Gendering Chinese Nationalism on the Small Screen

Abstract

A variety of gender-related relationships—between sexism and nationalism; women, the body, and the nation; manhood and nationhood—have emerged in Chinese popular entertainment in recent years, revealing an interesting yet little explored side of Chinese nationalism in the contemporary context. Nationalism reflects an essentially masculinist world view. The rhetoric and norms of masculinity and femininity are closely linked with kinship and family, which in turn constitute the foundation of the nation. Analysis of male and female images in Chinese television programs therefore introduces important gendered issues to contemporary discussions of globalization and Chinese nationalism in response to the limitations of existing studies on Chinese nationalism in the West, which focus primarily on the political dimension and understand such nationalism as a form of one-way indoctrination and propaganda from the top rather than a “structure of feeling” arising from an array of complementary motivations. Through the lens of gender and sexuality in Chinese television, the paper unravels the links between the state agenda and popular imagination/expectations to reveal the ambition and anxiety associated with popular sentiments about China’s rise.