On Anna May Wong and Wanting
Lately I have had a craving. A craving for good food, good drink, intriguing conversation. I crave clothing that perfectly accentuates my figure, soothing my body dysmorphia into nonexistence. I crave to live in a vibrant city that always entices me to the next great adventure. I crave a security blanket of a home. I want my friends to know my home is their home too. I want a job that challenges and satisfies me, that values my knowledge and recognizes its rightful monetary worth. I crave the weight of a partner against my body, their warmth anchoring me to comfort. I dream of a life of having my shit together. Everybody wants. It’s a human urge. As I depart from my twenties to arrive into my thirties, I learn wanting can be a solitary journey. To be in a certain body carries a history of contexts and as a woman whose own body carries a context of privileges and disadvantages, I’ve learned to be so blatant with your desires means to compromise with the fear of being isolated. But such is the compromise for wanting, since braving the unknown is a required necessity in life.
The duration of my twenties has been a precarious journey of understanding what’s expected of me and what I want ultimately of myself. I wonder in my pursuit of more will it all be for nothing. Is making space for an out of reach life a delusion? Consider the dreams of Anna May Wong, a star who could never fully be. Wong craved stardom and artistry like so many driven actresses of her era. Unlike her white American counterparts, Wong was denied opportunities to showcase her talents. Stuck between playing rigid dragon ladies or delicate lotus flowers, Wong left the American film industry for Europe to find better roles. With Piccadilly, she finally achieved a role she was so often denied. Piccadilly offers up a long withheld gift. It’s a rarity of a film even in contemporary times, especially for Asian women. The movies of now focus so much on the aesthetic of diversity, that any investigation into the intersection of race and sociopolitics is never tread upon. The movies of now rather self-congratulate for arriving at the seemingly progressive present, without analyzing the struggle for self-representation.
Anna May Wong’s Shoshu feels like a dream, she entices and glows only to quickly dissipate, leaving a faint memorable imprint. This urge to want is a delicate act etched into Wong’s microexpressions. An arch of an eyebrow entices spectators to look closer, then a quick softening of the eyes reveals a deeply vulnerable woman. Piccadilly operates on barriers and layers to reveal tensions that refuse to yield to wanting. To initially believe, Wong’s character is conniving would be a shallow reading. Yes, she commands her boss to buy an expensive dance costume, while manipulating her other lover to do her bidding. These seem like signs of control, but what is perceived does not fully translate the emotional and social dynamics between men and women.
When I was in undergrad, I briefly dabbled in stand up. I thought if I wielded the narrative, then I was in control. I wrote jokes about my anxieties, specifically my anxiety with dating as Asian woman. My audience was my fellow college students; it was a predominantly white campus. I joked about my struggle for romance and how that love backfired. They laughed and I reveled in my ability to make them laugh. My foray in comedy granted me a sense of control during a formative period of my life. In retrospect, I always knew these jokes would work within the context of myself and the college campus. To be the living embodiment of a concept, weaponizing archaic beliefs for your own benefit treads into abstract territory. It can reinforce problematic notions or it can push at the seams of perception. I still wonder if my audience was laughing with me or at me. But now I know I love to perform, that I have the capability.
Stereotype is a resource and weapon Shoshu uses to gain social currency as an exotic dancer. When she is first seen dancing, it’s with reckless abandon as she sensually sways her hips in ripped stockings and stained apron, a self gratified smile spread across her face. Her audience are other scullery maids, her working class comrades, who cheer her on in her defiant self pleasure. The second time is a far more controlled sensuality. Her audience are the wealthy British elite. Her costume is a scantily clad, bedecked suit of pseudo Chinese armor. This is not wholly the carefree woman, but an Oriental fantasy crafted for the enjoyment of white people. Unlike the dance scene in the washroom her movements are deliberate and perfectly timed. Not a single articulation of human expression. She dances knowing that her audience expects an exotic spectacle and she gives it to them. She entangles herself into the marrow of the fetishized Other, blurring the lines between persona and stereotype. The end result is a woman who recognizes her wanting will always have a cost, nonetheless she pursues that radiant decadence so often out of arm’s reach.
When I was younger I struggled to articulate my wants. It felt like swallowing the ocean through a straw, only to choke. So I tried on different personas like costumes in order to communicate. I didn’t feel like a person, just a nebulous blob. I was the funny girl, the smart girl, the lone, worldly woman who faded in and out. I was also a bitch, stubborn, always sullen, leaking with hindering rage. At night I would lie in bed, hoping to will the person I needed to be into existence. Being just one facet of a being did not bring joy, or sometimes it did, but it was not the liberating joy that reminds one all of life’s stumbles and falls can be cathartic. It was incredibly temporary, dizzying to the point of unrecognition. Towards the end of her life, Wong said, “This is such a short life that nothing can matter very much either one way or another. I have learned not to struggle but to flow along with the tide. If I am to be rich and famous, that will be fine. If not, what do riches and fame count in the long run?”
I ask myself after all the chaos, uncertainty, and grieving over the past years, how can we as people address the contours of our unspoken wants? How do we give ourselves permission to explore ourselves? What would our personal narratives be if we saw ourselves as a constant becoming? I admit I never will truly be my best self, because my best self is in a constant state of change. So in recognizing that I give myself permission to explore, accepting comfort and discomfort. For me, it’s the small changes I gift myself. The delightful sweet dry bite of bourbon. Savoring laughter with a stranger at a bar. Challenging myself to run that extra mile, knowing I’ll relish in my accomplishment soon after. I piece these moments together to build a new self, or maybe I’m slowly revealing an inner self that has always exist
Other recommendations on wanting
- Malcolm Liepke’s In His Lap
- Mitski’s This Is A Life from the Everything Everywhere All At Once soundtrack
- Gregory Orr’s To Be Alive poem
- And most importantly go watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, a guaranteed emotional reckoning
