Chinese Cinema and Society final paper Social Sciences Term Paper

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Chinese Cinema and Society.
Homosexuality
Society is dynamic. There are numerous variations and complexities in the way of lives of people living in a particular community. People have different lifestyles, principles, perceptions, concepts, and perspectives on various matters, especially on the issue of gender and sexuality. In China, in the last thirty years, discussions on gender and sexuality have become an increasingly significant area of inquiry in various academic disciplines. In the field of cinema, literature, and culture, the matter has been focused on the female gender. However, as an emerging field, in the study of same-sex sexuality, scholars have begun to emphasize the male gender. Taiwanese literature has represented their thoughts on homosexuality in films, and there is no representation in the 1990s, movies that were created on the topic in the 21st century were arguably transitional (Lim 27). Since cinema is rendered the fast-rising and most efficient area of analysis, modern contemporary Chinese films have represented the theme of sexuality in different ways, as shown in the study of the movie below.
The theme has been represented in many Chinese films such as The Wedding Banquet and Happy Together. The subject matter in The Wedding Banquet revolves around an interracial gay couple from the USA. A young individual from Taiwan called Wai-Tung is gay in his late 20s, living with his American lover, Simon, who is a physical therapist, in a brownstone in New York (Whitney 59). Their relationship is going well except for the fact that he keeps receiving messages and phone calls from his parents, telling him that, with ultimate urgency, he needs to set a date for his marriage to a nice young Chinese girl, so that he could present them with a grandchild in their old age. This is because his parents are not aware of his relationship when he was still living with them in Taiwan; he never came out to them, nor introduced his boyfriend. Additionally, the two explain the development of their gay relationship in different instances, such as when they are kissing in front of Wei-Wei, sleeping together in bed, holding hands, and playing together.
The theme of homosexuality has been represented in the film using motion pictures that have been caught in various cinematographic styles. Over the shoulder shot, two shots close up shots, and excellent lighting have been used throughout the movie to bring out the subject matter. Over the shoulder shot has been employed in the instance when Wai-Tung and Simon are sitting up naked in bed while Wai-Tung complains that the failure of the plan is Simon's fault because it was his idea. The shot shows that the two are lovers, and their relationship is so good that they are comfortable enough to be in nightwear around each other (Song 56). At the start of the film, Wai-Tung is seen working out in the gym while listening to his mother's cassette tape. The first of the two implications of the scene is that Wai-Tung is being introduced as a more masculine side of the couple because of the use of close-up shots to cover his muscles and face. The other implication is that while he is at the gym, he attempts to lift the burden of the expectations of his parents.
Post-Mao Urban Transformation
Mao's death in September 1976 replaced a prosperous figure from Chinese politics and marked the beginning of the country's struggle for succession. One month after the death of the leader, Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four" were arrested. The reforms were followed by a new form of pragmatic leadership that focused on economic development. The system announced the rejection of mass political movements. Zhu and Stanley say that by the end of 1976, new economic change policies were adopted and passed to expand rural-urban income and incentives, encouraging demonstration of enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and to attract foreign investment in China (174). The committee also made attempts to accelerate the capacity of the driving of legal peace reform policies surrounding the passage of new legal codes in 1979. As a theme, the post-Mao urban transformation has been vastly represented in most of the modern forms of literature in China, including movies, books, and other media.
In the theme, the term "transformation" describes the transition and emphasis on the issue of change. The transformation of cities in China, especially on the notion of economic, demographic, and urban physical change has been represented in the film, Last Train Home by Fan Lixin. The extraordinary story of "Last Train Home" starts with the revelation of a simple fact that over 130 million migrant employees travel home to their rural villages every year for New Year's Eve. Chan says that it is the world's most massive human migration (73). Cinéma vérité, also called observational cinema, has been used to capture the significance of the subject matter conveyed via its intimate portrayal of a single-family called the Zhangs, whose parents decided to leave their children under the care of the grandparents in their rural home to go to the city to work in urban factories. Another film with essential features of urban transformation on the topic of social and economic change is Unknown Pleasures. The film follows a nineteen-year-old individual called Bin Bin, who lives with his mother in the industrial city of Datong in China's Shanxi province in 2001. Due to the country's economy and the rapid changes in its governance, the two are forced to work in the city's top textile industry (Michael 102). Bin Bin's friend, Xiao Ji, lives with his father in a small apartment because his father rides his motorbike around the city for a living.
The global context of urban transformation has been presented using different shots and cinematographic styles in the two films. In Last Train Home, the economic and political reforms have been captured using an extreme long shot that shows an extensive-angle area that indicates a large number of people in the train station. The shot also covers the whole of China's industrial area where the people work. Moreover, the shot has been used as an establishing shot when the director changes from the 130 million migrant workers to show the rural home of the Zhang family (Ramaeker 117). In Unknown Pleasures, the director has used an extreme long shot to manifest the nature of the development of the Datong City of China. The shot covers a large number of people in their daily activities around the city. These two cinematographic styles have been used to show how the country adopted the policies of change in the post-Mao era to facilitate urban development.
Cross-Culturalism
Cross culturalism is referred to as a comparative study that addresses numerous fields of cultural analysis that examines how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate. It is a form of interaction that revolves around disparate cultural groups. The terms related to the definition of the theme are cross-cultural communication, interculturalism, transculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and cultural diversity, among others. Besides, the core representation of the idea in films is in the creation of a transnational China. Equally important, 2001 marked the success of transnationalism and globalization in the Chinese film industry culture and identity. Fairlamb states that there was a significant form of the flow of culture and changes in the economic concept of globalization that acknowledged several inclusionist ideas of cross-culturalism and transition beyond boundaries (195). The dominance of Westernization influences the transnational process, and as seen from its depiction in films, Ang Lee attempts to place China and the culture of the people on the map.
Two films that contain an aspect of...