Returning To Saving Face
Happy Pride! I know I’m late but let’s talk about it
Recently I watched Saving Face for the first time in 20 years. If you’ve never heard of this movie. It is about an Asian American Doctor named Wil who is a lesbian and partially closeted and one day she comes home to find her recently divorced, newly pregnant 40-year-old mother has been kicked out of her grandparents house for being pregnant out of wedlock and thus bringing shame to the family. The movie explores; culture, secrets and, shame. Back then, what always settled with me was the shame.
20 years ago, I was 11 and the moment puberty hit, I know that I was queer (I said gay back then) and I watched every peace of gay related TV I could get my eyes on, both with and without my parents knowing so for me this movie was life changing, scary, and spontaneously hopeful.
Watching it for the first time as an adult was different. It wasn't about the shame for me anymore. As someone who has now lived a bit of life, it was just about that; navigating unexpected circumstances and trying to figure that shit out. Trying to live your own life and not upset too many people but knowing that in the end you can't really control the latter no matter what.
I live on the route for my local pride parade and I got to attend it with my mother. My mom, although pretty accepting of most things was not unlike Wil's mom due to the fact that she was terrified. There wasn't any "shame" when I came out, there was fear on her end and thus she made me feel guilty. At first, I didn't understand it. I knew that I had always had the fear of coming out because you don't know how people are gonna react, but I had grown up in an accepting family with queer extended members of my family so I felt like I had some tiny sense of safety, but then I felt like it had been snatched away. I would later come to find out that this was the fear that my mother was holding in for her child who had already had a hard enough life. However, I remember feeling that young as I was, I couldn't keep lying to myself.
Watching the movie again, I remember thinking well at least Wil and her mother haven't even been playing field. They are both carrying the weight of things that culturally, feel very significant. As I was a child I didn't know any of my mother secrets.
It's different now, though. She is still very much learning about a lot of things and asking me about the colors of (new to her) flags. Occasionally, we talk about her feelings from back then and we keep it short, but I get it. In Wil's Mom, I see my own (minus the pregnancy) and the fear that was so evident. Although some fear stunts you growth, it is at times safer than the "over there" and dammit if we all don't just want us and our loved ones to be safe.