A radical evaluation of a movie that’s way more layered than it appears
by Earl Jackson
For years lesbian feminist movie scholarship entailed archeological detective work, most notably excavating the subtexts of Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock 1940) and The Haunting (Robert Clever 1963). In a peculiar reversal, I am going to attempt a comparable dive into a movie to salvage its male homosexuality. Whereas Rebecca and The Haunting might have repressed latent needs beneath a gothic temper piece, Marry My Useless Physique ( harbors a sexual ambivalence inside a blatant popping out wake. In doing this, I’m really not faulting the movie however moderately the constraints on sexual legibility beneath even essentially the most seemingly benign, apparently inclusive heteronormative social order. Furthermore, whereas exposing what the movie can’t do, I wish to underscore what it does superbly: it dramatizes as a default facet of modern life, a sort of habituated melancholia interrupted by an intimacy that at the beginning looks as if an assault.
The essential plot is definitely extra of a hook as its preliminary titillation rapidly provides approach to a police procedural and the emotional struggles of a grieving household. Circumstances drive straight, homophobic vice squad police officer Ming-Han Wu (Hsu Kuang-Han) right into a Taoist ghost marriage with Mao Pang-yu (Lin Bo-hong), a younger homosexual man killed in a hit- and-run. Though the Chinese language title of the movie can be impossibly awkward in English, it’s way more correct: 關於我和鬼變成家人的那件事 “On the Incident during which ghost and I develop into household” Marry My Useless Physique is deceptive, to start with as a result of earlier than the ceremony the ghost refused the proposal however his refusal was misinterpret as acceptance due to a mishap with the divination blocks -so the title suggests a request he by no means made. Secondly in fact, the wedding was to the ghost, not the physique, and in bigger phrases the title errs as a result of within the movie our bodies are on show however by no means really on supply. And that bait-and-switch happens within the opening sequence and continues by a lot of the movie.
The movie opens at evening in a Taoist temple. An outdated lady (Man-Chiao Wang) brings a tray of instruments to the aspect of a coffin and takes a lock of hair from the corpse and meticulously trims its fingernails (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. The grandmother (Man-Chiao Wang) takes what she wants from Pang-Yu Mao’s corpse.
That is the one glimpse of the physique of Mao Pang-yu, supine and ready-to-hand however totally unavailable. That non secular care of the stays is then adopted by a garish, apparently all-male fitness center full of hunky metrosexuals engaged on their very own our bodies. Amongst these self-fashioning our bodies comes a younger man (Lin Da-her) who sits on a bench Officer Wu doing arm presses (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 Officer Wu has caught the eye of the suspect
Wu exchanges seductive appears to be like with the person and heads to the lockers, intently adopted by the younger man who disrobes and beckons Wu to the bathe (Figs 3-4). Wu appears to be able to enter when he pulls out his badge and incongruously calls for the bare man to provide his ID.
Fig. 3. Officer Wu deploys a seductive look to hook the suspect.
Fig. 4 Officer Wu drops the seductive act and flashes his badge.
The scene is structured as police entrapment of a homosexual man, nonetheless, Wu and his assistant officer are there on a tip that the person was about to do a drug deal. They search his locker and discover a saggy of cocaine. When the person protests, Wu flips him to the bottom and says, “You folks make me sick” He claims he meant wealthy folks, however your complete scene screams homophobia. It is usually unclear why Wu determined to flirt with the suspect moderately than merely demand to see his locker, since this was a drug bust and never a intercourse offender case. That is the primary occasion within the sample of providing one’s physique solely to instantly not solely withdraw the supply however to disclaim it.
Wu is severely criticized for his conduct by his fellow law enforcement officials who name him on his homophobia. Their response recollects an precise case during which the police had been discovered responsible of way more critical oppressive ways. In January, 2004, police raided a homosexual male intercourse occasion and televised 93 males of their underwear sitting on the ground. They had been arrested, examined for AIDS and the outcomes had been additionally publicized. Though the presence of condoms indicated safer intercourse practices, the police tried to cost among the males for endangering the lives of others. Even on the time these police actions had been roundly condemned, and it stays a black mark on the file of progressive attitudes towards civil rights for sexual minorities. Characterizing Wu’s actions as homophobic and even obliquely associating them with the 2004 case, units Wu up for the karmic payoff of the ghost marriage.
After a reckless chase, Wu was amassing proof a suspect threw out the automotive window, when he picked up a pink envelope. Instantly a number of aunties, together with Pang-yu’s grandmother leap from hiding locations and announce to Wu that choosing up the envelope requires him to undergo a ghost marriage (Fig 5).
Fig. 5. The Aunties spring a Ghost Marriage lure.
Already irritated on the concept, he turns into incensed when he sees the {photograph} and realizes the meant companion was male. He flashes his badge on the aunties and discards the envelope. They warn him of the implications of his refusal which he ignores, even when the envelope clings to his crotch (Fig 6), the primary of a number of occasions the movie will give attention to his decrease physique.
Fig. 6. The ghost envelope clings to Wu’s crotch.
The lady within the middle of Fig.5 (Ling Huang) seems to have larger authority as her jacket suggests she is Taoist clergy of some type. Her different authority comes from an allusion one other movie she appeared in, the found-footage horror movie, Incantation (Kevin Ko 2022). The movie includes a lady struggling the implications of breaking a spiritual taboo six years beforehand on the grounds of a Buddhist-Taoist-Hindu syncretic thriller cult. Ling Huang performs Sister Hsiu, a spiritual social employee serving to the girl after she regained custody of her daughter (Fig. 7)
Fig. 7. Ling Huang as social employee in Incantation.
When Sister Hsiu makes an attempt to move on a talisman with the daughter’s title in it to guard her, the malevolent deity of the cult exacts a horrible punishment (Fig. 8), reinforcing the grim destiny that may be in retailer for a reluctant ghost wedding ceremony groom.
Fig. 8. Sister Hsiu punished for defiance.
Wu certainly suffers the implications of his refusal. He dodges a fridge that fell from a window solely to be hit by a truck (Fig 9). The solid on his arm (which stays on throughout his first encounter along with his ghost husband) suggests the relation of the movie itself to the surplus meanings it conjures with out proudly owning: a hand frequently pointing at one thing with out the individual’s management or consciousness of it.
Fig. 9. Wu beneath the curse.
Returning to work with a number of accidents, he’s demoted and transferred to a minor police station. However the decisive second got here when a gun declared empty fired a bullet that ricocheted and got here inside millimeters of castrating him. The close-up of the close to miss is one other give attention to Wu’s “bathing go well with space” (Fig. 10-11).
Fig. 10. Wu’s close to castration and the digicam’s lurid stare upon his bottom.
Fig. 11. Gazing at his almost-demolished crotch, Wu decides to marry.
The marriage ceremony is elaborate and the aunties rejoice, even ignoring the useless try of Pang-yu’s father (Tsong-Hua Tuo) to cease it. From this level I’ll use the names Wu and Pang-yu name one another, Ming-Han and Mao-Mao, respectively, in line with the involuntary intimacy that the marriage instigates. The procession guides each grooms again to Ming-Han’s residence and lays out Mao-Mao’s favourite garments on the mattress.
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