Who Is The Doll? ȞȞ ȞȞ
security, strength, and responsibility, remain in the collective consciousness, whilst these male ideals are hard—not to say impossible—to live up to as a result of society's structural and cultural changes. When the man no longer sees himself in control, carrying the burden of being head of the family and society and all that is associated with this position, including the responsibility of ¿QDQFLDODQGVRFLDOVHFXULW\KHH[SHULHQFHVDFULVLV7RGD\LQWKH USA, there is not so much talk of the attitude towards women and “woman's power” as there is on the role of the man being subject to change, or indeed disbandment and crisis. Yet, Susan Faludi remains hopeful when she , in the last chapter of Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man , concludes: “If there is anything I have learnt of the two sexes it's that the solvent of struggle, for both parts, depends on the other's success. Men and women are at historically a suitable time period in which they may hold the keys to mutual liberation in their hands.” It's impossible to view Gao Xiang's images as a private matter. What he has done, maybe involuntarily and unconsciously, is to create a basis and an additive to the global changes that are taking place between female and male as they both discover and re- evaluate their identities in today's world. Who is the doll? In spite of Ibsen's Norwegian doll house, the expression “doll wife” is associated, at least in the west, primarily with an Asian woman ideal. The petite, brittle, quiet, beautiful porcelain doll who is to remain by her man, as an adornment, a decoration, and at the same time, a source of status, respect,
Sometimes when returning home after a long journey you see the familiar with new eyes.
A couple of years ago I was standing in Gao Xiang's studio, and my eyes came to rest on the first of his poetic yet also contemporary and socially-engaging artworks, which today have become a collection of poems entitled “ Who is the Doll? ” My thoughts immediately wandered towards Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen's controversial and stirring drama A Doll's House. At the time when “ A Doll's House ” swept theaters throughout Europe in the late 19th century, the play provoked and created much debate, and so became an important tool in the struggle for increased equality of the sexes. Since then much has changed. Or actually, has it? The dramatic story of the “doll wife” Nora and her husband engage audiences even today. New productions are created and men and women from different social and working backgrounds can identify with the various structures, roles, and patterns within society that the play depicts. When Susan Faludi's book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction in 1992, it was on the bestseller list for six months and sold a significant number of editions in some ten countries worldwide. Why? Because it is intelligently written of course, but it is also due to the topic that Faludi addresses (man/woman), which is still perceived as relevant. When the same author ten years later writes a book focusing on the dilemma of the modern man, she establishes that the classical American male ideals,
204
205
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker