The Myth of Women’s Fates under Patriarchal Crisis Control: A Case Study on Heroine’s Characterization in Mid-Covid 19 Chinese TV Series

¹ School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool University
² School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool University

^* Corresponding author. Email: siqi.ma19@student.xjtlu.edu.cn

Abstract

2018 witnessed some unprecedently strict regulations on national media content production and distribution by the Chinese National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA). On its annual recommended lists of excellent national TV series, there is a noticeable increase in historical series in line with core socialist values. Since late 2019, there has been a strict home-quarantine policy amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Accompanied by the newly introduced three-child birth policy in the context of the country’s low fertility rate and significant ageing, a re-emphasis on traditional Confucian ideologies incented by the Chinese authorities emerged: the primary identity of women being an understanding wife and loving mother. Furthermore, thus, a manifestation of such enforced patriarchal ideologies and cultural values is visible in the country’s strictly regulated media content. This study sets off from a corpus of national recommended TV lists to investigate the myth of women’s fates in amid-pandemic Chinese TV series that are appraised and supported by authorities to explore how their identities are constructed and potentially abused under patriarchal media production.