The Feminist Characteristics of Chinese Films of the 1990s

Abstract

In China, the 1990s was a time of profound sociopolitical, economic, and cultural transformation. Emerging particularly after Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 speech establishing a socialist market economy, consumer culture as a new social and cultural trend steadily impacted the logic of artistic production. As an all-encompassing product of commodity, art, and ideology, the film depicts the transformation of the social and cultural environment from the standpoint of internal aesthetic awareness, interpretation, and text forms to exterior distribution and consumption. The emergence of consumer culture in the 1990s caused the dissolution of the meta-narrative of the 1980s, and the focus on grand themes such as collectivity, nationalism, class, and history has shifted to everyday life. Artistic creativity has sought convergence with the aesthetic sensibilities of the public while expressing subjective awareness. Against the cultural background of Chinese art production in the 1990s, this paper interprets the unique cultural characteristics of Chinese films of the period and investigates the expression of feminism in films, investigating the consumer turn, the emergence of popular culture, and the change in cultural discourse power in an effort to uncover new trends and developments in Chinese film.