Cheng, Anne Anlin. “Ornamentalism: A Feminist Theory for the Yellow Woman.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 44, no. 3, Feb. 2018, pp. 415–46.
In her 2018 article “Ornamentalism: A Feminist Theory for the Yellow Woman,” Dr. Anne Anlin Cheng, a professor of English and director of American Studies at Princeton University, pushes for a new way to understand representations of “the yellow woman” as presented historically and currently in media. She argues that much of Western art that is inspired by East Asian femininity actually dehumanizes East Asian women (or “the yellow woman,” in Cheng’s words) by reducing them to objects that “can be possessed and dominated” (435). The fetishization of these objects, such as china vases, reflects the fetishization of and expectations for East Asian women, and this fetishization becomes repeated in the work of white male artists who create pieces inspired by their exotic ideas of China (which Cheng argues is a stand-in for East Asian cultures more broadly) that further perpetuate harmful, dehumanizing ideas of East Asian femininity.
Cheng frames her writing through the idea of ornamentalism, which sounds very similar to orientalism. She uses this word to mean “a conceptual lens through which to attend to the afterlife of a racialized and aestheticized object that remains very much an object, even as the human stakes remain chillingly high” (429). Ornamentalism is meant to reference the intersections of orientalism, (mis)representation of the feminine, and highly decorative work. She explains orientalism as the Western gaze interpreting Asia as being excessive, opulent, exotic, ancient, and possessable.
“Ontology” is a critical word to understand when reading this piece. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “ontology” means “the science or study of being; that branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature or essence of being or existence” (Oxford English Dictionary). Cheng is investigating how representations of East Asia in art affect the understanding and perception of East Asian women.
Cheng states that her work is “not a project about retrieving human agency, because the subject under discussion here (the yellow woman) is a seriously compromised subject and, in many instances, not a subject at all” (429). This statement is difficult to understand without reading the rest of her piece. Essentially, Cheng argues that unhuman objects and materials are used to stand in as representations of “the yellow woman” in ways that are dehumanizing. Rather than trying to grant these objects human agency, Cheng wants to deny their use as symbols of East Asian womanhood and femininity altogether. For example, china and the forms it takes should not represent the bodies, lives, and movement of Chinese women, and yet historically, this is what Western society implied.
The style of writing that Cheng uses is an interesting choice. Cheng uses a highly academic voice that is almost frustrating to read. Is this because Cheng feels that to present a valid critique of Western society, she must present herself in a way that aligns with the pretentiousness and inaccessibility of the academy, which was designed for white male academics? Is it because to gain legitimacy in the field of feminism and art studies, one must demonstrate prowess in their knowledge of Western frameworks of thinking and interpretation in order to demonstrate that feminist studies and art studies are highly academic and philosophical fields worthy of study?
This article also raises questions of for whom the article is accessible and what Cheng’s intentions are. Is she trying to empower East Asian women, particularly those living in Western societies? If so, the language is inaccessible to the general public. Is she trying to influence those with power within the academy? If so, why frame her work within the context of Western thought? Doing so seems to imply that there is stronger legitimacy in Western academic thought than in other epistemologies.
Additional work cited:
Oxford English Dictionary. “Ontology.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, 2019. Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/131551
This was a really cohesive summary and analysis that afforded me many insights into the recommended reading. I am particularly interested in the questions you raise towards the end about audience, tone, and accessibility. I suppose a few questions I would add are, does she have a responsibility to make this work accessible to the general public? Both in where they can literally access it and in terms of language? Or does the work of highly academic language bring a validity to the subject in the academy that perhaps more simplistic language could not? And is that also problematic?
I would lean heavily toward the side that says, Yes, Cheng has a consummate responsibility to make the language accessible to a wider audience. By keeping the language dense and inaccessible, she likewise renders herself inaccessible to the very people whom she claims are affected by the fetishization she decries. That is, she too is referring not to people but to distant objects who, despite the vitality and importance of Cheng’s claims, remain disempowered because they remain in the margins of discourse. To be fair, this is a problem that persist throughout much of academia and, specifically, to theoreticians and philosophers from Judith Butler to Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivack. Brilliant minds, to be sure, but the inaccessibility of their language keeps the people on the ground as powerless and objectified as the processes they tend to rail against.