’re all different and weird. You shouldn’t use how mainstream society looks at us to look down upon the transgender community.”
Making Be A Woman, said Fan, is one way to show support for the transgender community.
Aside from the drag queen tale, Fan is also known for his family-themed documentaries Mama Rainbow (2012) and Papa Rainbow (2016) — both of which feature Chinese parents talking about their support for their LGBTI children.
Due to the country’s censorship, Fan’s works weren’t able to be screened in Chinese cinemas. Within his own country, these documentaries have found their way on smaller screens inside cafes, universities and galleries. But outside the country, Fan is jet-setting the globe to screen his films at different festivals.
It’s a known fact that the Chinese government is rarely keen on any good depictions of LGBTI characters within its media. Its brutal censorship means that films with homosexual or transgender characters aren’t allowed to be screened in cinemas, unless they are depicted in a small, stereotypical and stigmatised nature.
“The regulation is quite blurry, really,” said Fan. “It doesn’t say clearly that they are banning LGBTI films, but rather ones that talk about political, erotic pornography. And, according to the censorship board, LGBTI films are under that label.”
The censorship doesn’t affect films alone, but also film festivals with a LGBTI theme. The Beijing Queer Film Festival, which was established in 2001, has been subjected to police raids and shutdown over the years.
The authority’s harassment meant the organisers have to pull together their wit and tricks to pull off each festival. Once, the festival relocated to eight different locations in five days in order to avoid shutdown.
Sometimes, the organisers would rent a bus and screen films on it. One year, they got people on a train and distribute USB drives for them to watch the film on their laptops — everyone pressed play at the same time to watch the film together.
It’s a tiring game of cat and mouse, but Fan said his team is not giving up.
“No matter how many challenges we face, we still want to do it. We can’t stop and we’re not going to stop just because the authority wants to stop us.”
“I think film is such an important platform for society to see what we are, where we are and what we’re doing,” he said, adding it’s the reason why he choose to work on films about gender diversity. He is capturing history. And he recounted that his audiences said his documentaries have helped several families in coming to terms with gender issues. Step by step, he views it as part of the strength to change society.
It is difficult to say whether regulations will be lifted in the near future. But Fan remains positive. In his view, people are growing more accepting of gender diversity and are more willing to talk about it, even publicly.
“We still have hope,” he insisted.
After a decade working on documentaries, Fan said he will branch out into fictional features, beginning with a story about queer life in urban China. He’s working on the script and is deciding whether to shoot the film in Beijing or Shanghai.
You shouldn’t use how mainstream society looks at us to look down upon the transgender community