First, from the example of Althusser’s interpellation,we know subjects could be attained a certain order of social existence because of the force of the law, an indifferent being could be transferred to the discursive or social domain. Butler argues there persists a relation of misrecognition between the law and the subject it compels and the distance or slippage between discursive command and appropriated effect. Butler believes every subject is kind of ambivalent, so there exists a possibility of subversion. That’s why Butler believes there are possibilities for the resignification of sex.

Butler analyzed Is Paris Burning of hooks on the basis of the documentary film. Butler thought a sense of defeat and a sense of insurrection coexist in the drag pageantry in. hooks raised the question whether the cultural location of the filmmaker is absent from the film, Butler thinks neither Livingston nor hooks considers the place and force of ethnicity in the articulation of kinship relations. Camera is empowered as phallic instrument to help arise transsexualization and transubstantiation, Livingston is the one who controls the camera, she has the power and ability to help those balck gay men become women. Butler said hooks questioned the validity of this film, because we don’t even know the real life of those queer people in the film, they seem no connection to the world out of drag houses. Anyway, this is a film shaped from a perspective and standpoint specific to Livingston, she decided what scenes to be filmed. Butler agrees with hooks that there is always a unmarked white gaze in the film. Butler found hooks neglected those light-skinned people in the film, not only those black gay people have an aspiration of transubstantiation into an idealized femininity and the status of whiteness.

Butler thought Paris Is Burning expressed a cultural reelaboration of kinship, the ball and the houses are a set of kinship relations, a social and discursive building of community. The resignification of the family by the reiterations of those terms “mother” and ”house” and an appropriation of dominant norms represents and realizes the kinship relations between those people in the “marginalized cultural” background in Paris Is Burning.

Butler deemed there is no necessary relation between drag and subversion, even though drag ball seems like a way of subversive behavior, the drag itself is a site of a certain ambivalence, a site of idealized identification as well. In the film, the denaturalization of gender and race has been realized, the differentiation between different genders and races has disappeared. Heterosexuality still plays a dominant role in their inner center, it’s the “cause” of lesbian desire, their expressions and behaviors of homosexuality come from the abjection and failure—a mask of heterosexuality, which is ambivalent itself. Different from the viewpoint of hooks, Butler places emphasis on the authenticity and possibility of the transsexualization of those people in the film. As to Butler, their identity is not determined by their physiological attributes, there are norms governing the intelligibility of sex, their conscious, the drag all give us the hint their gender is not easy to be defined. The drag has a force of symbolic reiterations, like the example of “name” or the “I”, it seems they change the way we see ourselves. But I have reservations about this opinion, I believe the objective fact–the body is undoubtably the determinant of who we are, our gender won’t be materialized by the dress nor the temperament, and the gender is always stable.

As one of the most influential cultural works, Paris Is Burning chronicles the ball culture of New York City at the time – the flamboyant gay and trans-gendered party scene peopled largely by young, poor and dispossessed blacks and Latinos. In the pursuit of fun and escapism, it seems like every race or minority group has its ethnicity and a sense of pride. Indeed, this film also involves serious issues and pressures about race, class, gender and poverty in contemporary America, they are both progressive and reactionary, it is also the topic we should notice today.

Sexism should be the first step to deal with racism. The proposition of feminism has a wide range, it’s comprehensive—not only genders, but also race, religion, ethnics, etc. After thousands years of patriarchy, people are afraid that matriarchy would replace patriarchy, they criticize and hold opposite opinions on feminism, that’s because they do not understand feminism at all. Feminism does not mean a gender dominate the other, the ultimate goal of the feminist is peaceful gender coexistence. The reason why a lot of people consider themselves as “feminists” is nothing more than the anger of gender discrimination, or for reasons of their own gender, their interests are jeopardized, this is quite a natural thing, because anger is an instinctive reaction, but the anger does not mean that you are a feminist. In my opinion, because of certain physiological vulnerability, it is difficult for female to overcome male in many areas, female leaders are always in the minority. What I’ve said is a longstanding phenomenon, on this basis, we’d better make a change. Feminists advocate women should have economic independence, substantial mind, sexual autonomy, etc., gender and right equality is the main purpose. As to bell hooks, that’s not enough. We can find bell hooks is a special feminist because she doesn’t even want any capitals in her name, it’s a way to express her essential connection with female ancestors.

When watching the film 《Paris is burning》 in the cinema, she could always feel the sorrow and pain in dramatic scenes which seemed “entertaining”, while white folks in the audience take pride in their way of life of ruling-class patriarchal white culture. She argues Livingston does not have a universal and profound recognition about black gay subculture in the white supremacist, or she would rather not demonstrate her cultural standpoint or talk about her real opinion on this phenomenon, her comments and interview do not convey any serious thought about either the political or aesthetic implications of her film. hooks deems appearing black gay men in drag or transsexualism is a symbol of powerlessness, black men are not allowed full access to patriarchal power, so they show their misogynist masculinity through the contempt for the black female and black gay men, they even help sustain sexism and racism in the society, the ritual and pageant of the entertaining dramatic display show their willingness to approach white culture, although in the cultural backdrop of sexual equality, she takes it as an experience as retrograde. She also thinks this movie implies black people have a sense of worship at the throne of whiteness, the obsession of black men with an idealized vision of femininity is totally personified by whiteness.

Is the femininity most adored should be the exclusive property of white womanhood? Then what should black female do? Meekly accept and bear humiliations? bell hooks thinks the feminist movement is radical, “consciousness-raising” is the first step towards feminism, we must have a profound reflection on “sexism”, even if some consciousness, the lack of criticism of patriarchy makes it still very difficult to talk about substantial progress. Everyone should break through illusions, confront reality and enhance his capacity to live more fully in a world beyond fantasy.

Technological reproducibility has brought a serious of changes in the domain of art, the transformation of art is, in a large extent, promoted by the development of technology, modern artworks are now endowed with new modes, features and values along with the destruction of traditional specificities.

I noticed that “aura” is a keyword in this article, it plays an important role in Benjamin’s theories. The aura of traditional artworks has three characteristics:

1.Authenticity: the here and now. No matter in which way technological reproduction being accomplished, technological reproduction does not have the authenticity of the original. It is not the one and only object in that specific circumstance.

On one hand, the independence of technological reproduction jeopardizes and devalues the here and now of artwork; on the other hand, its independence seems superior to the nature of authenticity, it detaches the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition, it also helps the original to reach recipients in their won situation. Anyway, authenticity of artwork is irreplaceable, it’s the essential reason and the most important aspect to the aura of the original.

2. The value of cult. The earliest artworks have their basis in ritual, magical or religious function of artworks is always a part of the aura. Because of this traditional artistic concept, repetition or similarity have always been seen as a despised artistic creation, pastiche is often contemplated as a mediocre performance and creativity recession, suffered taunts. With the development of the history and art, this function of worship gradually reduces, but it has always been associated with the production and appreciation of the work of art, just become unconscious from consciousness. Technological reproducibility separates artworks from its parasitic obedience to ritual and its basis in cult, the mystique of artwork is dispelled by numerous reproductions. It is an important driving force behind the destruction of the aura. The artistic function revealed at last, the social function of art is revolutionized.

Besides, the shift of two poles in the artwork itself—cult value and exhibition value—one increases while the other one weakens is a getting increasingly distinct with the development of technological reproducibility.

3. A strange tissue of space and time. The third characteristic is linked closely to the two above characteristics, the distance of space and time comes from the uniqueness and the value of cult of artworks, the distance from the present-day to “the here and now” underlines the uniqueness and permanence of the original. There always exists inaccessibility to the work of art because of this distance.

With the passage of time, the annihilation of the aura is inevitable, Williams cherished regret for the disappearance of the aura, but he has taken a more positive perspective on an inevitable historical change—the renewal of original.

Then, I’d like to talk about film, the seventh art—the integration of other six arts—literature, drama, music, sculpture, painting and architecture. It’s unsurprising that Benjamin takes film as the representative of technological reproducibility, the first art form whose artistic character is entirely determined by its reproducibility, the artwork most capable of improvement. Film is closely associated with technological advancements—after the Industrial Revolution, technologies have made astonishing progress—photography, montage, lighting, synchronism, dubbing, even the apparition of 3D. As the most interpenetration of reality with equipment, filmmaking is highly significant in the realm of artworks and the relation between the masses and the art.

However, progressive factors of technological reproduction have not caused sufficient attention; on contrary, it often lead to people’s misunderstanding, and even some degree of hostility. Benjamin’s close friend, the famous scholar of the Frankfurt School, Adorno, thinks that the cultural industry of technology-based replication always meets the needs of consumers, it is prescribed by the community, the consumer is always just the object of the cultural industry. Adorno argues that film inhibits the subjective creativity and imagination of the audience, technological reproduction will hinder people from understanding the world. In my opinion, that sort of criticism is biased. They completely oppose reproduction to creation. In fact, in today’s society, reproduction and creation are not inconsistent or contradictory. Nowadays, cinematography has become mature, an increasing number of excellent films are appreciated by the audience. Technological reproducibility of films leads to profound changes in the way we think about this world and our life, it has a tremendous influence on our apperception of the relation between reality and fiction, the masses and the art are now closely connected by the film.

Culture is ordinary, in the society and individual mind. Williams summarized the nature of culture: both traditional and creative; it’s both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. Culture has two senses: a whole way of life; the arts and learning, and Williams insisted on the significance of their conjunctions.

Williams raised his arguments by objecting to Marxists and Leavis：The Marxists indicated that culture is class-dominated, it is restricted to a small class and being passively accepted by the masses. Williams gave strong backing to working people, he argued that the culture in the great working-class political and industrial institutions is the best basis for English society. Leavis thought through education, we can maintain the finest individual values to resist the new vulgarity brought by Industrial Revolution. However, Williams emphasized that Industrial Revolution changed certain social and political modes and values, we can’t deny its satisfactory results and its influence on the working people.

The art and learning should be available to everyone in the society, everyone can have an interest in learning or the arts, culture is the product of a man’s whole committed personal and social experience. At the same time, Williams distinguished the ordinary people and the masses (mob, sometimes ignorant, low in taste and habit). The way of saying of “popular culture” replaces “mass culture”.

The content conveyed by the mass media is always the representation of culture? Williams held a rejection on this opinion. What influence will it bring to the public? The equation between popular education and commercial culture is always changeable in different historical periods, it’s not a true guide to the present state of mind.

Actually, Williams wants to establish “a democratic common culture”, a working- class culture, which contains the fundamental and common social process and practical significance, it stands for the interest and social status of working class. The hierarchy of culture has been removed and the distance between culture and people’s life has been reduced, the sphere of culture will be enlarged, culture represents the various elements of the entire lifestyle. Values and creativity of the ordinary people will be acknowledged, not only those so-called cultivated people or scholars. Then Williams drew a conclusion that the culture is expanding, “common culture” reflects the diversification of culture, the pluralism.

I remember a phrase: “A child should be exposed to culture at an early age.” From a traditional standpoint, it means children should read earlier, get the hang of art, go to museums or a concert as early as possible. Does this phrase still make sense to Williams? First, educational opportunity can be taken equally by everyone in every social stratum; if culture is ordinary, We can find culture everywhere, a child will notice and deliberate every detail in his living environment and his way of life, culture is indispensable to his everyday life, or we can say, culture is life, it’s not an independent art or learning, then children can experience its modes of change, there doesn’t exist anymore the way of saying: ”Children should be exposed to culture as early as possible.” Bring the children to a concert or a museum at an early age can be seemed as just a part of culture infiltration.

The definition of “culture” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary has different classifications, the first one is “way of life”, then “art/ music/ literature”, then “beliefs/ attitudes”. I’ve been thinking about a question about culture and civilization, to distinguish their literal notion, I looked up “civilization”–a society, its culture and its way of life during a particular period of time or in a particular part of the world. Does this mean the sphere of civilization is larger than culture? They both need specific social circumstance to develop, to change, since the definition of culture has changed, will it bring any literal or practical changes to civilization?

Derrida highly appreciated Austin’s study of performatives, but he also launched an attack towards Austin, and he emphasized that the dividing line between performatives and contatives is not absolute, they are not excluding, on the contrary, there exists utterances being both of performatives and contatives. Derrida also found a destructional strategy in Austin’s work—replacing performatives—the “marginal study” as the “center” of  linguistic study.

Derrida made clear his position on the question of “iterability”. He was opposed to Austin’s suggestion excluding those “non-serious” utterances—perfomative utterances said by an actor on the stage, or introduced in a poem, or spoken in soliloquy. Because signs possess the characteristic of being readable, every sign, no matter linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written, can be cited, Derrida thought “citation” reflects the mechanism of iterability—the prerequite to performatives. The “non-serious” will no longer be able to be excluded from “ordinary” language as Austin wished. He illustrated that writing is a means of perpetuating thoughts and signs in the absence of the receiver and the writer, the presence and intentions belong to the structure, written signs guarantee the iteration and the readability, iterability is the most important characters of writing. Writing will not be parasitic on spoken language anymore, spoken language won’t be superior to writing because of its directness. The assimilation of speech to writing can be accomplished in the condition of iterability.

But Searle emphasized that Derrida confused the iterability and the permanence of writing. It’s undeniable that Derrida has put forward an important argument, but I personally agree with Searle’s opinion—permanence is essential to the conservation and circulation of writing. As to me, iterability is an inherent characteristic of linguistic signs, the improvement and enlargement is the inherent law of linguistic development as well. In his attempt to defend Austin and the theory of speech act, Searle argued that iterability is the necessary presupposition of the forms which that intentionality takes instead of something in conflict with the intentionality of linguistic acts. Besides, Searle thought Derrida misunderstood Austin’s argument about “non-serious” utterances, which are not supposed to be standard examples to be analyzed, Derrida mistook “the status of Austin’s exclusion of parasitic forms of discourse from his preliminary investigations of speech acts”. Besides, Searle argued there is no any moral judgment on the term “parasitic” and Derrida confused citationality with parasitic discourse.

Derrida questioned Austin explaining meaning in terms of context, he thought Austin attached importance on context, analyse of Austin requires a value of context, even there is only an obscure context, “intention”, which affects performative utterances, will always depends on context. Then performative communication becomes the communication of an intentional meaning of writer or speaker, even if that meaning has no referent. The presence of intention and purport means everything is in an integrated sense, including conventions, grammar of words and phrases or other semantic components. Derrida indicated that meaning does not come from the determinate context, but comes from the iterability of utterances. Austin argued that there is no “pure” performative, those “non-serious” performatives are “parasitic” upon on “ordinary” language. Derrida thought that the normal or parasitic uses of language could not be definitely determined, he claimed that there is a complementation, to illustrate meaning coming from the iterability, Derrida gave the example of signature: the absolute singularity of a signature-event and a signature-form must be retained to assure the effects of signature, and a signature must have a repeatable, iterable and imitable form and be detached from the present and singular intention of its production because of the rigorous purity of those effets. Derrida is opposed to Austin’s opinion that speech act theory can derive an explicit content, this example of signature also explained iterability of utterances and indicated that in different content, the latent sense is changeable.

We could not judge whose argument is superior though the debate, the controversy between Jacques Derrida and John Searle focusing on Austin’s theory of speech act may reflect the misunderstanding between Anglo-American and the continental philosophies.

As the founder of speech acts theory, Austin made a distinction between “performatives” and ”constatives”, he specified there kinds of speech acts：the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, the perlocutionary act, he changed the way people considering the relation between language, mind and the world.

The contents and functions of statements are various. True value is not the only standard to assess a sentence. To start from the words and expressions for everyday use, Austin indicated that on different occasions, in different language circumstances, the language use is an activity of performing an action. The object of linguistic study should be the action fulfilled by the words and phrases, linguistic theory is just a part of linguistic acts theory.

Austin saw language as a kind of social activity, the notion of performatives: the performative utterance has its own special job, it is used to perform an action rather than just to say or assert something. There is no true or false to evaluate performative sentences, but the performatives could be void or inappropriate when something goes wrong. Then Austin stated characteristics of performatives, he examined the origin of failures and explained several “Infelicities” and six “felicity conditions” of avoiding unhappy function of performatives.

In this article, there are two points provoking my interest. First of all, we know the appropriate circumstance and conventional formula are of importance for the functioning of performatives—to perform an action, vice versa, the utterance can also be influenced by acts, I’d like to emphasize the effect of actions on performatives. Austin gave us several examples illustrating this argument, the most representative one is that marriage can be effected by cohabiting rather than uttering words in a ceremony. If we want the action being seen as done, the performative utterance is not the only necessary prerequisite. That’s to say, people can use their own bodily movements and actions to express meaning, then the body and their actions become signs of expressing meaning instead of performatives. Language and action are both the way connecting the world and our mind. Actually, I think this argument narrows the gap between acts and utterances. It’s not difficult to understand, because there is no impassable gulf separating the utterances and actions that’s also what Austin what to express.

Secondly, in performatives, Austin found other values which function independently among the words and grammatical structure of the utterance, all the illocutionary acts can convey meanings, they also have a certain force. he differentiated these two linguistic terms—semantic meaning and pragmatic force, performatives mean uttering un utterance which has a certain conventional force, like give orders, warning, make a bet, etc..Because of force, listeners can understand the sense of utterances through context, and utterances can have certain effect on listeners. One of the best examples is the law of effect. On an appropriate occasion, after appropriate procedures, all the circumstances are appropriate in certain ways, the judge says:” I announce you guilty!” or the minister announces on a marriage ceremony:”I now announce you husband and wife!”, then their utterances will produce a force to make the announcement effective and make listeners believe this is true. The purport of utterance should be the combination of sense and force. This argument reflects the connection and distinction between semantics and pragmatics, it’s also a symbolic representation of Austin’s philosophical intelligence.

In 《In the Penal Colony》, a Western traveler was invited by a commandant to inspect an execution of a criminal on an island and a succession of events happened. First of all, we can notice that the Officer was so proud of the “artistic” apparatus and he introduced and explained eagerly the most comprehensive process of judicial operation to the Traveler. There were lots of details describing the apparatus in motion, not that bloody but it was really a nauseating inhumanity. The Officer was the single advocate and defender, but he lacked the Old Commandant’s power. He knew the apparatus’ objections and he realized the Traveler would be dissatisfied with the execution, but he still tried to persuade the Traveler to support him. The Traveler, who came from the Europe with an open cultural ideology could accept different ideologies, but was incapable of approving historical retrogression. However, as a foreigner, an outsider, the Traveler prefer to stay silent with an ambivalence in attitude toward this death penalty until the Officer begged him to be his partner, the Traveler resolutely opposed the Officer’s suggestions. He showed his respect, understanding and sympathy to the Officer, and he didn’t intervene in the process when the Officer decided to put himself to torture. The Soldier and the Condemned Man were the symbol of the masses in that epoch—who gathered together to watch the execution as a grand and spectacular occasion. The Condemned Man didn’t even know he had been condemned or sentenced, and he had no right to defend himself, which is regarded by the Officer as meaningless. When the inscription was made on his body, he was suffering, but later, he enjoyed the rice buddings with the Soldier. It’s a transformation in attitude from resistant passively to insensitive. Without the Traveler, the death penalty would have been executed successfully as usual, nothing would change, why the “passer-by” is so important in this story? Kafka wrote this character as a stranger out of the social structure and constraint, it’s a rescue altering the criticized judicial systems. To escape the situation as a bystander, it’s also a personal thought of Kafka.

In this novel, we can find many literal elements, like mystical transformations, alienation, physical cruelty. Besides, lots of implied meanings are hidden in this story. First of all, I’ll like to talk about the relation between the technology and the human being. This apparatus was designed by the Old Commandant, who controlled the organization of the entire penal colony and had the absolute power of life and death over millions. Like the phrase said in a passage, the Old Commandant is the combination of soldier, judge, engineer, chemist and draftsman. The Old Commandant took the machine as an achievement—a combination of technologic breakthrough and aesthetic principles, it was endowed without any emotion, it’s an sternly indifferent machine rather than a cruel machine. So how can we deal with the relation between the technology and the humanity? Technological advancements strength human being’s force, but also accelerate the alienation between them, people are getting indifferent. Secondly, Kafka implied different political strategies through the description of two commandants. The Old Commandant advocated the hegemonism—the concentration of power, but the Present Commandant, he didn’t like the process of execution invented by the Old Commandant and he had a bad relationship with the Officer, he didn’t show up, but he invited the Traveler to represent him, to help him achieve the goal of consolidating the new power. He might have human opinions and supported a more civilized judicial system, but he didn’t take a firm hand to forbid the method of execution, he wanted to cripple and disorganize the old power and forces from the viewpoint of political consideration. Politicians are always tricky. Finally, another noticeable plot—the obstinate attitude and compromise of the Officer. The Officer eventually chose to end his life by experiencing the operation of apparatus, I believe he must had a fierce inward struggle for ages, then the Traveler made him clear-minded, his behaviors stir up our inmost feelings, his ultimate result even made him heroic. This successful character and his unstable thoughts were created as a representation of those anxious people who were living in the period of cultural transition.

In addition, there are other things for us to ponder, like the death, the penalty, the rescue, the wisdom and the conspiracy, etc.. Kafka left us lots of enigmas to probe, everyone may have their own understanding and choice in different historic periods, this is one of the charms of Kafka’s works as well.