Intellect

Authors:  Song Hwee Lim 
DOI: 10.1386/ncin.5.1.39_1

Keywords
transnational, transgender, passing, national cinema, ethnicity, deterritorialisation

Abstract
It has become increasingly popular, within film and cinema studies, to challenge the framework of ‘national cinema’ with that of ‘transnational cinema’. Transnationalism in cinema can be understood as modes of production and consumption, as well as ideology, genre and aesthetics. It can be argued, however, that transnationalism, while purporting to transcend the national, does not so much displace the nation as reinstate it within a larger, pan-national framework. This essay aims to interrogate the notion of ‘trans-’ and ask to what extent the prefix ‘trans’ transcends existing boundaries, whether in relation to the nation or to gender. Mobilising the concept of ‘passing’ in transgender practice, it argues that the ethnic passing that is increasingly common in popular culture (such as three ethnically-Chinese actresses playing Japanese geishas in the film Memoirs of a Geisha) raises questions about ethnicity, transnational capital, transcultural flows and globalisation at the start of the twenty-first century.