All Dogs Deserve to be Beaten: Negotiating Manhood and Nationhood in Chinese TV Dramas

Abstract

The interconnection between nationalism and masculinity in Chinese popular culture has attracted scholarly attention in recent years (Song 2010; Song and Hird 2014). Nationalist sentiments and the images of national heroes in the Chinese media have increasingly become distinctly Chinese characteristics of masculinity in the global age. Perhaps the most conspicuous examples can be found in TV dramas (dianshi lianxuju), an overwhelmingly popular and influential form of entertainment in contemporary China. This chapter discusses the centrality of nationalism in the televisual construction of masculinity in post-socialist China, with a particular focus on a 70-episode drama series entitled The Dog-beating Staff (Dagou gun), a nationwide smash hit in 2013, and explores how television represents a “happy marriage” between the state’s agenda and popular social desire through representations of nationalism and masculinity.