Men in the Mirror: Questioning Masculine Identities in In the Heat of the Sun

Abstract

In the Heat of the Sun (Yangguang canlan de rizi 1994 d. Jiang Wen) is a film in which apparent concrete certainties are shattered, from official histories of the Cultural Revolution, to youthful nostalgia and the narrative of the film itself. This article contends that a major part of this demolition process is the questioning of masculine identities. Jiang's main protagonist, Xiaojun, is growing up in the deserted Beijing streets of the mid-1970s. While the film at large has been seen as a criticism of the Maoist styles and rhetoric of the past, this article seeks to reassess this reading, focusing instead on the gendered identities that work to make up such histories. It will hypothesize that Jiang deconstructs versions of masculinities through Xiaojun's performances in front of the mirror. This “performativity” highlights the artificiality inherent in gendered identities, and literalizes the processes that form them. Xiaojun also questions masculinities through his subversion of space, the gaze, and memory. Masculinities form an innate part of the representation system that In the Heat of the Sun places into doubt, a series of reflections that Xiaojun, both in the past and in the reform-era present, finds it impossible to live up to.