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- Volume 2, Issue 2, 2012
Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 2, 2012
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China has a natural environment, too!: Consumerist and ideological eco-imaginaries in the cinema of Feng Xiaogang
By Corrado NeriFeng Xiaogang, the 'Chinese Spielberg', produces huge blockbusters and hilarious comedies directed at a broad audience. Although his work does not strictly deal with environmental issues, it provides us with a privileged perspective through which to analyse the discourses around the theme of nature. Feng Xiaogang's works are not explicitly environmental, they do address the contradictions and differing anxieties linked to China's economic and environmental development. For example, A World Without Thieves (Feng Xiaogang, 2004) employs the natural image of Tibetan mountains as a symbol of search for oneself and introspection, while it symbolically links Tibet to China, setting aside the political troubles that regularly hit the region. Likewise the stunning landscapes in If You are the One 1&2 (Feng Xiaogang, 2008 and 2010) remind us of the importance of nature, rural surroundings, and the absence of human intervention within the changing of seasons, hinting at the same time at the dangers of losing such natural richness. Simultaneously these built-up, symbolic images refer to dreams of capitalist possession where nature turns into nothing but a marketing tool, a status symbol, a showcase of wealth and vanity parade. As forms of symbolic power imposed on the collective imagination and symptoms of the ever-growing need to be aware of the fragility of nature and the dangers of uncontrolled development, these films bring into play several contradictory discourses that cannot be ignored in the future development of China and Chinese cinema. Like every great producer of popular cinema, Feng Xiaogang produces narratives governed by the public and consumerist doxa, from which potentially subversive apprehensions emerge.
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Colourful screens: Water imaginaries in documentaries from China and Taiwan
By Tam Yee LokThe colours that appear in documentary films from China and Taiwan construct 'water imaginaries' with specific eco-critical connotations. Colourful screens are not only an instrument to show different aesthetics but they are also a device for interrogating the ecological relationship between humanity and water/nature. By giving a brief historical account of documentaries from mainland China and Taiwan concerning water networks, rivers and the sea, this article illustrates how the 'green screen' relates to the socialist ecology, how the 'colourless screen' isolates water from rivers to help imagine a national water network, how the 'blue screen' of the undersea world engenders a specific form of ecosophy, and finally how the 'black screen' of the transnational sea imaginary proposes and oscillates between inter-nationality and ecological post-nationality.
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From My Fancy High Heels to Useless clothing: 'Interconnectedness' and eco-critical issues in transnational documentaries
By Kiu-wai ChuRecent transnational documentaries are more and more committed to issues of global environmental justice and revealing exploitative profit-driven production practices as they suggest that cinematic transnationalism enables us to see the global connectedness of the ecosystem more readily. Such filmic representations of a beyond-the-local culture facilitate to make sense of the global network of products and flow of messages as they make us aware of the physical and symbolic linkages between these seemingly disconnected worlds. From the food we eat and the news we read, the jeans and shoes we wear, to the films, music and performances we enjoy, our living habits and daily routines today are unimaginable without global networks of information and exchange, regardless of which part of the world one is situated in.
By comparing Jia Zhangke's Wuyong/Useless (2007) and Ho Chao-ti's Wo Ai Gaogenxie/My Fancy High Heels (MFHH) (2010), this article explores how transnationality in these documentaries, on one hand, facilitates the expression of eco-critical and environmentalist messages concerning nature and the environment, as well as the relationships between human and all other beings on the planet; and on the other, reveals the challenges and contradictions film-makers and artists faced in the productions in attempts to reflect their ecological and environmental concerns, challenges and contradictions that are brought about by the unstoppable forces of excessive global consumerism.
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The politics of viewing ecocinema in China: Reflections on audience studies and transnational ecocinema
More LessMedia and communications scholars frequently publish work on audience interpretations of ecological media. These range from the ways the media frames ecological issues to the socio-political role the media plays in influencing popular opinion on environmental issues. Film criticism is not that much different from other media analyses in its focus on ideological bias and the hypothetical impact of the texts. Considering the emphasis ecocinema scholars place on the socio-political role of cinema, it is surprising that audiences are still a largely neglected focus of study in the field. This article investigates some potential avenues academic studies of audiences of ecocinema may take. We focus on the ways audiences use ecocinema to generate diverse meanings as we switch from spectator studies to studies of audiences, where we not only explore the ways audience perspectives correlate or challenge the hypothetical perspectives suggested by media critics/academics, but also focus on the plurality of reading positions and the challenges they provide for making sense of the uses of ecocinema. The challenge to homogenized or theorized reading publics is made more explicit once we take into account the major role cultural specificity plays in audience responses. It is here that transnational considerations help us diversify the range of analysis and offer new perspectives on the socio-political implications of ecocinema. To these ends, I focus on the ways individuals from China (Chinese university students and graduates in the white-collar industries, both groups who identify themselves as part of China's new emerging middle class) encounter and negotiate the transnational dimensions of ecocinema both with domestically produced films and imported productions.
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