Whether it is conscious or not, people base their relationships and outlooks on the external world on the way in which their internal world is constructed, that is, their identity and psychology. The light in which people regard the concept of identity, and in particular the nature of their own identity, has a fundamental impact on their attitudes towards others, as well as towards society in general. Hwang's M. Butterfly, the documentary paris Is Burning, and Smith's Fires in the Mirror present one with several different aspects from which to consider this problem, as the characters in each work regard identity in unique ways, with different results.
Through most of the drama, the two main characters in M. Butterfly have radically different degrees of consciousness regarding the question of identity. Song is keenly aware of the fluid nature of identity and its tenuous existence as a social construct which can be bent and manipulated. The power Song wields lies in his/her understanding of the way in which gender identity is perceived by mainstream European society, and by Gallimard in particular. Song's awareness of his/her own fluctuating identity is key to his/her ability to so keenly comprehend the way it can be used as a mask and as a means of manipulation. The reason for this is that having such an identity oneself lends one the ability to step back and view the concept of gender and identity from an objective, dissector's distance. Particularly, his/her awareness of the assumptions related to "the perfect woman," and what sort of behavior men expect of her - what the identity/mask of "perfect woman" entails - allows him to utterly mislead Gallimard. For example, there is Song's perception that the perfect method of preventing Gallimard from stripping him/her was to utterly surrender to him, "Once a woman submits, a man is always ready to become 'generous'" (Act II, Scene 7, lines 22-23). And of course there is the memorable line, that crystallization of sexism, "Only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act" (Act II, Scene 7, line 40). For Song to be able to make a statement like that, he/she needed to have realized that the identity of "woman" is not remotely intrinsic in nature, being instead an artificial construction not even of the creation of the people it is imposed upon. As a result, he/she was able to thoroughly examine this identity construct from a removed perspective, and produce a performance which rivaled the "original." Song's only mistake was in his/her failure to realize in the end Gallimard's full capacity for self-delusion and rigid definition of identity.
Gallimard, through whom the viewer perceives the events of M. Butterfly, is during most of the drama representative of mainstream society's attitudes in his perceptions of gender and identity issues. It is not until he engages in intense soul-searching during his time of isolation from society (and from its constant messages reinforcing the rigidity of gender roles and identity) during his prison sentence that "alone in my cell, I... faced the truth" (Act III, Scene 3, line 19). Until that time, while he is still immersed in society, he is a man who is quite certain of his own identity. It is a simple and direct following of the "rules" for a European male in his situation, and an identity he is entirely comfortable with. And because he is not a man who is accustomed to challenging the construction and validity of identity, he is as a result a man who comfortably accepts things and people for what they appear to be. Probing far beneath the surface, whether it be judging people and questioning the fiber of their identities, or gauging political situations, is not something he is eager to undertake. He takes things more or less as they appear, including Song, as he says, "she had the grace, the delicacy... I believed this girl" (Act I, Scene 7, line 11). Thus he is completely duped by Song's disguise, and further, is unable to adjust his conception of his lover's identity even once he has learned the truth. To him, identities are solid and rigid, not flexible masks which may be adjusted, or doffed and interchanged at will. So when he is faced with the concept that Song is biologically male, and that the woman he loved was a partial illusion based on the real Song, Gallimard is utterly unable to even begin to accept such a change in identity. He actually prefers to consider his Butterfly a complete dream - "all I loved was the lie" (Act III, Scene 3, line 126). This is easier for him than to redefine his idea of gender. He responds with the only psychological route left to him: splitting Song into completely separate male and female identities, separate people (the "real" Song, and Butterfly), so that he may hate the one while continuing to love the other. And when at last it is no longer possible for him to take refuge in denial, as he comes to fuller consciousness in his prison cell, he still is unable to introduce flexibility into his concepts of identity, even though he does succeed to a certain degree as regards gender. Rather than readjusting his own self-image to adapt to his new situation, Gallimard rigidly assumes the identity of Madame Butterfly. "I... look in the mirror and see nothing but... a woman." (Act III, Scene 3, line28). He adheres so strictly to the "rules" of this identity that he feels the need even to wear her makeup, not to mention committing seppuku as she did, all because these actions were a vital part of that identity.
The drag queens and transgendered people featured in the documentary paris Is Burning manifest remarkably keen awareness of the nature of identity. Having to wrestle with the substance and nature of their own identities all their lives, as a result they have developed added perception as regards mainstream society's attitudes towards this issue. Exploring their own identities, they gained an understanding of the stuff of which identity is constructed. And from this, they gained the ability to dissect the identities of their straight, non-transgender counterparts, people who took their identities and gender identification for granted. The performers in the balls base their routines and clothing styles around an examination of the gender and identity constructs they see in the world outside. While they often represent them with a longing for the opportunities that accompany them, they also represent them with a fair bit of sardonic humor. Like mainstream society, they divide their competitions up into a myriad precise sub-categories, each with its own excruciating little set of rules. The "Realness" category, in particular, the one in which performers try to look as utterly, convincingly like straight, non-transgendered people as they can, is divided into a fairly large number of sub-sections. Whether the effect is intentional or not, this division offers a wry commentary on the way mainstream society establishes such strict unwritten codes of conduct for specific identity "models." The drag queens and other performers are also keenly aware of the fact that it is the possession of one of these identities and how well one fits into it that determines one's social status. Hence comes the whole attitude of the balls, that the clothes and the attitude make the woman (or in some cases, the man). Considering the importance of appearance and identity in society, when one watches the realness performers attired as businessmen and college students, one sees the message they are sending: If they can look the part so totally convincingly, perhaps they can also fulfill it in actuality. Particularly fascinating to see is the female impersonator who, as a man, teaches at a girls' charm school. There, reminiscent of Song's line in M. Butterfly about how "only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act," he gives his pupils precise instructions regarding every aspect of their physical behavior and appearance. In doing so, he also explains the ways in which these can be used to manipulate men. In other words, he is teaching them to assume an artificial identity carefully constructed to adapt to the artificial construct of Femininity. Some of the performers in the realness category also use society's attitudes towards identity to protect themselves, showing how perfectly they can blend in with the very people who want to attack them, as they dress up like street thugs. The slightly built transgendered drag queen with light skin who works as an escort brought up several more points. One of these was that, although she is African American, her having such light skin means that she can often pass as white. She can break out of an underprivileged black identity and increase her chances at things like model searches, where a white identity carries better chances of acceptance and success. And as she is very slightly built, she is able to pass quite easily as being biologically female. The identity of a non-transgendered biological female is more easily and more convincingly assumed. She knows what the men she escorts want from her, what they want from this identity, as she understands its structure so well, and thus she is able to carefully explain why she is so successful with them, pointing out things such as how they like the fact that she appears small and weak.
The opening interview of Fires in the Mirror explores the fundamental purpose of identity, making the argument that people need identity to separate themselves from their surroundings, to know what they have and what they give -- an excellent explanation for the need for a personal identity. This type of basic identity, however, forms the basis for the construction of a rigid identity which limits far more than it protects and supports. Fires in the Mirror differs from the preceding two works discussed in that while they investigate the concept of identity from more of an internal perspective, and also from a perspective of gender, Fires in the Mirror examines identity from a less personal and more social perspective. In seeing the interviews of the different people, and noting the feelings they manifest, and particularly with the effect of having a single actress re-enact them all, one comes to realize the fundamental similarities of all these individuals. At the core of it, nearly all of them want the same thing, justice and fair opportunities in life. But they wrap themselves in thick layers of group identity and exclusiveness, and the two sides alienate each other as a result. For many of the people interviewed, their perceptions of identity, both of their own and of others, causes them to adopt a pervasive us-versus-them mentality that does not permit them to acknowledge the extent of their common ground.
The African-Americans, in general, have what might be called a fortress-mentality self-identity. Their identity is based around bitterness over past injuries to their race as a whole committed by white people, and on past personal injuries. It is fundamentally defensive, and as a result, tends to be combative. Leonard Jeffries, for example, is preoccupied with bitterness over the unfairness and racist decisions he experienced and witnessed during the filming of Roots. Because of the unfair decisions made by individual white people then, he developed a state of racism against white people, and because of the way certain Jewish leaders reacted to his activism, Jeffries continues to let bitterness towards whites and Jews as whole groups be one of the definitions of his identity. "Minister" Conrad Mohammed is an example of an exponentially worse bigot. In his claim that the poorest lack person in Africa or the Mideast is "in better condition than the Black man and woman in America today, right now. Even at Harvard..." (lines 1005-1008) he is insisting that knowledge of their racial history is the most important element of a black person's identity. Obviously, from this statement and from the fact that his interview covers nearly two full pages and almost entirely consists of rants about gruesome long-past crimes against blacks, Mohammed is a man who bases his identity around his racial history. He can never forgive, because this history, which is so bound up in his very identity, can never change. Because of this obsession, not only is he hostile towards White people, he also is enormously resentful towards the Jews for having a crime perpetrated against them which was even remotely as vast in scope and terrible in nature. He feels cheated, and this indignation against the Jewish people has become a part of his very identity. Anonymous Young Man #1 is more of an example of an average young African-American involved in this affair. He also has a sense of victimhood bound up in his identity. As soon as the child is struck by the car, and the Jewish man climbs out, his immediate reaction is to assume the worst: the man is drunk, he is trying to escape, he must be seized! In other words, when anything negative befalls him or those with whom he identifies, his immediate reaction is to lash out. And he concludes with, of course, wild assumptions of White power and oppression. In short, the confrontational Black people interviewed have a feeling of angry victimization woven into their self-identity, which leads them to be unwilling to forgive or try to understand the tragedy of Gavin Cato's death.
The prejudices embedded in the identities of many of the Jewish people are more subtle and less overtly aggressive, but are nonetheless present. The overall bias they manifest is more along the lines of arrogance in eliteness and exclusivity, and a reluctance to explain or justify themselves to outsiders who do not understand them. An example which appears early on in Fires... is that of the Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman who needed the Black boy to turn off her stereo for her. While she could not explain herself fully to him beforehand, she could at least have tried to help him understand the situation afterward, but did not, and further appears to have burst out laughing while he was there in the house. The impressions he may have received from this odd experience are not of importance to her save as a source of amusement, although of course it is clear that she never had any antagonistic feeling against him. The statements of Rabbi Shea Hecht are also quite interesting. His point about understanding and respect not necessarily being inextricably linked is well taken, but its truth depends on the individuals and circumstances involved. Where he goes after this is less ambiguous in its rather biased nature. His identity is extremely clear-cut and strict, in the way that he wishes to draw sharp and absolute lines encompassing exactly how far a Hasidic Jew can go in associating with Blacks and other non-Jews. He has an identity of isolation, but expects total acceptance; the two are simply not compatible.
The conclusion to be drawn from these varied experiences and perspectives is that identity, while it is an utterly fundamental part of who we are, must be regarded with flexibility. To allow oneself to blindly assume a rigid and unquestioning sense of identity is to invite bias into one's perceptions. It is to permanently exclude all who do not fit well with one's view of the world. It is to limit oneself to a small, enclosed sphere of existence and never to discover and explore the possibilities of being and philosophy which exist outside. And it is to leave one's ability to make discerning judgments of reality vulnerable to manipulation by those whose understanding of identity is more fluid than one's own.
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