Transnational Chinese Masculinity in Film Representation

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Sheldon Lu
Keyword(s):  
Film Representation ◽  
Chinese Masculinity

Transnational Chinese Masculinity in Film Representation

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Sheldon Lu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Love Story ◽  
Film Representation ◽  
Chinese Masculinity

The chapter traces the evolution of the depiction of transnational Chinese masculinity in selected films directed by Hong Kong directors from the early 1990s to the present time.  It focuses particularly on three films: Farewell China (Ai zai bie xiang de jijie 爱在別鄉的季節‎,1990), directed by Clara Law 罗卓瑶‎; Comrades Almost a Love Story (Tian mimi 甜蜜蜜‎, 1996), directed by Peter Chan 陈可辛‎; and American Dreams in China (Zhongguo hehuoren 中國合夥人‎, 2013), also directed by Peter Chan.  Although the directors are Hong Kong directors and some of the films are classified as Hong Kong films, the films themselves portray male figures originating from mainland China.  All these films tell the stories of Chinese nationals and their attempted journeys overseas in pursuit of some dream.

scholarly journals Masculine Performance in Hong Kong Crime Films from Post-Bruce to the 2000s

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Gabriel F. Y. Tsang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Action Films ◽  
Crime Films ◽  
Crime Film ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Bruce Lee ◽  
Chinese Masculinity ◽  
Artistic Images

Masculinity, in Lacan’s sense, is an imagination. To specifically theorise Chinese masculinity, Kam Louie examined the elements of wen (cultural attainment) and wu (martial valour) rendered through historical or artistic images, and Song Geng and Derek Hird guide the discussions about Chinese manhood represented in everyday life. With a Marxist perspective, Lo Kwai Cheung illustrated the dissolvability of Chinese masculinity under international capitalism. With reference to Aristotle, it is supposed that Chinese masculinity, similar to ‘tragicity’ in nature, can be represented through imitating actions and hence be perceived. Based on Aristotle’s understanding, we can regard actions as ‘iterable’ media (like Derrida’s understanding of written texts) which engender performances according to the genealogy of quantitative mimesis. Integrating theoretical discussions with a chronological approach, my full paper will go through following points in order to summarise the changes in Hong Kong crime films from the post-Bruce Lee era to the 2000s: (1) Hong Kong crime film inherited the martial side of masculinity from action films and became a popular genre since A Better Tomorrow was well received in the mid-1980s. (2) Many directors diversified the interpretation of crime in the late 1980s and the 1990s, but remained a focus on the strength, nimbleness and boldness of men. (3) After the decline of Hong Kong film industry for several years, Infernal Affairs’s success renewed the representation of manhood. (4) From the 2000s to now, male characters in crime films are preferably intelligent and wisely-romantic, like the fragile scholar in ancient China. (5) While globalisation seems to be eliminating the Chineseness of Chinese masculinity, I argue that geographical specificity and different speed of cultural development lead to the impossibility of synchronic masculine similarity. (6) Through a brief discussion concerning Hollywood’s adaptation of Hong Kong films, I argue that local masculinity is not transformable.  

scholarly journals “War on Terror”: The Limitation of Representation of the Film

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-144
Author(s):  
Gegen
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Film Representation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Visual History

History was always written by the winners. Despite the fact that the history of the War on Terror is relatively new, Hollywood is quick to develop a visual history of the conflict. Hollywood’s excellent realism aesthetics were successful in justifying the goal and method of the “war on terror,” interrupting ongoing reality to influence and reconstruct public memory about what happened. This dissertation will use three awarded and influential case studies: The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper to demonstrate the fragmentation of film representation, that the film only speaks for “us.” The dissertation aims to uncover the hidden political unawareness behind film representations, the manner in which those films provide limited versions of what happened, and how the films emphasise the self-subjectivity while objectifying the other.

Tradition, modernity, and Chinese masculinity

Pragmatics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dezheng (William) Feng ◽  
Mandy Hoi Man Yu
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The Other ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Chinese Masculinity ◽  
Traditional Masculinity ◽  
The One

Abstract This article examines the multimodal construction of ideal manhood in male participants’ self-introduction videos in a Chinese reality dating show. A framework is developed to model identity as evaluative attributes and to explicate how they are constructed through linguistic and visual resources. Analysis of 91 videos shows two versions of idealized Chinese masculinity, namely, modern masculinity (mainly embodied by participants who have won a date), and traditional masculinity (mainly embodied by participants who have not won a date). Modern masculinity highlights career-oriented qualities, socio-economic status, and luxurious lifestyles, while traditional masculinity highlights family values, skills in Chinese cultural heritage, and class mobility. The findings provide new understandings of the complexity of Chinese masculinity in the dating show context, which reflects the influence of capitalist globalization on the one hand, and the government’s attempt to govern public conduct and morality on the other.

House, Car, or Permanent Residency?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Ang
Keyword(s):  
Masculinity Studies ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Personal Ads ◽  
Chinese Masculinity ◽  
Permanent Residency ◽  
Subject Making

While male migrants are an understudied group, even less attention has been paid to their heterosexual practices. This chapter locates such practices by examining online personal ads posted by higher-wage mainland Chinese migrant men in Singapore. This chapter empirically contributes to migration and masculinity studies by examining the understudied site of online personal ads. Theoretically, this chapter aims to contribute by firstly, extending Aihwa Ong’s (1999) theory of neoliberal flexibility to an analysis of Chinese masculinity. Secondly, even as Chinese migrant men exemplify neoliberal flexibility, the chapter argues that neoliberalism is not the only condition producing flexible masculinity. Rather, Chinese migrant men’s flexible subject-making can be analyzed as ‘variegated’ and simultaneously situated in cultural and social imaginaries.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Derek Hird ◽  
Geng Song
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
The Other ◽  
Business Markets ◽  
Trading Systems ◽  
Chinese Men ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Romantic Involvement ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Masculinity

This chapter outlines transnational masculinities as a field of Study, and scholarship on transnationally inflected representations of Chinese masculinity and transnationally mobile Chinese men. It identifies three key key characteristics in the scholarly literature on Chinese masculinities in the context of globalization. First, the concept of cosmopolitanism is being increasingly used to explore the localization of globally circulating ideas and images in Chinese masculinities. Second, China’s integration with global financial and trading systems, which has been particularly pronounced since the 1990s, has forced the historically dominant intellectual or scholar-official (shi士‎) class to reconcile itself with the business activities traditionally carried out by the merchant (shang商‎) class. Third, the transnational circulation of models of emotionally expressive and caring fatherhood is significantly influencing Chinese discourses and practices of fathering. Through a detailed analysis of the other chapters in the volume, this chapter argues that it is possible to identify five broad patterns in the transformations of Chinese transnational masculinities: the embrace of localized cosmopolitan masculinities that are part-founded on historical notions and practices of Chinese masculinity; the enmeshment of intellectuals in business markets; emotionally engaged styles of fathering and intimate partnership; romantic involvement with non-Chinese women; and widespread anxiety and sensitivity about perceptions of Chinese masculinity. This chapter concludes that Chinese men are not unique in having to face such issues in transnational contexts; but, as the other chapters in this volume demonstrate, they negotiate them in unique—yet explainable—ways.

scholarly journals Mulan and Moana: Embedded Coloniality and the Search for Authenticity in Disney Animated Film

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Anjirbag
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Walt Disney ◽  
Film Representation ◽  
Animated Film ◽  
Literature And Film

As the consciousness of coloniality, diversity, and the necessity of not only token depictions of otherness but accurate representations of diversity in literature and film has grown, there has been a shift in the processes of adaptation and appropriation used by major film production companies and how they approach representing the other. One clear example of this is the comparison of the depiction of diverse, cross-cultural womanhood between Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Mulan (1998) and Moana (2016). This paper will use a cross-period approach to explore the ways in which a global media conglomerate has and has not shifted its approach to appropriation of the multicultural as other and the implications for representational diversity in the context of globalization and a projected global culture. In one case, a cultural historical tale was decontextualized and reframed, while in the other, cultural actors had a degree of input in the film representation. By examining culturally specific criticisms and scenes from each film, I will explore how the legacy of coloniality can still be seen embedded in the framing of each film, despite the studio’s stated intentions towards diversity and multiculturalism.

Male Honor and Female Chastity in Early China

NAN Nü ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bret Hinsch
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Early China ◽  
Honor Culture ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Chinese Masculinity ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Male Honor

AbstractIn many respects, masculinity in early China resembled practices which have been described by anthropologists researching the Mediterranean region. Maintaining a reputation for honor was particularly important to Chinese manhood. As the individual was tightly integrated into a social group, men had to control the behavior of those around them to defend themselves against possible shame. For this reason, men found it useful to regulate the sexual practices of female kin to defend their own honor. The emergence of female chastity was thus closely tied to the honor culture of early Chinese masculinity.

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