How Hollywood Brought American Culture And Value to China in 20th Century

How Hollywood Brought American Culture
And Value to China in 20th Century

I choose “Visual Media History” as my general research topic and “The Dissemination of Hollywood in 20th Century” as my specific research topic. Here is the general description.

Movie, as one of the essential visual media, dislike news report or posters, which focus more on the timelessness, conveys the culture of the era. In addition, as a combination of the sound and image, movie is more powerful than other media in transformation, because of which, movie can disseminate further both in space and time. Furthermore, movie reflects the realistic world, and is tightly associated with the daily life and development of human being. Therefore, it is a good approach to study visual media history through movie.

And after the first film studio established here, Hollywood has become the booming center of film industry and people have become gradually used to call “Hollywood”, instead of film industry. As Hollywood originated since 1900s, I chose the 20th century to study.

That is the reason why I take this special topic as my research, hoping I can learn a part of the trend of visual media history from this typical direction.

Here are the five questions that I thought out:
a. How Hollywood brought American culture and value to China in 20th century?
b. The world was gradually getting crazy about “American Dream”, which is, in my opinion, partly associated to the dissemination of Hollywood. So here comes the question: How can the movie makers keep the culture consciousness about “American Dream”?
c. In the 20th century, especially among the World War I and World War II, How can Hollywood facilitate the Europe to be so ‘American ’?
d. Why the Hollywood spread globally especially in 1990s?
e. Movie is not as simple as a commodity, which is more likely to be reflection of the ideology of culture. What is the ideology deeply inside of the Hollywood movies?
And I choose “How Hollywood brought American culture and value to China in 20th century” as my research question.

Here is my thesis statement about this question: Unhitched love and family values delivered by Hollywood helped the new generation of Chinese get rid of hackneyed and feudal restrictions and build up their own principles.

He, Q. (2011). Way Down East,“Way Down West”: Hollywood cinema and the rise of conservatism in 1920s China. Frontiers of History in China, 6(4), 505-524.

This passage is searched by the key words “hollywood china 20th”for journals.

He, Q. made some comment of the influence of Hollywood cinema brought to China in the early 20th century by analyzing the movie Way Down East. The words below is favorable of my own thesis statement, as the author suggest that American film did bring new values and thought of free love and women independence to conservative China and get some reflection later as well. It arouse the attention of especially the Chinese intellectuals at that time. It seemed to be the first time that someone stood out to fight for women’s inborn right since they are authorized to lead their own life and strive for a better life just as man. However, it is only one specific movie analysis without more supportive evidence and with no theory or regular figured out. As a result, it did not prove the basis of my statement, but a valuable historical information instead.(150)

Griffith's Way Down East highlights a young woman's trials and tribulations caused by male tyranny and deception. Such films by D. W. Griffith struck a chord in China in the 1920s, when the concerns of women and the loss of family values after the May Fourth movement found expression in film. The embracing of Way Down East in China, particularly among progressive intellectuals, indicates the existence of an anti-May Fourth conservatism. Chinese intellectuals were inspired by Way Down East to deny Chinese women's subjectivity as new women who could control their own destinies; such a denial thereby rejected romantic love as a means of women's emancipation and enlightenment. The intellectual class's jettisoning of the rhetoric of "free love" and free marriage and re-emphasizing family values in the 1920s were conducive to the Nationalist Party's conservative agenda to discipline individuals and Chinese society in the late 1920s and 1930s.Therefore, the "partification" of China during the Nanjing Decade (1927-37) was a direct outgrowth of a conservative consensus that followed upon May Fourth.(p.518)

The movie, Way Down East, reflects the anti-conservatism of women in 1920’s China, after May Fourth Movement. Therefore, the importance of freedom in love and marriage is re-emphasized. (He. Q.,2011, p.158)

The popular of one Hollywood movie, Way Down East, shows the change of the ideology of 1920’s China, which gradually noticed the individuality of women and provided them with tolerance, freedom and respect as human.(He. Q.,2011, p.158)

Gan, W. (2008). Tropical Hong Kong: Narratives of absence and presence in Hollywood and Hong Kong films of the 1950s and 1960s. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 29(1), 8-23.

This passage is searched by the key words “Hong Kong Hollywood” for journals.

The author gives the suggestion that Hong Kong has witnessed a special developing echo in the last century. It was concluded that in 1950s and 1960s, Hong Kong films and tropical Hong Kong films functioned differently and developed separately ultimately. Concomitantly with the extension and dimension of the films coming from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Chinatowns of America, Hong Kong film more and more focused on exoticism about a way to imagine a new picture of a global city it would become. Meanwhile, considering the difference between Hong Kong and Hollywood, the author gives an advisable strategy to develop Hong Kong film. It is obvious that, this article does not concentrate on the relationship between Chinese culture and Hollywood values, but what he pointed out is for my thesis statement which I have mentioned above has basis as well. Since Hong Kong at last became a new presence of transnationality, what it expressed in its films contained external opinions which well influenced the mainland of China indeed.(166)

As such, Hong Kong weather was usually taken for granted as pleasant. Furthermore, as an industry with extensive distribution networks in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and the Chinatowns of America, Hong Kong films were already geared in the 1950s and 1960s to be transnational products of mass entertainment. The specificity of Hong Kong as such was elided. However, the idea of tropical Hong Kong in Hong Kong films functioned differently from Hollywood productions. Tropical Hong Kong in local productions of the 1950s and 1960s was not so much about exoticism as about a way to imagine and reorient Hong Kong as a city located within a diasporic network of overseas Chinese in tropical Southeast Asia and even beyond. If tropical exoticism is a way to evacuate Hong Kong from the Hollywood filmic text, then, in Hong Kong films, the idea of the tropical transforms an absent Hong Kong into a new kind of presence within a geopolitical formation looking beyond the mainland. Comparing the products of these two industries reveals a similar desire to be transnational and yet very different structures of power in the respective visions of Hong Kong and transnationality. (p.10)

For Hong Kong films, the strategy of tropicalization was thus a means to turn away from China and redefine Hong Kong as part of a network of capitalist, modern, overseas Chinese cities located in the sunny tropics of Southeast Asia.(Gan. W., 2008, p.10)

Hong Kong has been playing an important role in movie developing since 20th century. Utilizing the location advantage to develop Hong Kong’s film can be a good strategy, which will be the promoter of entire Chinese movie industry. (Gan. W., 2008, p.10)

Yang, J. (2014). The reinvention of Hollywood's classic white saviour tale in contemporary Chinese cinema: Pavilion of Women and The Flowers of War.Critical Arts, 28(2), 247-263.

This passage is searched by the key words “hollywood china 20th ”for journals.

In this article, Jing Yang narrates the plots of Pavilion of Women and The Flowers of War, and compares with Hollywood’s classic white saviour formula, in which way, the author makes conclusion that the ambivalent reinvention of Hollywood’s white saviour tale in contemporary Chinese cinema is emblematic of a cultural anxiety to assimilate China’s nationalist discourses into an all-embracing global consumerism. In my opinion, the article is useful to my thesis statement, as Jing Yang shows the new ideology of women in the new generation. The main limitation of the article, which I have to point out, is that the survey sample was restricted, thus the author indicates that a further, more extensive research needs to be undertaken to develop a more in-depth saviour tale. Nonetheless, this article will form parts of the basis of my research to show the women ’s ideology in the last period of 20th century.(150)

These two films provide an interesting site for examining the promotion of a new national image for Western and Chinese consumption. The reconfigurations of Hollywood’s classic formula in a Chinese context of warfare, revolution and patriotism, lead to narrative ambiguities and obscure the distinction between the local and the global, the individual and the collective, interracial romance and national allegory. Embedded within a network of capitalist exchange, transnational flows of talent and aesthetic appropriations, Pavilion of Women and The Flowers of War signify a cultural anxiety aimed at assimilating China’s nationalist discourses into an all-embracing global consumerism. By situating both cinematic texts within the politics of film production and reception, this article explores the reinvention of Hollywood’s white savior tale in contemporary Chinese cinema, and its cultural implications. (p.250)

By situating Pavilion of Women and The Flowers of War within the framework of constructing a ‘new’ image of China for global audiences, this article argues that the ambivalent reinvention of Hollywood’s white savior tale in contemporary Chinese cinema is emblematic of a cultural anxiety to assimilate China’s nationalist discourses into an all-embracing global consumerism. (Yang, J. , 2014, p.250)

Although both films’ political and aesthetic attempts are contextualizeed by the consumerist system of today’s global capitalism, the reconfigurations of Hollywood’s white savior tale provide tools to address issues of Chinese nationalism and cultural centrism under the impact of globalization and transnationalism. (Yang, J. , 2014, p.250)

Palmer, R. B. (Ed.). (2007). Twentieth-century American fiction on screen. Cambridge University Press.

This book is searched by the key words “film 20th century” for books.

R. Barton Palmer uses data gained through organisational surveys of Hollywood bestsellers in 20th century in chapter 8 to try to prove the renaissance in Hollywood. His research focus on the development of how these movies became famous gradually which indicates the propagation of Hollywood movies. In this way, this article is useful to my research on assessing a range of flourishing of Hollywood movie， as it gives my research direct evidence for impact  of Hollywood so that somehow this can reflect the transmission of it. And the numerous examples gives this book persuasion so I believe the conclusion in this book is reliable.Barton ’ s study is timely, descriptive, and well-researched. As this article dosen ’ t give the direct proof for women ’ s mind changing at that era, it won’t form the basis of my research, however, it will be useful supplementary information for my research on pay structures.(155)

Adaptation draws attention to the specific negotiations of various kinds involved in the process of transformation. Consideration can then be given to the role the resulting film comes to play within the cinema. The foundational premise of the approaches taken by the contributors to this volume has been that adaptations possess a value in themselves, apart from the ways in which they might be judged as (in)accurate replications of literary originals. Because it is sometimes a goal that guides those responsible for the adaptation process, faithfulness has found a place in the analyses collected here more as an aspect of context rather than a criterion of value. The fact (more often, the promise) of fidelity in some sense can also figure rhetorically in the contextualization of the film, most notably as a feature promoted by the marketing campaign. But very often it plays no crucial role in the transformation process and merits less critical attention than more relevant issues. (p.4)

Transformation is associated with adaptation, consideration and less decisively, the fact of fidelity. ( Palmer, R. B. (Ed.). , 2007, p.4)

Combining cinematic and literary approaches, this volume explores the adaptation process from conception through production and reception. The contributors explore the ways in which political and historical contexts have shaped the transfer from book to screen, and the new perspectives that films bring to literary works. ( Palmer, R. B. (Ed.). , 2007, p.4)

Lawrence, A. (1991). Echo and Narcissus: women's voices in classical Hollywood cinema. Univ of California Press.

This book is searched by the key words “hollywood 20th century” for books.

Amy lists some typical movies in this book which to her opinion standard the popular thought of the people at that time. For instance, in chapter 6, the author question whether a woman's voice can assume authority as the voice of a woman turns on all the issues of women's speech we've examined so far: the way women's voices are positioned within narratives that require their submission to patriarchal roles, how female characters are made to use language that silences them, how the cinematic conventions of visual and audio representation convert woman to spectacle, precluding her status as subject, and the placement of women on the weak end of sound/image hierarchies. This kind of question reflects the awaken of the women ’ s equality, which is quite suitable for my thesis statement. Though the limitation of movies listed is the weakness of this book as evidence, the typicality of the movie’s choosing make it work to ignore this weakness. So it’s still reliable to take this book as a proof to conduct my conclusion.(174)

In classical Hollywood film and much that is written about it, the sound/image hierarchy survives intact. The image is assumed to be the source of enchantment, "the dream screen," the object of the "all-perceiving Eye." Sound, like Echo, seems to fade away if it is mentioned at all. The "gendering" of the image and the sound track has been a key issue in feminist film work, from the widely discussed "male gaze" of the camera to the postulation of "femininity" in theories of film music. 3 As in Ovid, the mutual dependence of sound/image is essential to cinema and, as with Echo, a woman's voice is at the heart of the matter. (p.2)

Since the sound survives intact and is the key issue in feminist film work, woman’s voice is at the heart of the matter. (Lawrence, A., 1991, p.2)

  Feminism generated concomitantly with individualism as the economy and competition rapidly developed in America. (Lawrence, A., 1991, p.2)


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