The Changing Image of Women Position in Chinese Film Since 1950s

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The Changing Image of Women Position in Chinese Film Since 1950s

Since 1950s, after the Chairman Mao Zedong’s Yanán conference, art and literature had strictly become tools of promoting the ideology of Communist Party, that is, the product of art and literature in China can be classified as highly popanganda. Chairman Mao Zedong and his Communist Party strongly suggested the equality of both genders - male and female. To promote Mao’s theory, certain kind of strong female character's image had been created in films since 1950s, and furthermore, the images of these female characters were changing during the time period.

The common features of the female characters in Chinese film are usually being victimize, they always suffered under certain convention feudal rules, the effect of capitalism, the landlord, or fall victim to certain politics. And the films always targeted on how these female characters fight against those reasons of suffering, and creating tensions to the narrative because these confrontations.

During the Cultural Revolution, a very popular female image had created, it is the White Hair Girl (Baimao Nü) (1972) This female character image is a tough, strong and full of hatred to the feudal landlord who insulted her and her family. Her desire is very obvious -- to revenge. And finally, she ended up with a heroic image in the film with the help from Chairman Mao Zedong and his Communist Party.

However, this film rarely announced the realistic of a female character, that is, despite the obsession hatred of White Hair Girl toward the landlord, and the joy of starting a new life with the Communist Party, audience can rarely feel the other kind of emotion from this female character, for example, the desire of to be loved, is absent in this film. Therefore, in the other hand, another question had been raisen: Do the White Hair Girl necessary to be a female character when she hasn’t shown any of the desire of female? In this film, White Hair Girl is not necessary to be a female, only the reason for it is , a victimized female is more easy to grip audience’s sympathy. And this also suggested the position of women as women itself is not important during that period. But obviously, this film is just purely a popanganda from the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution - a model performance (geming yangbanxi)

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...story. The conflict of old convention and the suffered women are only just part of the problems in China. However, from the popularity of The Yellow Earth and The Red Sorghum in China, we can knew that the problems that similar to the films are still existed quite often in the recent China. This suggested that although the position of women image in the recent film had being risen, but still there are many women and social problem remains in China today.

Bibliography:

McDougall, Bonnie S., The Yellow Earth, The Chinese Univrsity Press, Hong Kong, 1991

Ng, Yvonne, Imagery and Sound in Red Sorghum, 1996

Filmography

Cheung, Yimou, Red Sorghum, (1987)

Chen, Kaige, The Yellow Earth, (1984)

The White Hair Girl (Baimao Nü) (1972)

Bibliography:

McDougall, Bonnie S., The Yellow Earth, The Chinese Univrsity Press, Hong Kong, 1991

Ng, Yvonne, Imagery and Sound in Red Sorghum, http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/FINE/juhde/yvo951.htm, 1996

Filmography

Cheung, Yimou, Red Sorghum, (1987)

Chen, Kaige, The Yellow Earth, (1984)

The White Hair Girl (Baimao Nü) (1972)

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