Becoming a Father

Overview

Mao Chenyu's film "Becoming a Father" presents the threat of genetic modification technology to the dominant position of men in a patriarchal society, indirectly expressing the hidden weight carried by women's bodies in the burdened traditions of the inland agricultural community. In the film, Mao Chenyu and his father place a ceramic embryo symbolizing reproductive totems into an earthen kiln, metaphorically representing a sexual activity dominated by males.In this symbolic ritual of female conception, the role played by males is merely a myth of passing on the flame, where the absolute dominant figure of the father can actually be replaced by genetically modified, superior seeds.