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A Study on Films from 1980 to 1991 by Chinese Female Directors from the Perspective of the Female Gaze
- Author(s)
- PENG QINGYUE
- Advisor
- Woo Jin Chang
- Department
- 일반대학원 미디어학과
- Publisher
- The Graduate School, Ajou University
- Publication Year
- 2022-02
- Language
- eng
- Alternative Abstract
- After a decade under the influence of the gaze theory of the West, 1980s Mainland China witnessed the achievements of Chinese female directors. Before 1992, Chinese films were still in their state-run system stage, and nearly all the masterpieces of these female directors were produced during the period. Employing the perspective of gaze theories of Daniel Chandler and Laura Mulvey, the thesis systematically investigates the works of the female directors during the period. Specifically, the study focuses on social and cultural relations depicted as a force and materiality of desire in the gaze theory. According to the theory, the Chinese female images have been solidified by the eyes of the male gaze. Despite the heavy influence of Confucianism, the female directors of the 1980s shifted from using such images to using those expressing women’s perspectives to create female characters with more complex personalities and awakened feminist consciousness. These efforts starkly contrasted with male directors’ films regarding women’s issues in that era. Thus, these female directors changed the traditional images of Chinese women as mothers and wives on the screen. Thus, the traits of female characters in these new films awakened the cultural consciousness, encouraging women to think about their marriages and express their desires in different ways. Under the male gaze, relationships between women are always discordant, but the female characters in these films look at themselves and each other from many different perspectives. In the thesis, the author compares Teng Congcong’s position on gender equality in her film Send Me to the Clouds (送我上青云, 2019), with that of Huang Shuqin’s film, Woman-Demon-Human (人鬼情, 1987). The latter work has been described as the first and only true feminist film in China by numerous scholars. Both films explore the philosophy of nannv youbie (男女有别) in Chinese feminism through the female gaze toward the Other. By analyzing the active gaze of the female characters toward the male characters in other films, the thesis argues that the male characters under the female gaze have not been solidified as symbols of rights in the patriarchal system. Expressing feminist perspectives on politics and personalities, Chinese feminist films were produced in large numbers during the period. Based on the main analysis of seventeen films from this time, the thesis demonstrates that these directors used their modernized cinematic language to show the female active gaze of both the female characters and the female directors on the patriarchal society. Throughout that decade, these female directors endeavored to portray female subjectivity in their films to express personal directorial voices freed from patriarchal societal norms.
- Fulltext
- Appears in Collections:
- Graduate School of Ajou University > Department of Media > 4. Theses(Ph.D)
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