and other elements. As a result, according to Hee Wai Siam, it became a film made by minorities and watched by minorities. No people outside of LGBTQ+ community would acknowledge this film at that time (Hee, 2009). However, there are things we should learn from the film.
At the end of the film, out of the audience’s exception, A Lan confessed his love for the police officer. Later, to get his love, A Lan wore the costume and makeup of a lady. Then, police officer found that there was a Brokeback Mountain in the deepest part of his mind. A Lan said, “You’ve asked me enough questions. Why don’t you ask yourself?” Again, this part exposed three problems similar to Farewell My Concubine in China: Forced homophobia, forced feminization and confusion between gender identity and sexual orientation. The police officer was actually gay, but he didn’t know it and he was even homophobic. The explanation to this astonishing combination of traits is, as a police officer, he was paralyzed by the laws and rules and lived a life like a robot. Forced feminization has multiple answer, decided by whether the writer knows the difference between gender identities and sexual orientations. But no matter the writer or A Lan, they showed the misconception of Chinese people that we must be a woman to love a man. These problems didn’t change for decades in China, from 50s to 90s. However, these remain unchanged, from 90s to nowadays.
Now, with the popularizing of social media. Individuals started to advocate for the LGBTQ+ rights online. (As I have said, the reason why I’m not talking about the mainstream media because LGBTQ+ is totally banned.). There are voices of homophobias, such as giving one stars on Farewell My Concubine and simply writing “f** movie” in reviews. There are egoism homophobes, who agree LGBTQ+ rights in public, but oppose to friends or family members who are gay, lesbian and more. There are tragedies happening because of forced feminization. A gay boy cut his own penis, trying to love boys as girls, but finally committed suicide due to depression related to gender identity error. The unique situation now in China is the absence of official attitude and education about LGBTQ+ community and these remained terror and misconceptions of people. Thinking of the 1.3 billion population in China, the advocacy seems to be merely useful. Also, in recent years, there are also films about gays made in China. But they