Reflective Encounters

“The animation in Elizabeth Xu Yuan Li’s three-minute film draws us into a quotidian realm by making its canvas a napkin and its brush a biro. By alternating between two perspectives, one defined by lines of red and blue, another by shading with a red pen, Dinner’s Ready implies a division marked by gender. Such a reading is bolstered by the increasing ubiquity of genital symbolism. This division based on sexual difference is teased out of that most everyday of questions: “do you want me to pick up dinner?”

The DIY aesthetic roots us in the domestic space as we ponder the implications of such a question. For whom does the onus of cooking dinner normally fall onto, and what other expected labours come along with that? Red and blue biros connote binary divisions: male and female, hot and cold. Yet in reality such dichotomies are often subject to “ifs” “buts” and “howevers”, as shown by the startling conclusion to the film. The sedate motions of wringing towels and sliding spaghetti out of the packet make way for hurtling cars and pouncing snakes. Sometimes the reality of our own inequal standing in a relationship leaps out at us just as suddenly.”

— Cathy Brennan