Rose, Sue & Hana
Intense romantic friendships, or hidden Sapphic attractions
At first, I had every intention of reimagining Rose, Sue, and Hana of Light the Night as a sapphic trio. I even had an entire introduction written up:
For the sake of this — very valid — reimagining, I’m going to ignore the 1980s setting and its implications because, to be honest, there’s an entire drag queen in Part 2 that is not only accepted by customers but also never the centre of any overt discrimination and violence. So! deep breath With that said, I want to prove that Light the Night, with all the same characters, and all the same plotlines would’ve been a better (it’s already pretty fucking fantastic) show if the Light Bar was just full of ladies-loving-ladies.
And as much as I am not against that reading, I want to consider the amazingly-written friendships between the women. That led to my second attempt at this essay, which completely shifted to only focusing on said friendships and the impact of portraying such nonsexual intimacy between women. I had a whole outline and everything. But then I thought, “why not do both?”. Why not explore the idea that I, as a viewer, not only did a subconscious queer reading (that I can honestly say feels like an automatic response with the still-lacking global sapphic media) but also felt equally compelled by the romantic undertones in these friendships among women.
*Someone please coin a decent woman-related alternative to “bromance”.*
Mind you, these feel like two sides of the same coin, and I’m hoping to discover how true that can be.
Light the Night [Taiwanese drama; 2021–2022]
In the red light district of 1980s Taipei, women at a popular Japanese night club navigate jealousy, heartbreak, friendship and love.
I want to first get some definitions out of the way:
Queer Reading
Fanny Ambjörnsson describes queer reading, to interpret a character as queer, as one more way to look at reality, one reading among many. Diane Raymond agrees that “there is no unambiguous meaning in a cultural text and that the reception positions that audience members occupy are culturally and historically grounded”. So there is always more than one possible reading and audience members’ different backgrounds will make them see things differently and interpret them in different ways.
Nordin, E. (2015). From Queer Reading to Queerbaiting : The battle over the polysemic text and the power of hermeneutics (Dissertation).
Romantic Friendships
A romantic friendship, passionate friendship, or affectionate friendship is a very close but typically non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in contemporary Western societies. It may include, for example, holding hands, cuddling, hugging, kissing, giving massages, or sharing a bed, without sexual intercourse or other sexual expression.
Good ole Wikipedia (I’ll be using other sources later on)
Whilst following this idea, i.e. allowing my first inclination towards the sapphic possibility of the series (and looking into romantic friendships), I now see there was no way I could not conflate the relationship among these three characters. If anything, it makes me wonder if that type of queer reading will always lead to a questioning of the passion (whether sexual or platonic) that can exist between women.
In Linda Christine Chupkowski’s Are we dating?: an exploratory study of nonsexual, passionate friendships between women, she explores the lack of language to describe women with life partners — a connection filled with commitment and intimate behaviours not defined by sexual attraction.
However what happens when one is more than “just friends,” but is not “lovers?” When “just friends” decide to move in together, do other friends and family gather to celebrate and bring household gifts? If there is a break up, will friends and family understand and share the individuals’ mourning? This lack of cultural mirroring can create an isolating, lonely experience.
Chupkowski, Linda Christine, “Are we dating? : an exploratory study of nonsexual, passionate friendships between women” (2007). Masters Thesis, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
Through exploring centuries of romantic friendships, Lillian Faderman touches on the blurred line many (and maybe even I) attribute to these unnamed relationships, often reading sexual attraction where there is none.
But the lack of overt sexual expression in these romantic friendships could not discount the seriousness or the intensity of the women’s passions toward each other — or the fact that if by “lesbian” we mean an all-consuming emotional relationship in which two women are devoted to each other above anyone else, these ubiquitous sixteenth-, seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century romantic friendships were “lesbian.”
Faderman, L. (1981). Surpassing the love of men: Romantic Friendships and love between women from the renaissance to the present. New York: Morrow.
Now, after all of my research, I don’t want to discredit past me and what I saw as a treat of well-written women who — in my ideal world — would’ve made my day if they were sapphic. So, I want to still explore Rose, Sue, and Hana through the revolving door of categorizations; the possibilities of lovers and friends.
Mamasans
The pillar of the show is the relationship between Rose and Sue. The duo’s dynamic is slowly revealed across the three parts showing us how an inseparable bond in their teenage years led to a (and this is putting it lightly) complicated friendship in their adult years. Their dependency reads, at first, as healthy and communicative often making their on-screen moments together much more enjoyable than anything with their male counterparts. During Part 2, even after realizing how their relationship teetered on being too tumultuous to salvage, I couldn’t help but think a romantic relationship between the two would be much more interesting. And as I mulled that over, I realized how possible it would’ve been to do that and keep the story relatively intact. I think that fleeting thought (or hope) solidified how I consumed the rest of the show.
Especially when one considers how their lives intertwined — from their partnership as owners of the bar to “us against the world”-esque declarations — the romantic undertones can never be mistaken. The is a sort of severity in their relationship that holds them together, refusing to be taken lightly. They present themselves as “ride or die”, and (I assume) if you haven’t experienced strong friendships between women, their actions could read as mostly sapphic.
Jailbirds
Rose and Hana are a pairing that you can’t help but root for. There is a tenderness to their care for each other that sometimes feels too intimate to witness. We meet Hana as one of the hostesses at Light Bar, but we later learn that she and Rose met in prison. With Hana’s violent and traumatic past and Rose being betrayed by her husband, there’s foundational comradery against men. With more flashbacks to their time in prison, we gradually understand the makings of friendship forged to survive anything.
Their protection of each other and unwavering loyalty is undoubtedly fierce from beginning to end. (Whilst still trying to avoid spoilers) Hana and Rose begin living together amid never-ending tragedies, their relationship almost a direct foil to Rose and Sue. Their domesticated life acted as a reprieve even though the worst was always yet to come.
One thing I came across was the concept of Boston Marriages:
In these relationships, two women would commit to each other, live together, and share many aspects of their lives together. This was an accepted way for women who did not want the constraints of marriage or children to experience the benefits of intimacy and partnership. Sometimes these Boston Marriages were a way for lesbian partners to acceptably and covertly cohabitate; other times they were an escape for heterosexual women who did not want to live the lives prescribed to them by mainstream cultural expectations (Faderman, 1993).
Chupkowski, Linda Christine, “Are we dating? : an exploratory study of nonsexual, passionate friendships between women” (2007). Masters Thesis, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
It is easy to attribute this to Rose and Hana. But even more interesting is how it solidified how relationships between women (regardless of nature) cannot help but exist and thrive in similar ways.
Cultural scripts portray heterosexual women’s friendships as being less passionate, or at least less passionately felt, than those of lesbians. This idea bears deeper examination. Evidence indicates that heterosexual women often are deeply emotionally connected to their close women friends. Descriptions of intimate, nonsexual friendships between women examined by Crumpacker and Vander Haegen (1987) had a startling intensity. The vivid accounts revealed details of heartbreaks, painful rejections, and vows not to trust again. The emotional quality was clearly parallel to a romantic relationship.
Rose, Suzanna. (2000). Heterosexism and the Study of Women’s Romantic and Friend Relationships. Journal of Social Issues.
Admittedly, this is not the most comprehensive look at these three women or this show. But what was supposed to be a not-so-subtle campaign for the show became a lesson. It presented a chance to examine media and societal constructs that I, like many, don’t consider as much as I should. Thankfully, as I hoped, it didn’t feel like a deterrent to my queer reading but a call to want and expect better-written women, BFFs, sapphic or not.
This is a part of the Not A Film Major series where I make quick musings on (possibly) tired tropes, themes, and plots in media. Thankfully I’m am — as the title suggests — not a film major. Nor am I an anime, tv, research, or anything of the sort type of expert. But thoughts are thoughts and I hope you enjoy mine.
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