Author(s)

Yiyang Qiu

Corresponding Author

Yiyang Qiu

Abstract

In recent years, feminist TV series have increased in Chinese mainland, with great female dramas and female group dramas dominating the screen, seemingly showing the awakening of female consciousness and the improvement of female status. This paper compares the construction of female images in two dimensions, vertically and horizontally, comparing the portrayal of female images in Chinese mainland TV serious since the 1980s, and horizontally comparing the portrayal of female images in Western TV serious in the same period with the portrayal of male images in Chinese mainland TV series. Through the comparison results, we explore the deep-seated reasons for the differences and similarities in the construction of female images in different times from four aspects. This paper finds that under the rule of thousands of years of feudalism, the traditional culture of Chinese society requires women to be “virtuous wives and mothers” and to be “submissive and virtuous”, which largely confines women's spiritual freedom. Even in today's highly developed modern civilization, women can be educated outside the confines of feudalism, fall in love and work freely due to their improved economic and legal status, but the long-standing gender bias in society still makes women suffer from unfair treatment and unreasonable demands in the family and workplace environment. This is reflected in the dissemination of TV series, which means that no matter how many feminist TV series there are and how dramatic the plots are, the female protagonists eventually need to depend on men to achieve success and will eventually return to their families, while TV series that exposes the reality and show the plight of women are unable to propose good solutions and always stay at the level of “asking questions”. To some extent, the TV series reflects the social reality that Chinese women have not yet truly moved toward equality, liberty, and openness, and that feminism in China still has a long way to go.

Keywords

Female TV Series, Feminism, Female Image, Gender