Disabilities, the Cybernetic Body, and Global Risk: Posthuman Representation in Kung Fu Hustle
Resource
中外文學, 36(1), 019-066
Journal
中外文學
Journal Volume
36
Journal Issue
1
Pages
019-066
Date Issued
2007-03
Date
2007-03
Author(s)
Abstract
It is often said that Kung Fu Hustle started a new phase in Stephen Chow's career characterized by a widening of appeal to include global audiences. This essay proposes that this global “turn” is best explained by considering the posthuman representation of the film. It begins with a consideration of disabilities in the film, a concern not only explicitly represented but essential to the physical imaginary invoked in many of its martial arts topoi, constituting a posthuman or at least prosthetic questioning of the martial arts narrative tradition. This point is then developed in two directions. First, the perspective of posthuman studies is used to establish how reliance on an awareness of the outside points to a cybernetic turn in martial arts as a technology of embodiment, forming a new “interpassive” receptiveness to the machinic alteration or alternation of the human and its environment. Second, there are obvious affinities between this posthuman receptiveness and the rise of “risk society” in the era of globalization. In a risk society, the regular intrusion of randomness into order and security calls upon the subject to find new ways of dealing with the excessive presence of the machinic body and its outside. The recent resurgence of the martial arts genre points to a need to engage with this presence. On the other hand, the posthuman dimension of interpassivity envisioned by Kung Fu Hustle exceeds current accounts of the risk society. A reading of this dimension of the film would not only shed light on its success but help explain why it breaks new ground beyond being a hilarious parody of the old.
Subjects
《功夫》
後人類
風險社會
互卸性
增能輔助
自平衡
反身沒入
自生發
Kung Fu Hustle
the posthuman
risk society
interpassivity
prosthesis
homeostasis
reflexivity
autopoiesis
Type
journal article
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