The colonized masculinity and cultural politics of seediq bale

Abstract

In her article, “The Colonized Masculinity and Cultural Politics of Seediq Bale,” Chin-ju Lin discusses a Taiwanese blockbuster movie, a postcolonial historiography and a form of life-writing, which delineates the last Indigenous insurrection against Japanese colonialism. This article explores the cultural representations in Seediq Bale. Fighting back as a colonized man for pride and dignity is portrayed as means to restore their masculine identity. The headhunting tradition is remembered, romanticized, praised highly as heroic and even strengthened in an inaccurate way to promote individualistic masculinity and to forge a new national identity in postcolonial Taiwan. Nevertheless, the stereotypical and essentialist representation of Seediq culture is misleading. Director Wei De-sheng’s multicultural misrepresentation depicts Taiwan nationalist claims as Han-male centered. Seediq culture has thus served as “a violent other” for a Han settler director to strengthen a notion of colonized masculinity.