Not Just an Oedipus Retelling: Funeral Parade of Roses
This paper was written for COLT-381: Psychoanalysis and the Arts in Fall 2023. It analyzes a modern film retelling of the tragedy of Oedipus within the 1969 film Funeral Parade of Roses for its messaging on gender identity.
The tale of Oedipus Rex is one of the most renowned Greek tragedies, especially for its infamous association with psychologist Sigmund Freud’s “Oedipus complex”. Although there are many forms of media that have attempted to retell Oedipus’s tale, the oddest, most experiential version is most definitely the 1969 film Funeral Parade of Roses. This gender-swapped adaptation of Oedipus is set in 1960s Tokyo, revolving around Eddie, a young transgender woman, and her other trans friends and their lives. The film explores Eddie’s relationships as an adult, specifically her burgeoning affair with Gonda, the owner of the nightclub Eddie is a hostess at, who is also involved with Leda, the trans madame of the Genet. Subsequently, there is a love triangle between Eddie, Gonda, and Leda, with Leda’s jealousy lording over Eddie and Gonda’s relationship the whole film. To begin, the storyline of the film Funeral Parade of Roses written and directed by Toshio Masumoto is loosely based on Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex. Next, Masumoto chose the story of Oedipus to portray the identity struggle many trans and queer people face, but coupled with a tale many people are familiar with, so there is a refreshing sense of transformation with Eddie’s story. Lastly, Masumoto’s unorthodox style of editing, transcending genre and style, allows for his commentary on gender identity as a whole.
The film serves as a gender-swapped retelling loosely adapted from the Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex. Oedipus is widely associated with the theme of resenting one’s father because of the subconscious, incestuous attraction and attachment to one’s mother. The similarities between Funeral and Oedipus are obvious in the incestuous relationships and the way both couples die at the end. The moment of realization for both Jocasta and Gonda prompts both to kill themselves; when Oedipus and Eddie discover the bodies of their respective parent-lovers, they gouge their eyes out in despair. In both stories, the child kills their parent that is the same gender as them and eventually starts an incestuous relationship with their other parent. Both Oedipus and Eddie have bad relationships with their parents. For instance, Eddie resents her mother enough to stab her with a carving knife, while she never knew her birth father, which subconsciously motivates most of her actions. Similarly, Oedipus kills his father, Laius, right before he marries his mother. Eddie’s situation showcases the Oedipus complex because of her strained, somewhat love-hate relationship with her mother. As a child, Eddie felt as though she and her mother only had each other after her father’s abandonment, so when she saw her mother with another man, she was incensed enough to commit murder. Her mother’s intimate connection with another man that is not Eddie’s father enrages her to the point that her jealousy manifests itself as violence. Through the concept of the Oedipus complex, Eddie subconsciously resents her mother for her intimate connection with her father, a man she never knew. Obviously, Eddie also resents her mother for being unsupportive of her transgenderism, specifically when she had violent outbursts against Eddie when she caught her crossdressing, which also goes hand-in-hand with Eddie’s resentment toward her. Ultimately, Eddie’s Oedipus complex is resolved when she unknowingly begins a sexual relationship with her father, aligning her identity with her mother figure(s).
Masumoto’s choice to retell Oedipus’s tale through Funeral Parade of Roses rather than another myth is most effective because of the versatility of the Oedipal triangle, which is formed by Eddie, Gonda, and Leda in the film. Clearly, Eddie’s lust for Gonda, who, unbeknownst to Eddie for the majority of the movie, is her father, represents the object of her infatuation (the Mother in the Oedipus theory). Meanwhile, even though Eddie is not technically related to Leda, Leda still takes on the roles of Eddie’s competitor for Gonda’s affection and attention and a mother figure. Since the roles of this triangle are gender-swapped, Eddie’s connection to Gonda is threatened by Leda, opposed to how it is usually the child’s connection to their mother disrupted by the Father. Furthermore, the juxtaposition between Leda and Eddie’s characters reveals the tension between tradition and modernity in queer culture. Leda represents tradition with her modest kimonos and conservative thought, such as when she tells Eddie that they need to “have their own pride”. In contrast, Eddie is very flamboyant with trendy outfits and fake eyelashes; she is essentially the epitome of hyper-femininity. The conflict between the two hostesses is caused by the power struggle between the old and young, or tradition versus modernity; Leda is afraid of losing her place as madame, especially with the younger, more beautiful Eddie beginning a relationship with Gonda. So, Eddie has two mother figures she competes against: Leda and her actual biological mother, both of whom she is envious of because of their relationships with the Father, Gonda. In conclusion, adapting the play Oedipus Rex in the film Funeral Parade of Roses was the best choice because of the role of the Oedipal triangle between characters Eddie, Gonda, and Leda.
Masumoto is able to deconstruct the concept of gender identity through his New Wave style of editing. Besides the intention of the film to be a gender-swapped parody of Oedipus Rex, Masumoto does this to give his audience a sneak peek into the usually hidden world of “gay boys” and the subversive punk culture of Tokyo during the ‘60s, all with a bitterly comedic twist. Masumoto blurs the lines between men and women and facade and candidness, rejecting the typical style of editing at the time. Masumoto was very experimental with his editing techniques; one such example is the scene where Leda and Eddie fight, but their verbal sparring is depicted with cartoon bubbles, in addition to their clownish shootout staged with toy guns. He continues with this cartoonish style by using techniques like sped-up action sequences and freeze frames with abrupt cuts, both of which add comedic effect. Masumoto relies on the audience’s knowledge of the western story to add to the humor of Eddie’s situation, since the audience already knows what happens in Oedipus’s tale. In addition, the film features some documentary-style editing, with Eddie, her other trans friends, and random people on the street being interviewed on their perspectives on gender identity and sexuality. These small interviews were so ahead of their time because trans people were generally never given a voice to share their experiences and dispel any misconceptions in the ‘70s. To continue, the black and white shots of the film combined with the surrealist imagery at the beginning give a very somber impression of Eddie’s childhood. One of Eddie’s earliest memories is of a man’s face in her family portrait with a cigarette burning through the photo, obstructing the man’s face, which lends to a disturbing glimpse into her upbringing. These types of seemingly hallucinatory flashbacks combined with the other scenes that reveal childhood molestation and a murder, which is later revealed to be Eddie’s mother and her lover, lend itself to the transphobia and struggle with gender identity Eddie faces. As the film progresses and Eddie gradually loses her sanity, Masumoto chooses to shift the camera angle to by her hip, giving the audience more insight into Eddie’s psyche and her traumas. This switch in angle gives the audience a more intimate understanding of Eddie’s upbringing, normalizing not just the taboo topics of sex, drugs, and nudity, but also the queer lifestyle as a whole, rather than the audience viewing Eddie as something exotic. Eddie’s progressively growing sense of comfort within her identity as a woman is evident during the urinal scene toward the end, when she and her other trans friends pee in the men’s urinals while dressed femininely.
To summarize, the storyline of the film Funeral Parade of Roses written and directed by Toshio Masumoto was adapted from Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex. Then, Masumoto chose the story of Oedipus to portray the identity struggle of many LGBTQ+ individuals, but utilizing a story many people are familiar with, so there is an invigorating sense of transformation with Eddie’s story. Lastly, Masumoto’s New Wave methodology of editing, transcending genre and style, allows for his ultimate intention: social commentary on gender identity.
Works Cited
Funeral Parade of Roses. Directed by Toshio Masumoto, 1969.
“Why Funeral Parade of Roses Is a Landmark of Japanese Queer Cinema.” BFI, www.bfi.org.uk/features/why-funeral-parade-roses-landmark-japanese-queer-cinema#:~:text=Funeral%20Parade%20of%20Roses%20was. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Oedipus Rex.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_Rex
