Up the Yangtze Re/Presentation

The documentary Up the Yangtze, gives insight on the dam that was built in China. Although this dam was supposed to be seen as something positive, the audience of this film is not exposed to the positive features of this drastic change. Instead, the audience is shown how families and communities are forced to move all their belongings and head for higher ground due to the flooding caused in certain areas by the dam. 

With this documentary comes the questioning of re/presentation. For example, if the film were funded by the Chinese government, the presentation of the dam would have been completely different. The audience would have perhaps been exposed to more positive aspects of this effort and how it positively affects China as a whole. However, despite the fact that this hydroelectric dam was to bring such good to China, one may not have known of the negative effects it had were it not for how the director chose to portray the individuals in the documentary. 

One issue that comes up when dealing with representation is usually how “accurate” a certain person or subject was represented. I found this interesting while watching Up the Yangtze because one’s interpretation of how “accurate” the portrayal was will change depending on who you ask. For example, from the view of the families with less money, the portrayal was probably very accurate. The documentary showed the flooding of homes and the many people who were forced to gather all of their belongings and move elsewhere. However, for those who supported the building of the dam, they might have felt that this was an inaccurate portrayal because it did not focus on the positive aspects of what the dam would do for China as a whole. 

Another term that I thought applied here was “alterity.” For example, in the film, there was a man who was talking about how the Chinese guards treated him negatively and if they would have had money to bribe the guards, they might have been treated better. Here we are presented with a case of the “other.” Although everyone involved is Chinese, the guards treated the lower class individuals as the “other.” I thought this was ironic because the whole purpose of building the dam was to improve China as a whole. Meanwhile, there is still a clear separation when the guards are treating civilians poorly as they did to the man in the film.