Film and Society: the role of female characteristics in Chinese films represents the women social status

Introduction:

Qing Dynasty women >>> early Modern women
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In Chinese tradition society, female’s social position bends comparatively. They got married without love; they even have never met their husband before. They were always treated as commodities which were exchanged from one family to another.

In Modern China, especially at the beginning of the twentieth Century, there were great changes. At that time, the Qing Dynasty crumbled, the thought of democracy and equality was rising. Various new ideas constantly impacted on people’s mind.The slavery female status in feudal society had been changing under that situation of the modern society. This change is reflected in different aspects, one of them is film.

There is a saying that film is from yet beyond life. The major social changes and important customs in the modern history of China were shown in almost every film. Different thoughts and ideas were promoted, especially the idea of “women are inferior to men” which was typical representation of the mainstream thought about the relations between the sexes at that time.

Film is like a window through which people see various stories and changes of Chinese women’s social status. So, in this blog, I am going to talk about the representation of female characters in film during that special period in China, and the relationship between film and society.

Movies at the beginning of twentieth century

At the beginning of the twentieth century, female characteristics shaped by Chinese film were vulnerable groups with weak personality and suffering miserable life. There were still some movies showing that the protagonist eventually escaped from the misfortune disease and had the happy ending, but almost all of them needed the material and spiritual support from men, that is, women totally depended on men to start or end their miserable life. If there was no man to give the support, it was very difficult for women to save themselves only by their own ability. Films in this period showed that women’s social status was still lower than men, and women were considered as belonging or appendant to men.

http://img3.douban.com/lpic/s2855152.jpg

Film, “An Orphan” directed by Zhang Huimin in 1929, talks that a girl named Hu Chunmei is forced by her parents to marry a wealthy guy who is a fool. She could not stand such a life and the pressure from her family, so that she escapes from the wealthy guy’s house and is going to end up her life. Luckily, a millionaire, Yang Dapeng rescues and keeps her as a servant. However, she is expelled by Yang’s father cause she always makes mistakes in work. When Yang comes back home, he doesn’t find Hu, so that he goes out and tries to find her back. But at the same time, Hu has already been taken into secret room by people from the family of the fool groom. Yang follows those people and find the secret room, rescues Hu…

This story reveals that, under the effect of feudal thoughts, family social status and fortune is the primary and the only one standard for women’s marriage, women have no right and freedom to marry the guy they love and even they have never ever had the chance to figure out what love is. They just want a happy, easy life. But even this, it’s impossible.

With the rapid development of Chinese industry, more and more workforce was needed, which pushed women into the society. Compared with the “stay at home, marry to a unknown guy and dead” form life, women had the chance to study, connect with the whole society and make money by themselves, which indicates women somewhat end up the life of totally depending on men, but there were still some difficulties waiting for them.

http://www.eeloves.com/memorial
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Film, “A Blind Orphan Girl”, tells the story of a poor girl Li Cuiying who was maltreated by her stepmother. In order to make a living, she worked in a silk mill. On the one hand, she should work for very long time in the extremely bad working conditions; on the other hand, she sufferred the insult from her foreman. One day, she could not stand humiliation any more, so she fought against the foreman, what came next was rape, keeping her wedges and expelling her away from the factory. When she went back home without any money, her stepmother treated her worse. She cried all day , and which even leads her to be blind. Finally, she chose to end up her life…however, at the beginning of the twentieth century, almost all films had the same style which was each sad story should have a happy ending. This film is not the exception, Li Cuiying was saved by a rich guy and they got married ultimately.

This film shows the issues of female workers. Women, as a vulnerable group, not only were treated unfairly in the factory, but also beared the pressure from the poor living conditions and the society. During that period, female workers had not been widely accepted. People still had the thought that women should stay at home and they had no ability to do men’s work, so what women faced with is indignity, doubt and unfair treatment. Nevertheless, these unequal treatments laid the foundation for later women’s rebellion and the ideological improvement of the society.

“A Blind Orphan Girl” was a big sensation at that time; someone mailed a letter to the film company, saying “it reflects the abuse of Chinese industry system, especially the cruel treatment to female worker. All workers were supervised with the unreasonable regulations. It said what we have no right to say, let me thank you in the name of all female workers…  ”

Discussion

Through films, we can see the overall image of women in traditional China. In a male-dominated society, women had no equal economic rights and social forces to really get the liberation. They were ruled by men, and no one can escape from the tragedy of fate. However, these social phenomena enlarged and shown on the screen in the form of film noticed all people to pay attention on, and this is the power of film, reflecting the social issue by telling us various stories. But films at the beginning of 20^th century were not just about the plight of women. We can see from the above two films that there were always a happy ending waiting for our heroine, like marrying to a rich guy and getting a happy life. Here, a rich guy no longer just means a rich guy, but represents the hope of Chinese women’s future.  Similarly, the representation of women in films is not only the girl named Hu Chunmei or Li Cuiying, but also the majority of women and the condition they live in. Society gives the meaning of the image of women, while film accepts and espresses this meaning, and then this meaning is spread into the society again. As the results, it will reinforce the impression of the women social status, or stimulate the women’s struggle for social and economic rights.

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Films are accepted widely and very popular all over the world, because they are the reflection of society; they are stories telling us what happened, is happening and would happen; they are communication between society and every single person in this society; they are friends sharing us some ideas about something. It is the sympathetic chord struck in the hearts of audience that makes films be accepted. Meanwhile, this sympathetic chord is produced by the acceptance of the meaning that characters in film represent. As Stuart Hall (1996) pointed out, in “The work of representation”, “it is us- in society, within human cultures-who make things mean, who signify”, which means the representation of women is mean by us. Since the set-up of the patriarchal society, women had been in a weak social position, they were not treated as equally as men, they didn’t have the chance to go to school and no political rights…Gradually, men were used to dominant women, and women were accustomed to obey men. By this reason, people consider women as the representation of weakness and tragedy. So women roles in films were given the same characteristic. However, “Meanings, consequently, will always change, from one culture or period to another. There is no guarantee that every object in one culture will have an equivalent meaning in another, precisely because cultures differ, sometimes radically, from one another in their codes- the ways they carve up, classify and assign meaning to the world”(Hall,1996).  I think there are three aspects in this sentence: meaning is not fixed; meaning is changed by culture; meaning is altered by period. Taking two above movies into consideration, both of them were produced at the beginning of 20^th century but at different specific times. The first one, “An Orphan”, tends to shape women into a tool of having baby, a slave without working ability and a commodity for money; while the second one gives women more identities, like a normal social person in nowadays that can go out for working and a worker with unfair treatment, in addition to “tool”, “slave” and “commodity”. If we 

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compare the women characteristics at the beginning of 20^th century with the women images in present Chinese films, the difference would be more obvious. The present women are the representation of beauty, freedom and wisdom. “Go LA LA Go!” directed by Xu Jinglei in 2010, told a story about a girl who gets success in business with her wisdom and efforts. This movie was called Chinese “The Devil Wears Prada”(2006). Also, we can see that the women image shown on 2010 Chinese screen has already been shown in 2006 western culture, which means when western women became the representation of freedom and wisdom, Chinese women were still seeking for their new meaning. As known, when western women had the feminist movement in 19^th and early 20^th centuries, women in China still under the pressure from all sides of society. Because of the earlier awakening and rebellion, western women were earlier than Chinese women to get freedom and respect. But I want to emphasize that the reason why the social status of Chinese women developed is the influence of the women images in western movies. Those movies showed the same oppression that Chinese women were standing, and taught Chinese women the methods to resist.  Therefore, the representation of women in films is different at different times in the same country, and different from different cultures in the same period; there is interplay between cultures and cultures, movies and society. In one sentence, representation is not fixed.

Conclusion

Through analysing the movies at the beginning of 20^th century, we can find that the representation of women is different from that of the present women. Women at that time were weaker and had no social status. By comparing Chinese women images with western women images, it shows that women’s representation is different from different cultures and periods.

Film is a microcosm of society, it tells stories from society. Film lets us know the past, the present and the future of society and also gives us a way to try to solve problems or issues we are facing with, just like some western movies taught Chinese women how to fight for their rights. Therefore, film is drawn from society, which in turn affects the society. 

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Reference:

Some ideas about women image in Chinese films were based on : http://www.docin.com/p-461988757.html

Reflective Post: A Reflection on Communication Theory and Practice

As known, the purpose of communication is to convey information, so being a better communicator means conveying it more clearly, and something that comes with reflective practice[1].

Leah Dizon,Communication!!! [2008.08.20].
Step Into My World (PV). Retrieved from:
http://desertheart.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/
communication_cd.jpg

ALES 204 is a university course covering the principles of professional communication, including written, oral, and electronic components. It helps students to apply strategies towards developing effective online and offline written work and oral speaking, improve her or his own communication style or skills and demonstrate a through knowledge of and competency in professional communications. Overall, this course is designed to make you be a better communicator no matter online or offline [1].

Except normal lectures, ALES 204 is also offering a Community Service-Learning (CSL) component, which makes learning come alive by connecting coursework with experiences in local non-profit organizations. Students bring their time and talents to community organizations as part of their studies, challenging them to engage with their learning in fresh new ways and to explore relationships between theory and practice [2]. In this winter term, I take part in one of CSL placements, Campus Food Bank (CFB) with Brenda Le. The Campus Food Bank is a registered non-profit organization that distributes food items and toiletries to all members of the university community –students, staff, alumni and their children. As such, the CFB is governed by a Board of Directors those represents the members of the University Community [3]. The main works for Brenda and I are designing newsletters, doing class presentations and managing CFB Twitter.

Brenda L. & Nian L.(me)
taken in CFB office on Apr. 04. 2012
(Personal Collection, 2012)

Now I am going to tell you more about my experience with Campus Food Bank. Firstly, every Thursday, Brenda and I go to CFB office (1-81 SUB) to have a short meeting with our supervisors, Ashley and Jennifer. During the meeting, we evaluate the past-week works and disscuss the next-week projects, which do improve my English speaking and communication skills.  Secondly, every mouth, we should accomplish four class presentations to tell students more about CFB and the upcoming events. The experience of class presentations makes me less nervous to have public speaking in front of a ton of people. Finally, we applied the knowlege of making poster and Twitter learned from ALES 204 lectures to our CFB newsletter and weekly Twitter. Joining in the CFB gives me a chance to connect lectures with experiences, guides me to explore relationships between theory and practice, improves my communication skills and making friends with Brenda. :)

Epic Food Bank

Retrieved from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gApWXaCTifs

(This is an interesting video to know more about campus food bank, 

we are asked to show the video when we do class presentation, 

but we just showed twice by the limiting time.)

 The Cloud Tag for this blog 'Reflective post' created by Wordle(2012)

In my future, I am going to apply all the communication knowledge learnt from ALES 204 and CSL program to my real professional or non-professional life, like sending professional email to professors or prospective employers, creating business page on Facebook, searching scientific article by google scholar, finding a picture from Flickr, obtaining key words by cloud tag and so on.

If you truly want to be a better communicator, you will be, because you will make the effort to read over and improve what you write or tweet or blog and think carefully before you speak or present [1].


Links to the five blogs I commented on:

1. Brenda Le, by Brenda L
2. LinaMarisH, by Lina H
3. Welcome, by Lina A
4. Green Field, by Yunke X
5. Adventures of an Aspiring Vet, by Jennifer W

References:

[1] Laccetti, J.ALES 204: Communication Theory & Practise:: Winter 2012. Retrieved from: http://ales204-2012.blogspot.ca/

[2] Community Service- Learning, Faculty of ARTS, University of Alberta. Retrieved from: http://www.csl.ualberta.ca/

[3] About Us. Campus Food Bank. Retrieved from: http://campusfoodbank.com/about-us/

My Meander

River meander
Retrieved March 31,2012 from:
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You may be wondering why I write something about “Meander”. Acturally, I don’t know, eiter. But what I can only say that as far as I knew “meander”, I found the defination was not detailed enough to contain its every meaning. As known, in art and architecture, meander is a decotative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated theme; in mythology, Meander is a river god who protects the Maeander River in Turkey; in general, meander is a bend in sinuous watercourse and it is formed when the moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley. However, those explanations are not complete for my meander. I think meander appears everywhere in our life.

Dead Man Cartoon
Retrieved March 31,2012 from:
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Meander appears in our talk. If someone died, we are not willing to say he died straightly, for instead, we would say he passed away. This is what I say “meander in talk”. A large number of people would not say something bad in a direct way, so they change a way to express. We can still use “he died” as an example, there are many ways to say “die”, such as, he is sleeping forever”, “he leaves forever” or “ he lives in our memory”. Nevertheless, “meander in talk” cannot be applied for everything. If you make a definition for a word or explan a topic, you are expected to give esstentials in simple language and use a few simple remarks, insteading of using tons of obscure words. At this moment, if you use “meander”, your audiences will be confused.

Writing
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Meander appears in our writing. For one aspect, meander in writing is like meander in talk, people change the way they write and use another way to desicribe.  So now, we forcus on the other aspect. Creating terror is the most important step in the process of creating horror fiction, and “meander” will make it succeed.  When you read a horror story, you will find that author hardly give a clear description to the mysterious character, and everything seems in fog. By the “meander in writing” in horror fiction, readers are thirst for the ending so that they will finish the story soon. Overall, it is “meander in writing” that makes horror stories more attractive.

Meander appears in the whole process of our life. Because of the meander made by river, we get to kown how to enjoy the scenery along the river bank (not the destanation, but the mood of enjoying the scenery along the way); because of the meander in life (like the setback in life), we get to know how to face with seperation between friends or family members; because of the meander in love (like the hinder in being in love), we get to know how to cherish the moment the one stay with us (the blog, happy life:one gal's plunge into the present, shows a great article about love).

Love
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In my opinion, meander appears everywhere. You don’t know, just since you didn’t notice. If you pay more attention, you will find that meander in talk is a way of talking with implied meaning, meander in writing is a way of using “unclear” words to set a “clear” and attrative  atmosphere for a story, meander in life is challenge and hinder during our life.

Communication...?

JasonSWrench,(2009) Transactional Model of Communication.

Retrieved March 23,2012 from:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/

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Communication is defined as the activity of conveying information. There are three parts, which are senders, sources(messages) and recivers. Senders send messages to recivers, and then recivers give the feedback, in other words, somehow, recivers also can be senders. 


Creature can’t live without communication, and it has many types, like face-to-face talk, online chat, and so on. When I was a kid, I just considered communication as simple face-to-face talk. In my opinion, communication is simply talking to someone. There should be at less two people to do this activity. People who are involved in communication say what they want to share with others, and obtain what they like. During this process, everyone outputs messages and inputs information at the same time. For the content, they can talk about what the next season business project is, or how to manage their garden, or even what their pet eat for this moring. People can talk about whatever they like.

Devidy Pet Warehouse
Retrieved March 23,2012 from:
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However, communication should not be as simple as face-to-face talk, but it can be online chat (long distance talk) or other forms of exchanging information. In our generation, everyone is capable of searching internet, we prefer chat with others by Facebook, MSN, or Twitter instead of in person. We can talk with someone we know, or someone who is completely strange to us. Twitter is a good example. On the one hand, people tweet about their ideas, opinions, or what they are doing, on the other hand, they also gain new information they interested from reading tweets. By searching with # hashtag, I can know how a restaurant is, where to buy a cheap fancy shirt and the result of a dodgeball game and so on. My friend Brenda is sharing her experience about Twitter in her blog named "Confession of a Twitter Skeptic", if you are willing to read, you can go and enjoy.

In addition, reading and writing also can be considered as a type of communication. An author writing an article is a way of showing his opinions or feelings about something, while a reader reading this article is to obtain the author's opinions or feelings. Based on what he gains, the reader may have their own idea about this certain thing and he may make feedback to the author. In a sentence, communication should have the exchange of information.

Now, I am a CSL student and volunteering with University of Alberta Campus Food Bank(CFB), I  should do four class presentations per month to let more students know about our CFB. I think class presentation is another way of communication, since students know more about our services and how to get involved after we presenting.

All in all, communication is sending and receiving information, it has many forms, and we can't live without it!


Watch out ! You are reading my blog, so you and I are having communication NOW !

Sephora.(2009) Funny Hello
Retrieved March 23,2012 from:
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v8zDLKapiSE/s1600/hello.png

Facebook Resume !

Generally, Facebook and a lot of other social media are considered to be strictly for communicating with friends and family. However, with the development of Internet and the advantage of so many social media, more and more businesses are becoming to focus on online services and work. It is very common to see that many companies use email, Twitter and Facebook to provide updates to prospective clients. For instance, girls may receive emails about new items or discount from Victoria’s Secret weekly or even daily; clients of a nutrition consulting company may get the latest news about nutrition technology from this company’s official Twitter or website.

Nowadays, we have the ability and access to many resources by Internet, and we can use our advantage to find a job or different opportunities in our field of study. In order to give other’s attention, you should “show off “ yourself at first, and Facebook gives us a stage to make our unique show. Recently, I made a business page on Facebook for ALES 204 class! In the blank named “Biograph”, I have my academic history (for introducing the process of my education), volunteer experience, skills (for showing my advantage) and contact information. By writing this information on Facebook, it’s easier for people who look for employees to evaluate the potentials, and very convenient for me to get more career chances in my field of study.  In plus, I also wrote something about my interests, and added my links to Twitter and Blog on my professional profile, so that my prospective boss may know me more about my life, character and working abilities. Employers may decide whether I am suitable for the job or not, depending on the information supported on my page. 

It is not very hard to make a business page; you just log in to your Facebook account, click “ Create a page” on the bottom of your homepage and edit your information (fill in blanks like doing a survey). 

It is ALES 204 that changes my idea on Facebook. I find that it is not only a simple chat tool, but also a space for us to gain more career opportunities. I want to learn something more about social media and communicating skills in this amazing course. Now, I am looking forward someone will have access to view my online resume, and I think my ALES classmate Brenda also wants her professional profile to be viewed. Let's go check out! ! ! ! 

Nian Liu Facebook page, Screen Shot.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nian-Liu/310391189013075?sk=info

Who is Nian Liu...?

Hello everyone, 

My Chinese name is Nian Liu, and you can also call me Livy!  I like traveling dancing, photographing and playing piano. and I want to try the all kinds of food around the world. 



(From my iphoto)

In 2009, I attended the "University of Alberta & Wuhan University International Program". I took one year on preparing for studying abroad including materials for student visa, IELTS (International English Language System). Now, I am a second year student in University of Alberta, but a first year student in Nutrition and Food Science program and majoring in Food Science and Technology, because I tansferred from the Faculty of Arts in 2011 fall. Communication is playing an very important role in my life, it helps me make friends, change major successfully, study and so on. I can't live without communication, and no human being can live without communication.



(Created by myself with Microsoft Word)



I think the internet is a very valuable and convenient tool for communication and information exchange, but my current use of social media is fairly small: Facebook (I always forget to check it…), Google(for searching information ), YouTube( for keeping up on the latest news) and Skype (for communication with my parents in China). I just signed up for Twitter several days ago for the ALES 204 course, so there are still many new things for me to learn. 



http://www.sya.org.hk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/facebook_icon.jpg
http://img.china-code.net/newspic/201002/07/20100207085857895.jpg
http://www.kentbusiness.co.uk/images/youtube-logo-lg_m.gif
http://iphone.soomal.com/images/doc/20100918/00007285_02.jpg



The social media I always use is Tencent QQ, generally, we call it QQ. It is the most popular free instant messaging computer program in mainland China. QQ is like MSN, but not quite same. Except for chatting function, we also can make video calls, play mini games, share photos or interesting news in QQ zone. It seems to be the mixture of MSN and Facebook. QQ is the only way for me to keep in touch with my friends in China.



(http://img9.3lian.com/c1/vector2/03/07/14.jpg)

It’s really cool to communicate with our professor with Twitter! In plus, I take part in CSL (Community Service-Learning) program, and I'm going to volunteer in Campus Food Bank with Aimee and Brenda. I am looking forward to gaining more knowledge about Twitter and learning lots of new communication strategies in ALES 204 this term!

(http://pic10.nipic.com/20100930/575755_174804095924_2.jpg)