Saving Face: LGBTQ Chinese American cinema and family reputation with Katie Quan and Vivian Liu - a podcast by Sean Niu

In Episode #26, we revisit Alice Wu's Saving Face:quietly one of the most important movies of the last 20 years for Asian American cinema. Our guest is Katie Quan,who teaches Asian American Issues through Film in San Francisco (basically, she's way more qualified than I am to host this podcast!) and runs This Asian American Life, a platform for highlighting and empowering Asian creators from all walks of life. Katie is joined by Vivian Liu, a former student whose passion and personal connection to the movie motivated her to lead and organize discussion in class.

After sharing our reactions (16:50) Katie helps us understand what this movie brings to the table as the cornerstore of her Womxn Up module before I give a quick primer for our non-Chinese audiences of what "Face" means in Chinese society, and why it is crucial to the social fabric. (18:44) Next, we get personal and share our experiences of losing face in Chinese-American society (22:29) before Vivian gives her perspective of where Chinese American society still encoutners pitfalls for understanding queerness in 2020. (29:28) At (35:40), Katie shares how Saving Face succeeded in unearthing taboos around family relationships and race-- we then spend some time understanding Alice Wu's complicated journey and how her new movie Half of It is a spiritual successor to Saving Face. (43:59) Finally, we end with a few questions: Where do we see Vivian and Will's relationship going? (49:35) What would be on Will's Mom's 2020 dating profile? (53:33) and finally, Why has Saving Face not gotten the spotlight it deserves? (56:33)

NOTES
Vivian's link on the double standard in rom-com behavior: Rape Culture and White Supremacy in Alice Wu's New Film

Subscribe to our newsletter: Electric Dreams
E-mail us at electricimageexpress@gmail.com
DM us on IG/Twitter @electricimageexpress/@the_electric_image_express
**

Further episodes of The Electric Image Express

Further podcasts by Sean Niu

Website of Sean Niu