Genre-Based Gender Narratives and Capital Logic: A Study of Chinese Female-Themed Dramas

Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

^* Corresponding author: zjie0002@student.monash.edu

Abstract

In recent years, the issue of women’s identity construction and narrative expression in film and television dramas has received extensive attention from academia and society, but in reality, there are still problems such as the homogenisation of women’s images and instrumentalisation of roles. This paper takes the urban drama 180-Day Reboot Project as the research object, focuses on its intergenerational construction of female characters, reproductive expression, and gender consciousness presentation, and systematically analyses its female narrative strategy by combining the frameworks of gaze theory, gender performance theory, and reproductive politics. It is found that the drama challenges the traditional gender perception and it positively shapes women’s subjective consciousness through the differentiated writing of three generations of female characters and the inter-temporal narrative structure. At the same time, the drama shows a certain communication effect in social opinion, cultural consumption and advertising logic, and promotes the discussion of public gender topics. Based on this, this paper further proposes the diversification of creative dimensions, institutional guarantee mechanisms and policy guidance, to provide theoretical support and path reference for the practice of gender expression in film and television.