Image, Gender And Revolutionary Ideology

Through the study of the film images, the invention processes and the audience reflections of Shanghai films Huang Baomei, Sanba Riverside and the Symphony of Shanghai Heroes, the thesis tries to show the revolutionary ideological discourse behind films and the socio-cultural picture during the period of the Great Leap Forward. The author argues that the state has shaped the images of female Model Workers according to the revolutionary ideology, and then used the images to instill the ideology into common people's mind, in order to integrate national action and promote the social structure.The thesis has five chapters other than introduction and conclusion. The introduction is about significance, current situation, train of thought, methods and resources of the study. The conclusion is to summarize the academic point of view of the thesis.Chapter 1, the historical context of the production of the female Model Worker film, explains the historical context constituted by politics, economy, film and gender. The first part shows briefly how Shanghai underwent the Great Leap Forward. The second part analyzes the Great Leap Forward having happened in film circles particularly in Shanghai and focuses on the influence of film policy on film type, creation and management. The third part shows the policy about women in that period. This chapter focuses on Shanghai under the background of national Great Leap Forward, and lays out the context of time and space for next chapters.Chapter 2, the emergence of Shanghai female Model Workers, using Huang Baomei, Yi Shijuan and Ni Haibao as cases, explains how the female Model Workers staged in social and political arena. With the emergence of Shanghai female Model Workers, the state expanded its power. Chinese Communist Party constructed the female Model Workers in actual life in the way of demonstrating with typical examples, ideological education and recalling bitterness in the old society and contrasting it with happiness in the new China. Being subject to the revolutionary ideology, the female Model Workers shouldered the responsibility and undertook the obligation as a member of a nation on their own initiative. They dared to think, dared to speak and dared to act in the Movement of Technological Innovation and Revolution. They emulated, learned from, caught up with and helped each other during socialist emulation. The Great Leap Forward movement strengthened both the state authority and the people's approval of the state authority.Chapter 3, the images of female Model Workers in films, based on Shanghai films Huang Baomei, Sanba Riverside and the Symphony of Shanghai Heroes, describes two types of images of female Model Workers including both the socialist people of a new type working on technological innovations such as Huang Baomei, Yi Shijuan, Tian Lijuan, Cao Huiju and Ni Haibao, and the leader of the People's Commune like Chen Shuzhen. The national imagination and construction of female Model Workers are conveyed through these images. The core values of revolutionary ideology are embedded.Chapter 4, the creation of the female Model Worker film, from the film makers' perspective, analyzes how the images of female Model Workers in films were created. It is both the ideological force and the actress's performance that decide the creation of the images of female Model Workers. About the film type, documentary artistic film representing the Great Leap Forward was required to create. In creation method, Chinese Communist Party leaders, the common people and the film makers were asked to participate in the creation together. In creating characters, it was overemphasized to create the great images of Chinese Communist Party leaders in films. In artistic performance, actresses are required to create the typical character in the typical situation. In a word, the images of female Model Workers in films were more ideological construction than the representation of the actual life. The documentary artistic film is a kind of ideologized realism.Chapter 5, the reproduction of the films of female Model Workers, from the audiences' perspective, argues how the Model Workers' deeds and spirits were reconstructed and reproduced in the common people's actual life. Chinese Communist Party and the government called on the common people to learn from Huang Baomei, Yi Shijuan, Ni Haibao and Chen Shuzhen. Needless to say, film is a constructed field rather than the reproduction of objective world. The audiences accept the revolutionary ideology unconsciously while seeing the movie.