Caught between China and Hollywood: the transnational journey of Jing Tian in The Great Wall (2016)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the transnational Chinese female stardom in the wake of the changing Sino-Hollywood relations in the 2010s, taking Jing Tian, the Chinese star who plays the female lead in the Sino-Hollywood coproduction The Great Wall (2016), as an illustrative case. It rejects the popular narrative which presents Jing’s failure to attain stardom in Hollywood as her own lack and an individual incident. Rather, it investigates the ways in which the systemic forces in Hollywood and the negotiations between the Chinese film industry and Hollywood in relation to gender, race, and (trans)nationalism may hold at bay her attempt to establish stardom in Hollywood. It examines Jing’s character and her industrial positioning through the lens of postfeminism and intersectionality. It argues that first, her persona as a ‘sinicised’ postfeminist girl hero suggests a failed negotiation between China and Hollywood, and second, her intersectional identities in the Hollywood industry place her at a disadvantage in this Sino-Hollywood collaboration. By deconstructing Jing’s failure, this article also unravels how Chinese stars were used in a disposable way by Hollywood when the box office performance of the Chinese market remained strong in the 2010s.