Chapter 11: Melodramatic Conventions in Asian American Films: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Saving Face¹

Saving Face (2005), directed by Alice Wu, follows the convention of family melodrama in Hollywood and represents Asian American realities while resisting stereotypical descriptions of Asians in American society. Through the exploration of melodramatic appeals to the audience in this film, this chapter will consider how melodramatic identifications encourage Japanese undergraduate students to train their cultural literacy. The study analyzes Japanese undergraduate students’ comments while they watched the film and focuses on how they identify with each character, how they relate their own realities with the melodramatic representations, and how they come to understand cultural differences through the film. Through the analysis, different ways of identification to the characters, melodramatic scenes, and individual relationships were clarified. Even though the majority of students tend to think that film represents something unfamiliar and different, some students reflect on their own personal relationships and real–life experiences to the melodramatic representation in the film, and realize how their ideas have been shaped by cultural beliefs and dominant discourses in society.