Abstract
Ihave researched filmic and TV representations of three forms of subjectivity in order to understand how cultural producers negotiate and create within a restricted creative system. Screen products allow us to investigate the complex power dynamics interwoven by the cultural policies of zhuxuanlu and censorship, cultural workers, and viewers, in which power and agency is executed, affirmed, and reclaimed, yet also restrained or counterbalanced by opposing forces. Although the state, in managing cultural policies, has structural supremacy in attempting to manipulate ideology in screen products, its cultural policies are by no means omnipotent or boundless. My six chapters have illustrated that cultural workers and viewers are active participants in the production and interpretation of cultural products in general and screen products in particular, and they have provided answers to the question of “How far can we go?” that I posed in the Introduction.
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Notes
Although Jason McGrath, quoting Chris Berry, reminds us of the fact that some alleged, “banned” films have never been near a censor. I suspect that filmmakers of these films are aware of the censoring bureau’s standards and are able to predict that their films are not pleasant to the state. See Jason McGrath, “The Urban Generation: Underground and Independent Films from the PRC,” in The Chinese Cinema Book, ed. Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: British Film Institute, 2011), 169.
A recent study to fill this gap is Kenny Ng’s article on censorship in postwar Hong Kong. See Kenny Ng, “Inhibition vs. Exhibition: Political Censorship of Chinese and Foreign Cinemas in Postwar Hong Kong,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 2, no. 1 (2008): 23–35.
There is a recent piece of scholarship that aims to fill this research gap. See Ying Zhu and Bruce Robinson, “Cross-Fertilization in Chinese Cinema and Television: A Strategic Turn in Cultural Policy,” in A Companion to Chinese Cinema, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 429–48.
Chen Xudong, Dangdai Zhongguo yingshi wenhua yanjiu 當代中國影視文化研究 [Contemporary cultural studies of film and TV], (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2004).
Mary Farquhar and Yingjin Zhang, “Introduction: Chinese Stars,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 2, no. 2 (2008): 85.
For example, Hsiu-Chuang Deppman has discussed the transnational cultural and social significance of the popular Taiwanese drama Liuxing huayuan 流星花園 [Meteor Garden]. See Hsiu-Chuang Deppman, “Made in Taiwan: An Analysis of Meteor Garden as an East Asian Idol Drama,” in TV China, ed. Ying Zhu and Chris Berry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 90–110.
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© 2015 Wing Shan Ho
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Ho, W.S. (2015). Conclusion. In: Screening Post-1989 China. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514707_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514707_8
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