Queer eye for Chinese women: Locating queer spaces in Shitou’s film Women Fifty Minutes

Abstract

This article offers a critical analysis of Chinese lesbian artist, filmmaker and activist Shitou’s 2006 film Women Fifty Minutes ( nüren wushi fenzhong ). Focusing on the representation of queer women in the film, I discern the existence and conditions of queer subjectivities and spaces in a postsocialist Chinese context. This article aims to disentangle different discourses of women and feminism in contemporary China as represented in the film and, in so doing, unravel the importance of sexuality in understanding feminism and women’s experiences. By looking at Chinese women through queer eyes, Shitou’s film brings queer public space into existence through representational and activist strategies; it also introduces sexuality and queerness into feminist debates.