The Making and Remaking of China’s "Red Classics": Politics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture

Description

The Making and Remaking of China’s “Red Classics” is the first full-length work to bring together research on the “red classics” across the entire Maoist period through to the reform era. It covers a representative range of genres including novels, short stories, films, TV series, picture books, animation, and traditional-style paintings. Collectively, the chapters offer a panoramic view of the production and reception of the original “red classics” and the adaptations and remakes of such works after the Cultural Revolution. The contributors present fascinating stories of how a work came to be regarded as, or failed to become, a “red classic.” There has never been a single answer to the question of what counts as a “red classic”; artists had to negotiate the changing political circumstances and adopt the correct artistic technique to bring out the authentic image of the people, while appealing to the taste of the mass audience at the same time. A critical examination of these works reveals their sociopolitical and ideological import, aesthetic significance, and function as a mass cultural phenomenon at particular historical moments. This volume marks a step forward in the growing field of the study of Maoist cultural products. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 9 PART I - Creating the Canon: The “Red Classics” in the Maoist Era......Page 22 1. The “Red Classic” That Never Was......Page 24 2. Great Changes in Critical Reception......Page 43 3. How to Tell a Story of Imprisonment......Page 63 4. How Is Revolution “Popularized”?......Page 80 5. Shaping the “Red Classics” of Chinese Art in Early Socialist China......Page 95 Images 5.1-15......Page 114 6. Castration for the People......Page 130 PART II - Making over the Canon: The “Red Classics” in the Reform Era......Page 150 7. The Politics and Aesthetics of Rediscovering Heroes of the “Red Classics” in Lianhuanhua of the Reform Era......Page 152 8. The Cultural Indigenization of a Soviet “Red Classic” Hero......Page 173 9. The Red Sister-in-Law Remakes......Page 193 10. Families, Intellectuals, and Enemies in the “Red Classic” Remake New Tunnel Warfare......Page 214 Contributors......Page 226 Index......Page 229