Images Of China In The 21^st-Century Hollywood Movies:Old Wine In New Bottles

Films are not merely an art, more importantly they are the carrier of culture and represent the social culture floating on the film. Movies are also an effective means to promote cultural exchange and understandings between different nations. Hollywood films, the hegemony in the film industry, exert their influences all around the world.Under the stimulation of diplomacy and economy, the 21st century has witnessed an increase of Chinese elements absorbed in Hollywood movies, which are no longer overtly reflecting an exotic China that is backward, uncivilized, poverty-stricken and sometimes insidious as on the American screen before. More Chinese brands, Chinese faces, landscapes and cityscapes appear in American films today. And Hollywood also favors chinoiserie in the 21st-century movies, which could be proved from the abundant Chinese elements, the adaptation and recreation of China stories appeared in American films. However, these changes do not mean a total and positive change of the image of China. In many cases cultural misunderstanding and bias still exist, reminding us of the stereotypical representations of China and the Chinese people.This thesis makes a comparative study of the images of China in the latest movies of the 21st century from three perspectives, which are the implantation of brands and landscapes, the adaptation and recreation of China story and Chinese faces, with an effort to figure out the characteristics of the images of China in the 21st-century Hollywood films by studying the "newness" and "oldness". The research comes to the conclusion that those seemingly new images are actually old wine in new bottles, the nature of whom has not gone through significant changes.