by Tori Potenza, Staff Writer

I think that's part of the transformation theme. People want to be forced to come out. I don't only mean sexually, because that's only one kind of covert life you can live. They're secret life suggested this possibility of transformation; allowing yourself to become something else and let go of what you are, your past, your culture, your emotional life, everything. It's a scary thing and an incredibly seductive thing too.  
–David Cronenberg, Cronenberg on Cronenberg 

M. Butterfly came out in 1993. David Henry Hwang wrote the play which debuted on Broadway in 1988 and adapted it to the screen with Cronenberg. With movies like Naked Lunch and Dead Ringers coming out a few years before, Cronenberg was interested in adapted materials that very specifically dive into the world of queer relationships and gender identity. Unfortunately, because The Crying Game came out the year before, the two movies will always be linked, which made it hard for audiences to judge them on their own merits. Even 30 years later, M. Butterfly is often left out in discussions of Cronenberg’s filmography. Which is especially odd given how relevant its themes on gender identity and fluidity are now. It is a story that cannot be seen just as a movie about repressed sexuality: it is ultimately about how holding on to our outdated societal views of the gender binary causes harm. 

After starring in Dead Ringers, Jeremy Irons becomes the first returning male lead to Cronenberg’s filmography. He takes on the role of René Gallimard, a French diplomat who meets and falls in love with a beautiful opera singer named Song (John Lone). Their love is made complicated by the fact that Song is actually a man in disguise using Gallimard for information that they can bring back to the Chinese government. As Cronenberg notes, much of the discourse around the movie came from straight men who could not understand how Gallimard could be deceived by Song, believing it was obvious that Song was a man the whole time. It’s an unfortunate interpretation, because they are missing out on many more interesting questions that M. Butterfly poses.

When we first meet Gallimard, he is a married man in a country he does not understand. At work, he is meek and awkward. And like so many tourists, he makes little effort in getting to know the country he resides in. He does not make an effort to know the language or spend meaningful time with the people living there. If he bothered to learn more about the culture, perhaps he would have learned that men often play the roles in Chinese operas. His ignorance works to Song’s advantage. He buys into many of the stereotypes of what Chinese people are supposed to be like, which ultimately helps Song deceive him. Yet, at the same time, she also challenges him, asking him questions like, “how can you objectively view your own values?” This draws him in. As they spend more time together and become romantically attached, Song plays up the idea of the reserved, innocent, and submissive Chinese woman. She makes up her own version of Chinese culture, something that will mystify and entice her foreign suitor. 

It also makes their coupling very interesting. The two have sex–never fully undressed–but they are physical. In an interview, Cronenberg talked about how audiences were baffled by this and their belief that it was impossible for the two to be together without him knowing about her male anatomy. Clearly, these viewers lack imagination or robust sex lives. Song is able to manipulate their relations by offering up her knowledge of “Chinese sex.” Ultimately, René is so enticed by the fantasy that as long as Song continues to play the role of the woman he loves, he is able to disregard any misgivings or worries. He wants–and needs–Song to be everything he wants her to be. Together the two create the person we know as Song. In the movie, they even say that “only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act.” Which begs the questions: is everything we know and accept about femininity simply an invention by men?

Gallimard’s feelings of ownership and domination over Song eventually pour into his work life. He is more confident, social, and moves up the ranks. He is put in a position where he is able to offer his input on how the French should work with the Chinese. In a meeting, he says to his colleagues that “the Chinese want to submit.” This false and misguided belief all comes from the fact that he thinks Song “submitted” to him. He speaks about the Chinese people like they are of one mind, and because he knows Song, he now believes he understands all of China. This colonizer mentality is not uncommon when we look at the whole of world history, but it is even more absurd in this moment. 

His relationship with Song makes him feel more masculine and dominant, which seems to be one of the reasons he wants their relationship to continue. He falls not only for the illusion of Song but for the person he is when they are together. It feels that if it were not for the political upheavals and Song’s espionage work, the two might have been able to keep this fantasy intact. But eventually Gallimard is forced into a position where he cannot deny the truth. By the end of the movie, when he confronts Song in the courtroom, there is no trace of femininity in her there. She is in her suit with short tight cut hair; it is the first time we truly see the actor John Lone.

We know less about Song’s changes and transformations, but she is forced into the role of womanhood. Although it was not her choice, the opportunity to live as someone completely different does open doors for her. Even unlocking a femme part of her personality that she did not realize was present. Her struggle was much more internal than Gallimard’s, but Song does accept the changes in herself and the realization that she loves a man. While Song spent years of her life deceiving the man she was with, it is hard not to feel for her. Up until the end, there is a part of her that thinks Gallimard will accept her in whatever form she is in. But unfortunately, she believed that their love was unconditional, unaware that the “butterfly” was a person separate from herself. The butterfly was what Gallimard loved. 

In their emotional final moment alone together, they ride in a paddy wagon: Song to be extradited back to China and Gallimard off to prison. There, Song strips down, finally removing any bit of doubt that she is a man. She says, “feel the skin; it is the same skin” and tells him that “it was always me.” But, Gallimard simply cannot accept. His Song would never be so lewd as to be naked in front of him: she would keep her purity intact. And as he retches back in shock, Gallimard finally admits that “what I love was a lie.” Ultimately, the movie is not trying to answer whether or not Gallimard is attracted to men or women: it is simply that he loved his “butterfly,” and the illusion of her is shattered. As Song stands in front of him as a man, the love is gone. 

However, this is not a satisfying answer for those who only believe in the binary of gender and sexual orientation. If you are willing to open up to the possibilities, Cronenberg has some much more interesting ideas:

The idea that the sexuality of each of us is an agreed upon fantasy, that we both create for each other. It’s kind of sweet in some ways and kind of scary in others because it means in a way there's no reality of sexuality. There's no such thing as absolute maleness or absolute femaleness. The premise of Crimes of the Future (1970) was that in the absence of women, men have to discover the maleness and femaleness in themselves. To keep the balance you should be able to have a story about two men or two women and still have all the maleness and female-ness play out I think you can. 

If people could be and love who they wish unabashedly without hiding and repressing parts of themselves, maybe stories like this would not need to be so tragic. Gallimard is so fixated on the fantasy of Song and the story of Madame Butterfly that he takes on Song’s identity to hold it within himself. He eventually kills himself in prison after performing the opera as Song in front of his cellmates. While some might try to write this off as a story of repressed homosexuality, it is much more complicated than that, because gender and sexuality are much more complicated than that. Song is a catalyst for the transformation that Gallimard is going through, and by the end, he needs to become the thing he loves most, Song. 

The theme of transformation makes this as essential to the scope of Cronenberg’s filmography as any of his other movies. Whether you take Seth Brundle transforming himself into a man/fly hybrid or Max Renn accepting the new flesh or Saul Tenser evolving into the next stage of humanity, these characters all find something that brings them into the next stage of their metamorphosis. This is ultimately what human nature is about: we change and become new versions of ourselves. Sometimes subtly, and other times in dramatic and noticeable ways. Our resistance to our own transformation can hinder it, repressing our identities. 

Song and Gallimard’s relationship is not so strange from many love stories. People grow and change over time, sometimes together and other times apart. We uphold or make fantasies about our loved ones, and sometimes those fantasies are shattered beyond repair. But Song and Gallimard created a beautiful fiction together. It ended tragically, but perhaps new discussions and re-evaluations of this story will open doorways for those who don’t feel they fit into these compartmentalized and binary societal barriers.