Hongse : the Color Red
Graduation Year
2007
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Intercollegiate Media Studies
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2007 Amanda Young Shortall
Abstract
The video begins with a black and white wedding photograph from the mid 20th century of an Asian American wedding party with the women in cheongsams and the men in western suits. A male narrator states the importance of the bride. A stain (still in black and white) spreads from bottom of frame rising over the brides face. Color video now shows a tree with a clothesline and a woman hanging a sheet on the line. Asian instrumental music begins. The mother softly describes singing a song to her daughter that her mother sang to her, and then sings the song. A woman folds, tears, or knots a white sheet, intercut with brief flashes of a red stain, while a professional recording of the same children's rabbit song plays as the lyrics appear in English. Finally the white sheet lies on the table and the red stain appears and spreads across the sheet. Male Narrator (sounds like standard documentary narrator circa 1940s or 1950s): "This is the portrait of a very important bride. But whatever her name, where ever she lives, she is the wife and mother of America. How many years will she have before the job gets her down?
Recommended Citation
Shortall, Amanda Young, "Hongse : the Color Red" (2007). Scripps Senior Theses. 31.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/31
Comments
Previously linked to as http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/stc,12.