How Far Can We Go: Popular Film and TV Drama in Post-1989 China
Datum
2012-09
Autor:innen
Zeitschriftentitel
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Verlag
University of Oregon
Zusammenfassung
My dissertation addresses two major issues in Chinese contemporary film and TV
studies: the first is the proliferations of new forms of subjectivities and the state’s attempt
to regulate them via the construction of an ideal citizenship on the film and TV screen;
the second is to develop an approach to understand the political economy of screen
culture (yingshi wenhua), as well as freedom and control in post-1989 China. My project
investigates key contemporary state-sponsored (zhuxuanlü) and state-criticized/banned
screen products as a way to explore socialist values advanced by the Chinese Communist
Party, as well as the ways in which and the extent to which individuals are able to
challenge them.
The ways in which my project contributes to the fields of film and TV studies in
China are fourfold. First, close readings of selected films and TV dramas inform us of
three emergent forms of subjectivity that were previously theorized as a synthesized
sublime subject. Second, I conceptualize qualities of the on-screen socialist spirit that the
state uses to counteract the three new forms of subjectivity and maintain its superiority.
Third, by discussing the state’s intervention and control on production and consumption
of screen products, I reveal the state’s vested interests and individuals’ execution of
agency in popular culture. This emphasis on state-individual interactions challenges the current focus on TV and film as merely a profit-oriented industry; it also unravels
conflicted ideologies in screen products and questions the understanding of popular
culture as mainstream culture. Fourth, by achieving the above tasks, my research exposes
that the state’s tolerance of its citizens’ partial freedom is for the purpose of political
stability.
Beschreibung
295 pages
Schlagwörter
Censorship, China, Chinese film, Chinese television, Popular culture, Socialist spirit