Recent shows including ‘The Romance of Tiger and Rose’ and ‘We Are All Alone’ advocating women’s empowerment are finding large audiences in China
Postmodernism takes China with a storm.
In the recent Chinese fantasy period drama series The Romance of Tiger and Rose, women are the stronger sex. They scold men for courting attention by showing off their legs, and male children are looked down upon and considered useless. In this ancient matriarchal society, men are not allowed to study or hold official positions. The whole premise of the show is the reversal of gender roles as we know it – and the audience in China just couldn’t get enough of it when it aired exclusively on Tencent Video between May 18 and June 1, racking up 1 billion views.
SCMP
Chinese TV shows with strong women characters strike a chord with contemporary female audiences
This is a big deal. While the communists in power in general treated the sexes equally, or at least did a great deal in that direction, it did not entirely the long tradition of sexism in many cultures under communist rule. But at least they tried.
ReplyDeleteChina is one of those cultures in which sexism was endemic traditionally. So this countercultural artistic revolution is indeed revolutionary with respect to the tradition.
It is an example of the present historical dialectic between traditionalism and liberalism bearing some fruit.
It must also be emphasized the liberalism is generally equated with Anglo-
American liberalism in the US and UK. However, there are different strains of liberalism. There is the difference between Anglo-American liberalism and Continental liberalism, for example. There are different approaches to liberalism in both Anglo-American and Continental liberalism. Marxism is a radical liberalism of the left, whereas other Western approaches to liberalism are types of "bourgeois liberalism," for the most part.
The Chinese version of liberalism will emerge as liberalism "with Chinese characteristics."
Anyway, it is good to see a countercultural revolution arising in China to confront traditional sexism. This will have a moderating influence on all of Asia, where sexism is still pretty endemic traditionally.