GENDER AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Scroll down this page to see answers for the Gender and Personal Development section. If there is a particular question you would like the answer for you can jump straight to it using the menu below |
|
| |
 |
1) In the film everybody wants to have a son rather than a daughter. This is called gender discrimination. There is a belief that one gender is superior to or more valuable than the other. Think about the opening part of the film when children are sold by their parents and carers. Girls are given out for nothing while boys can reach a very high price. Selling and buying people is a despicable act in itself. Unfortunately, on many occasions in human history, humans were traded for material gain, in order to require additional workforce or like in the King of Masks out of poverty and desperation. We learn from the film that Doggie’s home was flooded and she might have lost her entire family. Both women and men suffered greatly as a result of human trafficking.
Traditionally, boys when they grew up were expected to continue the family line and to carry on the family craft (mask-making here). Even though women bear children, these children can only carry a father’s name. That’s why in traditional societies boys were more desirable than girls. In traditional societies women were supposed to take care of the house and the family and were not allowed to work outside home. They did not receive any money for their work at home and for this reason were not able to contribute directly to the family’s income. Men, on the other hand, had opportunities to learn various skills and trades which allowed them to work outside home and earn money. That’s why it is so important to the Grandpa to pass his skills of mask-making to a boy. The situation where boys and girls are treated differently and have different opportunities because of their gender is called gender inequality. |
|
|
2) All men seems to have jobs. Grandpa is a street performer, Master Liang is an actor, Grandpa’s friend is a shopkeeper. Other men are soldiers and officers. Women take care of the domestic sphere; Doggie cleans, washes and cooks. Tianci’s mother and grandmother seem to only spend time taking care of Tianci.
Traditional societies where only men have jobs while women are dependent on them for their livelihood are called patriarchal societies (*pater* means father in Greek). Most societies have been patriarchal throughout their history. In patriarchal societies you will see mostly men holding public offices and taking responsibility for the community and making decisions about how it is run and organised. Patriarchal societies are based on gender inequality.
Occasionally, even in patriarchal societies women from families with lower income had to find jobs outside their family home, while women from richer middle-class backgrounds could stay at family home, or their husband’s home and did not have to work outside. The difference of income between these two groups of women is called class difference. Grandpa and Doggie are poor and for this reason Doggie is forced to work. |
|
|
3) Initially, when Grandpa thinks that Doggie is a boy, he showers Doggie with love and attention. He buys him new clothes, feeds him, asks him to call him a Grandpa, tells him family stories, promises to teach him his craft, shows him to all his friends as his heir and is angry that Doggie was mistreated and beaten in the past. He treats Doggie as his family.
When Doggie is found out to be a girl, she is allowed to stay with Grandpa, but she has to earn her own living, she has to call Grandpa “a boss” and is not allowed to learn about the craft of mask-making. Grandpa is ashamed that he was tricked by a little girl and lies to Master Ling about Doggie’s being actually a girl. |
|
|
4) When Doggie goes out to pee at night and squats to pee, the monkey looks very strangely at Doggie. At the tailors’ when Doggie gets new clothes, she runs away to a fitting room when it comes to trying on the trousers. Both times we become suspicious that there is something about Doggie we don’t quite know yet. Creating such feelings of suspicion, uncertainty and ambiguity in cinema is called foreshadowing.
When Grandpa’s foot is wounded and he asks Doggie to pee on it, she refuses and is forced to admit she is not a boy but a girl. |
|
|
5) Grandpa explains that boys have a little spout (penis) while girls don’t. This is called a biological difference between boys and girls (men and women) based on their having different sexual organs. Even though there may be other (non-biological) differences between girls and boys (women and men), it is this biological difference which has determined the ways in which human societies have structured the interaction between men and women, and determined tasks they were expected to perform in their daily lives. Traditionally, women have been expected to dress differently from men, not to work outside the home, have hobbies and engage in activities which were believed to be appropriate for their gender. |
|
|
6) Doggie wears a simple plain dark jacket and trousers. Her hair is short. Master Liang is another person in the film who appears in disguise. Both Doggie and Master Liang are cross-dressing. It means that their clothes and haircuts are associated with the opposite gender (male for Doggie and female for Master Liang). There are different reasons for cross-dressing. Doggie is cross-dressing in order to be able to do things that her own gender normally precludes her from doing. Master Liang is cross-dressing for artistic reasons. In traditional societies women were not allowed to work as actors but they were lots of female roles to be performed. For this reason, traditionally in theatre men were performing both male and female roles. Master Liang is a female impersonator and there is a very long tradition of such impersonators in Chinese opera. |
|
|
7) She wears a different outfit, a more colourful one with a flower pattern on it. Her hair is arranged in two ponytails.
These are signs of femininity. Women are supposed to dress, move, make themselves up and arrange their hair in a particular way in order to show that they are different from men. Traditionally, long hair, make up, jewellery, high heels, skirts and dresses are perceived as feminine. Traditionally, brighter and lighter colours, round and oval shapes have been seen as feminine while darker colours, sharp shapes have been seen as more masculine. |
|
|
8) Doggie is ready to sacrifice her life for Grandpa and cuts the rope in order to prove that she is ready to give her life for him.
When Doggie is gone, Grandpa clearly misses her because he grew to love her. When Tianci tells him that it was Doggie who brought him to the Grandpa, he runs out of the boat and cries for Doggie into the darkness.
Doggie shows Grandpa a statue of the Goddess and asks him why he worships this statue even though it is clearly a female figure and Doggie knows that he does not want to have a granddaughter as a heir.
After the opera performance about a daughter who gives her life for her father, Doggie and Grandpa walk home together talking about the daughter’s act. When Doggie asks whether the Princess was a good daughter, Grandpa answers yes. The message here is that there is something that Doggie can do in order to win Grandpa’s love even though she is not a boy he desires. In traditional Chinese culture, both boys and girls are obliged to filial piety. It is a virtue which everybody has to cultivate centred on a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors. Filial piety is considered the most important virtue in Chinese culture, and it is the main concern of a large number of stories, like the one in the Kings of Masks and also in the story of the Princess which Doggie and Grandpa watch together. |
|
|
BACK TO GENDER AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
BACK TO KING OF MASKS MENU
|
|
|
