Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Hit Factory
Episode: M. Butterfly feat. Esmé Holden
Description: London-based film writer Esmé Holden joins us to discuss David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly. Based on the Tony Award-winning David Henry Hwang play - itself based on the the real life relationship between Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer - Cronenberg's film embraces the conventions of melodrama while thoughtfully exploring gender & queernes and weaving a complex romance tragically undone by the conventions and bigotries of the colonial-capitalist order.We begin by discussing the films explorations of gender, queerness, and transness, and how Cronenberg showcases an exceptionally forward-thinking and nuanced portrayal of these concepts in an...