Women Through the Lens : : Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema / / Shuqin Cui.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Asian Studies Backlist (2000-2014) eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Cui, Shuqin,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2003]; ©2003
• Year of Publication: 2003
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (336 p.)

Women Through the Lens raises the question of how gender, especially the image of woman, acts as a visual and discursive sign in the creation of the nation-state in twentieth-century China. Tracing the history of Chinese cinema through the last hundred years from the perspective of transnational feminism, Shuqin Cui reveals how women have been granted a "privileged visibility" on screen while being denied discursive positions as subjects. In addition, her careful attention to the visual language system of cinema shows how "woman" has served as the site for the narration of nation in the context of China's changing social and political climate. Placing gender and nation in a historical framework, the book first shows how early productions had their roots in shadow plays, a popular form of public entertainment. In examining the "Red Classics" of socialist cinema as a mass cultural form, the book shows how the utopian vision of emancipating the entire proletariat, women included, produced a collective ideology that declared an end to gender difference. Cui then documents and discusses the cinematic spectacle of woman as essential to such widely popular films as Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" and Zhang Yimou's "Ju Do." Finally, the author brings a feminist perspective to the issues of gender and nation by turning her attention to women directors and their self-representations.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART ONE: EARLY PRODUCTION -- 1. From Shadow-Play to a National Cinema -- 2. Reconstructing History: The (Im)possible Engagement between Feminism and Postmodernism in Stanley Kwan's Center Stage -- PART TWO: SOCIALIST CINEMA -- 3. Constructing and Consuming the Revolutionary Narratives -- 4. Gender Politics and Socialist Discourse in Xie Jin's The Red Detachment of Women -- PART THREE: THE NEWWAVE -- 5. Screening China: National Allegories and International Receptions -- 6. The Search for Male Masculinity and Sexuality in Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou -- 7. Subjected Body and Gendered Identity: Female Impersonation in Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine -- PART FOUR: WOMEN'S FILMS -- 8. Feminism with Chinese Characteristics? -- 9. Desire in Difference: Female Voice and Point of View in Hu Mei's Army Nurse -- 10. Transgender Masquerading in Huang Shuqin's Human,Woman, Demon -- Postscript -- Filmography -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index