The movie The Joy Luck Club ells the stories of Asian mothers that persuaded their daughters to move to America. Throughout the movie, there are multiple points of view and different stories that helped compel the audience and add complexity to their choices. Rey Chow, the author of “Women in the Holocene: Ethnicity, Fantasy, and the Film The Joy Luck Club”, explains the idea that in some cases stories are perceived bland and regular such as as good and evil, black and white, in this case she is correct. Melodramas have a long history of being dramatic in this-or-that situations, and The Joy Luck Club is no different. In the scene in the midst of the movie, Lindo removes her covering, revealing her face. As she is patiently for her future husband, she begins to ponder about the importance of this moment, stating that it decided her destiny. As Chow mentioned “…Melodrama, especially as it appears in film, offers a privileged view of the basically mechanic or technologize nature of what we call sentimental emotions” (214). Lindo, waiting, states that from this moment on, this decision determines her entire happiness. Giving us an outlook of that black or white decision with the intense emotions of melodrama.
Just a little blog about me and my thoughts!
Bianca, that’s a well-chosen moment from the movie, and the connection to emotional intensity is effectively made!
Your words “bland and regular” don’t quite make sense the way you use them–it seems to me that “bland and regular” = realistic(?) = the OPPOSITE of melodrama. This part of the paragraph setup is unclear.
Finally, I think that you could have described the scene in more detail, rather than just quoting dialogue: what do we see while Lindo talks, what do we hear, what else promotes the melodramatic intensity you identify?
(Also, you should quote the running time–the scene is actually quite early in the movie, and so giving specific time will avoid confusion).