Imitation And Gender Insubordination By Juith Butler

Gender is a social role based on biological gender. It is also a product formed psychologically, culturally, and socially. Through social practice, characteristic, behavior, thought, and emotion difference distinct gender on woman and man, or others. In “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Juith Butler argues that gender is performative. The discourse of gender produces us: the identity of women performs the characteristics of women; the identity of men performs the characteristics of men. Also, people form their identity by imitating others; in another word, performance constructs gender in a repeat process through imitating from appearance to inner thoughts. Kumu Hina, directed by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, introduces us the
Gender is performative. Butler writes, “If the ‘I’ is the effect of a certain repetition, one which produces the semblance of a continuity or coherence, then there is no ‘I’ that precedes the gender that it is said to perform; the repetition, and the failure to repeat, produce a string of performances that constitute and contest the coherence of that ‘I’” (311). Gender performance is not stable, not oneself, but a repetition, through its body, consistently understood as a cultural practice exists. Through a series of behaviors reproducing the gender, the identity of gender will be formed and recognized gradually. Gender and sexuality are not only performed, but they are performative. It is not because that being heterosexual act heterosexually, but an identity is related to heterosexuality repeatedly acting in a way. In the film, Hina always wearing a flower on her head wherever in school, in the conference, in Fiji with her husband which signifies female characteristics. In a long shot, while facing her students, she repeatedly appearing as a lady in every class, with a flower on head, nice makeup, and lady dress, and uses her masculine voice to teach her students. Close-up shot positions her in a quarter-turn of the frame and allows audiences catch her harsh masculine facial feature and eye contact being slightly softer as a
Butler writes that gender is like an imitation process of performance through the body: “It is always a surface sign, a signification on and with the public body that produces this illusion of an inner depth, necessity, or essence that is somehow magically, causally expressed.” (317) Gender performance is not only appearing on the surface. It is spiritually going into the inner world, recognize identity and gender. Break the limits and respect the culture. Hina finds the answer to gender identity through gender performance. Even though She faces difficulties but is brave to overcome and insist her gender practice of being a Mahu. Her husband coming from Fiji says, “where I come from, it’s not accepted to be with a Mahu. If a Tongan man is with Mahu, they go around in secret” (Kumu Hina). Being a Mahu is a challenge while being with a Mahu is a challenge as well. The relationship of Hina and her husband is an example breaking the stereotype of cultural boundaries, facing straight to their will of gender performance. Hence, the film suddenly breaks into news footage about a rail construction on Honolulu which is a large number of indigenous people’s remains in the ground. A shot of observational mode captures Hina