Talk:The Joy Luck Club (film)

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Something wrong in "Reception" section
The second paragraph places Frank Chin's opinion about the FILM in opposition to the director's opinion about the BOOK. The paragraph needs to be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Sources to use later

 * http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film--the-tears-of-living-dangerously-wayne-wang-called-oliver-stones-films-evil-stone-called-wangs-boring-the-novelist-amy-tan-brought-them-together-by-sheila-johnston-1428383.html
 * http://articles.latimes.com/1993-06-27/entertainment/ca-7507_1_joy-luck
 * http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/76426800.html
 * http://articles.latimes.com/1993-09-05/entertainment/ca-31977_1_joy-luck

— Preceding unsigned comment added by George Ho (talk • contribs) 07:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

One-eyed plot summary
This compels Ted to take her seriously and not continue taking her for granted.

As I read the film, the character of Ted is an explicit contrast with Harold. Ted is so busy not taking Rose for granted that he can't help but suffer when she becomes locked in a subservient loop of taking her own role in the marriage for granted, entering full-into the subordinate groove of playing a full-time placating helpmeet ("whatever you want or need, dear") while entirely vacating her post as forthright, opinionated, loyal opposition (which she had in some measure expressed during their initial courtship, and which was the main reason Ted took up with her in the first place).

As treated in the film, it's not even 100% clear that Ted ever did cheat.

Rose: What's her name?

[no response]

Rose: Is she beautiful?

[no initial response]

Ted: Look, I think that we have to sell the house ... but anything that you want, any special things that you need, you let me know. Need any cash, you call Barry and he—

Rose: What's her fucking name?

Ted: What's the difference? She's not the reason.

Apart from matching the lurid tone of infanticide, rape, and implacable emotional abuse from the rest of the film, what's the function of this short vignette? It's for Ted to say "She's not the reason." This is pointed, without being gratuitously accusatory. And he manages this even tone right in the middle of the yard-sale negotiation of a marriage with the keel of the Titanic in its terrifying ascent phase, propellers and rudder exposed for all to witness in fear and dread.

Another interpretative scenario is that he started to work late at the office dreading the tone of his home life, Rose started to suspect an affair, and he decided to play along as a way to finally resolve the situation, effectively allowing Rose to save face. (If the breakup isn't blamed on fictional woman, then what is it blamed on? Rose's unwillingness to function on equal terms.) Ted doesn't particularly want to blame Rose for anything, because within her own terms, she's been a dedicated and dutiful partner. (Given his very high work status, the last thing he wants at home is a subordinate shade of "dutiful", because he gets that at the office all day long. In his own emotional world, his private life with Rose was supposed to be his escape from that part of his own family which he loathed, while still continuing to be up to his monied eyeballs in his shared family business ventures.)

When Rose finally challenges him with a threat to take him to divorce court for all she can get (quite a bit, in all likelihood, as a child custody battle will not go well for a workaholic father, no matter how affluent):

Ted: [immediately kneeling down in a devoted and subordinate posture] I'm listening. It's not your fault, none of it.

If he hadn't been "seeing" Rose on her own terms all along, far more likely is that he would have immediately seen the worst in her, and scurried directly to legal and emotional code red. Note that it's a constant device in this film to dupe the audience into assuming the worst about a character (almost always a female character) by partial revelation that initially looks really bad, before later revealing morally exculpatory back story with the tearjerker dialed up to deep fat fry.

Ted's mother represents evil white privilege. If Ted is the only character in the entire film to manage to "see" before assuming the worst and going entirely off the handle, it's only on top of white privilege ten-miles high: he's the scion-elect of the 0.01% with charisma, looks, and brains. He's not in any way motivated to save his relationship with Rose because he fears that he can't secure his next trophy wife—not more readily than shaking the legions of scheming beauties off his scent by any other method, there's the rub. (Not exactly the first-world problem of all first-world problems: back in revolutionary China, a similarly privileged man would simply marry fourfold, echoing an ancient form of patriarchal Asian privilege barely attainable even in the Utah–Arizona outback these days.)

That's all essential to the turbocharged cake batter that powered The Joy Luck Club to great heights: the governing symbol of the white swan feather being both literary and talismanic at the same time, so as not to deter either audience from seeing what it wants to see. Nabokov's Lolita represents the complete opposite pole: explicitly architected to set an inattentive reader's hair on fire from one hundred paces. Gollum: "IT BURNS! IT BURNS US! It freezes! Nasty Elves twisted it. TAKE IT OFF US!" Lolita is elvish rope twisted by a slightly misanthropic elf of the most exclusive elvish blood line, one who viewed 99% of the reading public as the Golemic scurge.

This compels Ted to take her seriously and not continue taking her for granted.

Yes, exactly that reader. &mdash; MaxEnt 20:39, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Plot length
I appreciate your concerns about the plot's length, but I thought the film's stories are too complex to explain briefly. Is there something overly detailed or unnecessary about the plot? Thanks. George Ho (talk) 10:16, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I'd have to dig into it as though I were going to do one of my large plot trims to be certain, but I suspect looking for bulky phrasing/passive voice, redundant details, and interpretive/editorialized language will bring it down to something more reasonable. Usually it's just a matter of tightening up the writing.
 * I would expect this one to be bigger than our guidelines suggest, likely in the 1000-1200 word range, much like our summary for Sin City (film) . It makes perfect sense for it to run long: just maybe not this long.  At a glance I would guess the last two sections (each about 600 words) will be where polishing will help the most.
 * But I won't know for sure until I rewatch. As you said, the stories are fairly complex, so this is not a plot I would attempt to rework until I've refreshed my memory.  It's also likely one I'll do in a sandbox instead of directly in the article.  I'll drop a note here if/when I start in earnest so that you and other folks can weigh on what I'm thinking at that point.  I can see how much work you've put into it and I'm not here to trample all over that. Millahnna (talk) 12:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Shang-Chi
The reference to Shang-Chi in the Legacy section needs to have a source that connects it to the subject of the article. Otherwise it fails WP:SYNTH. JohnR1Roberts (talk) 12:40, 3 May 2024 (UTC)