Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:2783Hits:20995647Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID124646
Title ProperRestaging the revolution in contemporary China
Other Title Informationmemory of politics and politics of memory
LanguageENG
AuthorCai, Rong
Publication2013.
Summary / Abstract (Note)This article focuses on the adaptation of the Red Classics - a collection of literary and cinematic works depicting the Communist armed struggle produced in the PRC between 1949 and 1966 - for contemporary Chinese television. Using the controversy over the remake of Tracks in the Snowy Forest (Linhai xueyuan ????) as a case study, it explores the complexity of restaging the Communist revolution in the post-Mao reform era. Competition in the media industry compels TV producers to re-package Communist history for fragmented contemporary audiences - those who are familiar with the original Red Classics as well as those who grew up in the reform era and who are far removed from the revolutionary legacy. Adaptation of the Red Classics is a sensitive issue. By focusing on the sexual desires and individual interests muted in the original Red Classics in order to cater for the tastes of younger viewers, the remakes offer alternative readings of history and have incurred government censorship. Opposition to the adaptations has also come from a distinct mnemonic community, the Red memory group, whose members came of age in either the 1960s or during the Cultural Revolution and who absorbed the Red Classics in their formative years. The interplay of state politics, collective memory and commercial imperatives ultimately makes the repackaging of the revolution for contemporary mass entertainment a multifaceted and highly contentious issue.
`In' analytical NoteChina Quarterly vol. , No.215; Sep 2013: p.663-681
Journal SourceChina Quarterly vol. , No.215; Sep 2013: p.663-681
Key WordsRed Classics ;  Revolutionary Legacy ;  Collective Memory ;  Adaptation ;  China


 
 
Media / Other Links  Full Text