An Analysis of the Changing Representation of the Female Ghost in Chinese Horror Cinema

中国恐怖电影中女鬼形象的变迁分析

• 批准号: 2773619
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Southampton
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2773619
• 关键词: Analysis; Changing; Representation; Female; Ghost

This project intends to investigate the interrelation between China's culture, social- historical context, and the construction of the national views of women and feminism, to present an analysis of how the film industry shifts these notions towards female ghost figures in Chinese horror cinema. Horror films, as part of a national film culture, reveal the concerns and issues of a nation.As Robin Wood addresses, horror films offer a place that allows us to express repressed emotions and rebel against the dominant norms we have been told to observe.2 In other words, horror films enable us to explore social and cultural change and subversion, especially in connection to the women's liberation movement. The supernatural lexicon is used in an incongruous way to express injustice, where ghosts can be allegorical and politically subversive. Such characterisations of ghosts have always been considered a sensitive topic in Chinese national cinema because they seem to counter Marxist historical materialism and socialist realist dogma, and the government believes this to be a hard narrative to control and which anyone could use as a political tool.3 Nonetheless, ghosts have remained a part of Chinese cinema. Today, they exist in ambiguous ghost/human tropes, as psychopathic illusions, and as fantasies, all of which still appeal to the audiences.Chinese folklore and literature feature a number of core ghost figures that have served as archetypes for supernatural characters that have emerged on screen. Having first emerged in 'accounts of the stranger' (Zhiguai xiaoshuo) and developed through the fourth and fifth centuries CE, ghost tales were translated and disseminated across Japan as well as East and Southeast Asia where they merged with local folklore, culture, and religion. In the animistic context of China, and even most Asian countries, ghosts can be any form of spirit, monster, demon, deity, or other creature that coexists with humankind to keep the balance of the universe. In addition to being considered objects of terror, ghosts have also been presented as idols of worship, which has resulted in social and media narratives that obsess over stories of ghost encounters. These media narratives have in turn influenced social, cultural, and political views and inspired stories about the supernatural. Put simply, the representation of ghosts is continuously shaped through the interactions between folklore, culture, society, and the media, and the interplay between these is a mirror of the changes in our reality. The concept of the Chinese ghost presents the living and the dead as equally affected by the construct of gender. As such, in most Asian cinema, the female ghost is frequently established as being motivated by love and waiting for recognition, reincarnation, revenge, or for their loved ones. Drawing from the discussion of female ghosts in Chinese beliefs and literature, particularly research on figures such as female lovesick (virgin) ghosts, the (abandoned) ghost-wife, and the vengeful ghost of a wronged woman, this project aims to carry out a systemic analysis of the on-screen representation of the female ghost figure, how it has been shaped and developed over time, and the relevance of time period and national context. As research on this topic is quite limited, my work seeks to contribute to the literature by creating a review of the changing representation of the female ghost in Chinese horror films produced in mainland China after 1949, and provide a glimpse into how changes in Chinese society have affected national views of women and what issues of gender in these contexts have been told. Currently, most literature on female figures in Chinese horror focuses on films produced during the brief revival period of Chinese horror cinema (1980s-2000s) or provides fragmentary case studies, such as the works of Erin Yu-Tien Huang, Qin Chen, and Li Zeng.

本项目旨在调查中国文化、社会历史背景以及女性和女权主义的民族观建构之间的相互关系，分析电影业如何将这些观念转移到中国恐怖电影中的女性鬼魂形象。恐怖电影作为国家电影文化的一部分，揭示了一个国家的担忧和问题。正如罗宾·伍德所说，恐怖电影提供了一个场所，让我们能够表达压抑的情感并反抗我们被告知要遵守的主导规范。 2 换句话说，恐怖电影使我们能够探索社会和文化的变革和颠覆，特别是与妇女解放运动相关的变革和颠覆。超自然词汇被以一种不协调的方式用来表达不公正，其中鬼魂可能具有寓言性和政治颠覆性。这种对鬼魂的刻画一直被认为是中国民族电影中的敏感话题，因为它们似乎违背了马克思主义历史唯物主义和社会主义现实主义教条，而政府认为这是一种难以控制的叙事，任何人都可以将其用作政治工具。 3 尽管如此，鬼魂仍然是中国电影的一部分。如今，它们以模糊的鬼/人比喻的形式存在，如精神变态的幻觉和幻想，所有这些仍然吸引着观众。中国民间传说和文学以许多核心鬼形象为特色，这些鬼形象已成为出现的超自然人物的原型在屏幕上。鬼故事最早出现在“知怪小说”中，并在公元四世纪和五世纪得到发展，后来被翻译并在日本以及东亚和东南亚传播，并与当地的民间传说、文化和宗教融为一体。在中国乃至大多数亚洲国家的万物有灵论背景下，鬼魂可以是任何形式的精神、怪物、恶魔、神灵或其他与人类共存以维持宇宙平衡的生物。除了被视为恐怖的对象外，鬼魂还被视为崇拜的偶像，这导致社交和媒体叙事痴迷于鬼魂遭遇的故事。这些媒体叙事反过来影响了社会、文化和政治观点，并激发了有关超自然现象的故事。简而言之，鬼魂的表征是通过民俗、文化、社会和媒体之间的相互作用不断塑造的，而它们之间的相互作用是我们现实变化的一面镜子。中国鬼魂的概念表明生者和死者同样受到性别建构的影响。因此，在大多数亚洲电影中，女鬼经常被设定为受爱驱使，等待认可、转世、复仇或等待亲人。本项目借鉴中国信仰和文学中对女鬼的讨论，特别是对相思女鬼、鬼妻鬼妻、冤妇怨鬼等形象的研究，旨在开展系统分析银幕上女鬼形象的表现、其随着时间的推移如何形成和发展，以及时代和国情的相关性。由于对这一主题的研究相当有限，我的工作旨在通过回顾1949年以后中国大陆制作的中国恐怖电影中女鬼形象的变化来为文献做出贡献，并让人们一睹中国社会的变化。影响了国民对妇女的看法以及在这些背景下所讲述的性别问题。目前，大多数关于中国恐怖片中女性形象的文献都集中在中国恐怖电影短暂复兴时期（1980年代至2000年代）制作的电影或提供零碎的案例研究，例如黄雨天、陈钦和李的作品。曾。