Ng, H. 2024. Queer Singapore Chinese Theatre: Staging Homosexuality, AIDS and Familial Acceptance. in: Queer Literature in the Sinosphere London Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 221-243
| Chapter title | Queer Singapore Chinese Theatre: Staging Homosexuality, AIDS and Familial Acceptance |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ng, H. |
| Abstract | This chapter analyses how homosexuality, AIDS and familial acceptance are represented in the queer Singapore Chinese plays Another Tribe (异族1992), Borrowed Time (春光暂借1999) and The Next Generations (后代1992). These plays are historically and culturally important as they portray gays and AIDS victims sympathetically and challenge stereotypes and homophobia extant in popular culture and state-sponsored cultural conservatism, which were rife in the 1990s and remain so across the globe. Ironically, and against a social backdrop fraught with cultural contradictions, the plays also benefitted from the state’s support for the arts and a more relaxed cultural environment which afforded access to global queer culture. In 2023, the 15th iteration of the Singapore pride event Pink Dot in 2023 carrying the theme ‘Celebrating All Families,’ was the first held since the repeal of the anti-homosexuality law in the previous year. In light of these events, my analysis will further highlight the significance of the plays, and in particular, how The Next Generations trailblazed a progressive family model of queer kinship ahead of its time, even when compared with Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Hao Wu’s documentary All in My Family (2019). Positioned at the intersections of queer studies, cultural studies, theatre studies and medical humanities, this chapter also sheds light on the close links between local queer cultural production and transnational flows of global queer culture, and the crucial role of Chinese theatre in decolonising and queering Singapore’s bilingual education policy. It also emphasises the continued importance of local theatre as an important medium for representing queerness, questioning heteronormativity, documenting, and critiquing state repression of homosexuality within the wider Sinophone world. |
| Keywords | queer studies |
| theatre studies | |
| medical humanities | |
| LGBTQ+ | |
| AIDS | |
| homosexuality | |
| Penal Code 377A | |
| end-of-life | |
| Pink Dot | |
| decolonisation | |
| Book title | Queer Literature in the Sinosphere |
| Page range | 221-243 |
| Year | 2024 |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication dates | |
| Published online | 17 Oct 2024 |
| Published in print | 14 Nov 2024 |
| Place of publication | London |
| ISBN | 9781350415331 |
| 9781350415348 | |
| 9781350415355 | |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/queer-literature-in-the-sinosphere-9781350415331/ |