30 Revenge Body

Across Chinese literary and historical periods, foxes have served a complex and multifaceted role in zhiguai 志怪 accounts. Perceived as quasi-human, shape-shifting mystics, their liminal features and celestial connections are, to many readers, evocative of love and reminiscent of the Gods. One version of this tradition tells of the huli jing 狐狸精—a term that is almost derogatory in modern vernacular—speaking of a loose, seductive shape-shifting fox spirit. Here, the fox is representative of a sexualised stereotype of women: one considered the equivalent of an animal to be hunted. Ken Liu’s ‘Good Hunting’ attempts to subvert this judgement in a purportedly feminist and anticolonial reimagination of the trope, as it tracks the coming of age of Yan, a huli jing who loses her magic amid the chaos and subjugation of British imperialism in China. This essay serves to critique representations of the huli jing’s female embodiment and the nature of her relationship with men in both, the textual and film versions of ‘Good Hunting’ as voyeuristic and reductive, with reference to the use of rape as a dramatic device, and the climactic repair scene. Within this analysis, I will propose alternative modes for the reclamation of the cinematic medium and feminine eros through examinations of what actually qualifies as progressive, intersectional representation.

Let us begin by dissecting the climactic sequence during which Liang repairs Yan’s body: a harrowing metaphor for the drastic changes in Chinese society and its relationship with technology and modernity as a result of British imperialism. Indeed, it makes a high-stakes commentary on the soul-sucking impacts of colonial industrialisation on culture and collectivist attitudes. However, while the anti-imperialist subtext followed a commendable intention, it was not executed well. The sexual connotations in the sequence are pervasive, and make it hard to legitimise or focus on any feminist or anti-colonial messaging that ideally should be centred. For instance, we see scenes of Yan draped over Liang’s worktable—grimacing and gasping as he tinkers over her—full of sexual subtext. The positions they are put in are suggestive, such as when she has her legs open as Liang repairs her backside or the part where he places a breastplate on her. In this arc, Yan embodies a certain antiquated passivity as she lies down, watching him work without a shirt on. In light of such depictions, I read Yan’s radical bodily transformation primarily as the destruction of her selfhood. A literal objectification, where a living being is made more akin to a machine: “not fur and flesh, but metal and fire.”^[1]

This is not the first instance of the objectification and destruction of the selfhood of a huli jing in ‘Good Hunting.’ The rising action of the story features a deeply dehumanising, pornographic act of violence by Liang against Yan’s mother. By dousing her in dog urine, he inhibited her transformation, and thus her ability to speak, control and will her body: all of the things that allow one to practise and express bodily autonomy and personal agency. The unique agony of this moment is communicated through this quote:

“Only a small amount of dog piss got onto her. But it was enough. She howled, and the sound, like a dog’s but so much wilder, caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. She turned and snarled, showing two rows of sharp, white teeth, and I stumbled back. I had doused her while she was in the midst of her transformation. Her face was thus frozen halfway between a woman’s and a fox’s, with a hairless snout and raised, triangular ears that twitched angrily. Her hands had turned into paws, tipped with sharp claws that she swiped at me. She could no longer speak, but her eyes conveyed her venomous thoughts without trouble.”^[2]

Not only was this hunting tactic pornographic, but its result was too: in the animation, while Yan’s mother retained the limbs, tail and head of a fox, her torso, breasts, hips and crotch were that of a woman. This resulted in a depiction that was just woman enough to sexualise, and just animal enough to dehumanise. Not to mention, the fragmented male gaze through which the camera panned across her body parts reduced her to her form. Considering how the cinematic medium has historically objectified and commodified women’s bodies, creators need to work harder to visually represent their agency and personhood without resorting to cheap, voyeuristic aesthetics in their animation.

At this point, let us dissect the relationship at the heart of the story: the friendship between Yan and Liang. There is additional voyeurism and dehumanisation that takes place when stories that should be about a woman—about her life, growth, feelings, empowerment and pain—are told through the lens of a man and his evolving ideology. This further corrupts the woman’s trauma and suffering by using it as a tool to demonstrate a man’s growth, empathy and intelligence. We never hear about Yan’s feelings or probable dysmorphia as a result of her new metal body. We never hear about how it felt for her to lose her mother. There is an occasional, almost blind focus on narrative progression over the huli jing’s internal monologue in contentious situations. As the narrative suppresses the dark extent of Yan’s neuroses, it becomes harder for audiences to retain cognisance of this context. Many may not see ‘Good Hunting’ as her story because they are too busy being wrapped up in Liang’s frustration, initiative, and technical prowess. He is the knight in shining armour coming to save the damsel in distress that Yan’s character had effectively been turned into once the story disproved the mythical stereotype of huli jings being seductresses. Why don’t we have nuanced and complex Asian women characters that aren’t reduced to being either victims or temptresses?

This brings me to how when men tell stories about the brutalisation of women, it is often so that they can insert heroic male characters in to come and save them, which ultimately perpetuates the narrative of women being defined exclusively by either their victimhood, or by the men who rescued them from their victimhood. Sure, the use of rape as a dramatic device in this case symbolises Western colonial brutality against indigenous cultures, but the history of the tradition is larger than that and it doesn’t change the fact that objectification, the male gaze and graphic sexual violence define Yan’s character development. Is there a single instance in Yan’s story that demonstrates agency? That I can show to a young girl in the hopes that it’ll inspire her to actualise her potential? A truly intersectional narrative of colonialism, industrialisation and gendered violence would acknowledge that the Chinese woman—especially when she is a sex worker or a supernatural woman from a zhiguai narrative—navigates all three while facing a unique set of challenges that result from the combination and compounding of all the marginalised identities she holds. She is ostracised and othered not solely because of her status as an indigenous colonial conquest (unlike Liang, who only faces this challenge), but also because of her gender, additionally because of her social class and occupation, and then further because of the demonisation of her species by hunters. For this reason, it is crucial to acknowledge these issues as an interconnected web of systemic oppression, instead of twisting violence against women into a dramatic tool representing Western imperialism.

The end of the story seems to imply that as a result of Liang’s interference, Yan has been empowered with strength, agility and confidence in her new body. My read wasn’t so optimistic. I believe that real empowerment cannot be contingent on first being traumatised and subjugated. I believe that real empowerment happens as a result of embodiment and radical authenticity. For women, this often starts with nurturing and reclaiming their bodies despite the societal forces that are against them. Oppositional empowerment is not aspirational, and should not be necessary or glamourised. None of the decisions Yan makes in ‘Good Hunting’ can be, in good faith, used to justify her agency, for at no point in the story did Yan have real choice or freedom. Each decision she makes is one of desperation, a response to trauma or a sacrifice under duress: be it the sacrifice of her home, her body, or her demonstrably non-violent character. It is unreasonable, negligent and naive of us as audiences to assume a transformation in the state of Yan’s agency or her narrative as a victim of unimaginable violence, just because she managed to exact some revenge out of a horrific situation that should never have happened. It is not feminist when a woman, in a moment of profound grief, murders her rapist and mutilator. It is feminist to dissect and address the nuances behind violence against women, and to not undermine the severity of the problem by glamorising it with a steampunk aesthetic.

Moving on to the main villain in the story, Yan tells of a sadistic Governor who drugged, amputated and raped her. ““When I woke up, my legs were gone and replaced by these. The pain was excruciating. He explained to me that he had a secret: he liked machines more than flesh, couldn’t get hard with a regular woman.” I had heard of such men. In a city filled with chrome and brass and clanging and hissing, desires became confused. I focused on the way light moved along the gleaming curves of her calves so that I didn’t have to look into her face. “I had a choice: let him keep on changing me to suit him, or he could remove the legs and throw me out on the street. Who would believe a legless Chinese whore? I wanted to survive. So I swallowed the pain and let him continue.””^[3] Here, the portrayal of a man who can only be aroused by machines presents a scathing commentary on the dehumanising nature and effects of lust in a dystopian world. In a society where patriarchal violence flourishes, attraction becomes pathological as opposed to the pursuit of a partnership. This is reflective of the misogynistic, narrow view men may adopt toward the capacity and the humanity of the people they want to sleep with. It is why supernatural women like huli jings are reduced to the desires and fears of the men who pen their stories, as opposed to being fully actualised as characters. For this reason, any analysis of minority representation in literature or media would be incomplete without considering authorial intent, context and positionality.

“Male dissociation from life is not new or particularly modern, but the scale and intensity of this disaffection are new. And in the midst of this Brave New World, how comforting and familiar it is [for them] to exercise passionate cruelty on women … for men, their right to control and abuse the bodies of women is the one comforting constant in a world rigged to blow up but they do not know when.”^[4] Scott MacDonald’s ‘Confessions of a Feminist Porn-Watcher’ corroborates this, as he details the shadow world of men’s oedipal and preoedipal fears that drive them toward porn depicting women who are submissive to them. Now, in this context, saying female sexuality can be reclaimed or meaningfully, progressively represented in a saga that features gratuitous themes and imagery is precisely like saying one can use the master’s tools to break down his house: naive and unrealistic. What you’re more likely to get is a tale like ‘Good Hunting,’ with its leering gaze, ample nudity and arguable reduction of rape to a plot device for male character development. In such a context, a woman’s body serves simultaneously as the only thing she is valued for and the main thing threatening her safety. This makes it impossible for her to have a sense of self-esteem and respect. While in part, the depiction of attractiveness as a curse critiques societal pressures and beauty standards, it also tacitly essentialises female sensuality as a woman’s only operative mode. The story had plenty of opportunities to highlight Yan’s intelligence, resourcefulness and adaptability, but it never followed those paths. Instead, Yan’s spirit, morale, body, future, values and potential as a character were further diminished when circumstances forced her into sex work.

At this stage, let us further dissect the societal and psychological compulsions that drive women into commodifying their bodies. ‘The Second Sex’ talks about how, in arguably desperate attempts to gain power via the tools that are at her suppressed disposal, a woman may make herself a passive sexual being, trying “to reduce the male to carnal passivity as well; she works at entrapping him, at imprisoning him, by the desire she arouses, docilely making herself a thing.”^[5] This backfires, for essentially, men want her to be an object, so—on a subconscious, submissive and prostrating level—she makes herself an object. By seeking financial support and masculine approval and support through her sexuality—which is both a weakness and a strength—“she is spontaneously seeking her salvation in the path imposed on her, that of passivity, at the same time as she is actively demanding her sovereignty.”^[6] This complicates mainstream understandings of huli jing sexuality, and offers us an interesting insight into the psychology of a woman’s allure within a colonial, capitalistic framework that strives to keep the majority poor, disenfranchised and unable to secure basic needs.

On multiple occasions in the text, Yan is mourning the life that she could’ve had. As her magic and ability to transform fade from the world, she feels dissociated from her body and paralysed in a particular state. These are classically and understandably depressive and traumatised symptoms. Here, the narrative desensitises us to the brutalities of Yan’s life. We never see her joy, we rarely see desexualised embodiments of her strength. We are compelled to undermine the sheer intensity of the things happening to her due to the short’s representation of violence against women as routine. Said normalisation adds an additional element of alienation and disconcertion for us as witnesses to grapple with. In a world where women of colour are so often bearing the brunt of the lowest echelons of the workforce, generational trauma and their family’s emotional baggage, it’s all too easy for art and mainstream media to exploit these structures and regurgitate harmful tropes. When creators pander to what is lucrative and normative, they perpetuate the commodification of female sexuality in ways that reverberate in the real world through interpersonal relationships and the norms and scaffoldings of society.

In this world, the struggle to achieve intersectional representation starts with understanding the distinctions between the erotic and the pornographic, in an effort to condemn the latter’s representation of and engagement with sexuality as superficial, patriarchal and disempowering, alongside framing the former as a way to rehabilitate and reclaim female sexuality as a source of agency. By twisting the sensual into something phallic and exploitative, devoid of true desire and emotion, the pornographic gaze and attitude deny the huli jing’s humanity by denying the very source of her power. This reduces the huli jing into a vessel for the man’s pleasure, as opposed to a living being with a unique allure and charisma. Eros is not an inherently bad or oppressive thing, but the brutality of a patriarchal society, and the pain, abuse and porn it produces encourage a profound dissociation as an inherent and nonnegotiable part of female sexuality. In the face of such trauma, the erotic becomes a way of reclaiming sensation. The erotic is a political claim, a philosophical question, an emotional experience, an intellectual exercise and a spiritual awakening. The erotic is not hedonism, a right to pleasure or a teleological means to an end. The erotic is a virtue, containing an epistemic capacity that tempers the individualistic sense of self. It is a source of knowledge and power that resists atomism, opening up an otherwise unavailable realm of human understanding. This calls for a willingness to testify to nonnormative truths about the self, a commitment to challenge the policing of self-perceptions and “the employment of counterhegemonic epistemological frameworks to dismantle oppression. By resurrecting the power of the erotic, [we] affirm our simultaneity as selves who exist in individual potentiality and selves whose connectivity is based on the freedoms of our sensuality.”^[7]

Ultimately, it can feel toxically optimistic to parse for reclamations of agency in the life of a brutalised, mutilated, orphaned and abducted woman. In these moments, however, it’s crucial to note the quintessential tenacity and resilience of women of colour in times of personal and political turmoil, and the tacit ways in which they form intimate, impervious connections and support systems. In the case of Yan and Liang, they bond, almost ironically, by their displacement and isolation in an unjust world. In this, not only do these characters keep themselves sane and functional, but readers as well find productive and conducive ways to engage with stories of horrific violence: ones that extend beyond merely the loops of rage and disappointment that are easy to fall into when grappling with such themes.

Bibliography

Thomas, Oliver, director. Love, Death, + Robots. Season 1, episode 8, “Good Hunting.” Written by Philip Gelatt. Aired March 15th, 2019, https://www.netflix.com/watch/81424941?trackId=255824129.

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Vintage Books, 2011.

Dworkin, Andrea. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. The Women’s Press, 1999.

Lorde, Audre. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Kore Press, 2000.

Young, Nikki. “‘Uses of the Erotic’ for Teaching Queer Studies.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3, (2012): 301–305., https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2013.0023.

Hansen, Lydia. “Where’s the Strong Woman in Netflix’s Adaptation of ‘Good Hunting’?, PopMatters.” PopMatters, 6 May 2020, www.popmatters.com/wheres-the-strong-woman-in-netflixs-good-hunting-2645933544.html.

Liu, Ken. “Good Hunting.” Escape Pod, 2 May, 2013. www.escapepod.org/2013/05/02/ep394-good-hunting/.

Huntington, Rania. Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative, 1st ed., vol. 222, Harvard University Asia Center, 2003, pp. 363–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1tfjcmj.15.