On Becoming Nora
Henrik Ibsen’s work Nora in A Doll’s House was a timely and influential inspiration to Chinese writers particularly in advocating gender equality and it offered a role model for many a Chinese woman to ‘walk out’ (of household/family bounds) during an era when China looked to the West to reform its society traditionally governed by Confucian principles. ‘To choose the path of Nora’ was a public statement the female singer Zhou Xuan made in 1941 when she announced her ‘walking out’ of her marriage with the famed composer husband Yan Hua. As China’s pop diva with a ‘golden voice’ in the late 1930s and the 40s, Zhou has been credited by cultural historians and musicologists to have popularized a music trend that fused Western jazz and Chinese folk tunes. Her stardom legitimized her role as a cultured, virtuous and sympathized female singer, a profession and public image that was no longer scrutinized as it had been in the 1920s. Highlighting Zhou’s cross-media performance and her ‘walking out’ as a female public figure in this case study, this paper aims to fill the gap between the readings of music and film experts by examining Zhou’s life and career as a performer.