Maoist Propaganda: Mere Political Ideology or Vibrant Popular Culture?

Original article

Kirk A. Denton,

PhD (Modern Chinese Literature), Professor, Ohio State University, United States of America

Address: Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University, 375 Hagerty Hall, 1775 College Road, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

E-mail: denton.2@osu.edu

Article ID: 010250105

Published online: 31 March 2020

HANDLE: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12656/thebeacon.3.010250105

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.3.010250105

 

Quoting (Chicago style): Denton, Kirk A. 2020. “Maoist Propaganda: Mere Political Ideology or Vibrant Popular Culture?” Beacon J Stud Ideol Ment Dimens 3, 010250105. https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.3.010250105

Language: Chinese



Download the full text:

Vol. 1 No. 1 Pdf

Download full-text translations:

Russian

Vol. 1 No. 1 ENG Pdf

Abstract

To regard Chinese popular culture of the Mao era as “propaganda” constructed through the ideological apparatus, is a common approach. However, one can take a different, soberer research position and try to discern other dimensions in the cultural texts of this era. Such a novel, more complex understanding allows us to see vibrant popular culture beyond the obvious ideologically-driven narratives of the Cultural Revolution. The efficacy of this multidimensional view of Maoist popular culture is demonstrated through discussion of several model dramas, especially Red Detachment of Women.

Key words: Chinese popular culture, Mao era, Cultural Revolution, ballet, film, drama, model drama, opera, political ideology, Red Detachment of Women, Xie Jin 1961 film, Wu Qinghua, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, White-Haired Girl

Extended summary in English

 

An approach in cultural studies that problematises post-Mao ideology, which tried to reduce the entire Cultural Revolution to mere propaganda, may be productive. It enables one to see multidimensional cultural landscape of the Mao era, without being squeezed into the box of ideological propaganda. Moreover, the only way to comprehend modern, post-Mao Chinese literature properly is to clearly see the close ties connecting socialist and postsocialist literature in China.

 

The model dramas, ballets and films of the Cultural Revolution considered in the paper demonstrate complex semantic modalities that go far beyond understanding Maoist popular culture as simple and unified ideological narratives. Of course, political ideology occupies an important place in all model dramas, and we cannot deny that initially model dramas were devised and written as ideological tales with political messages that support the Maoist cause. However, along with this outward political ideology, cultural texts of the Mao era contain complex levels of meanings that point to vibrant popular culture.

 

The central part of the paper is devoted to discussing different possible interpretations of Red Detachment of Women, one of the famousmodel dramas of the Cultural Revolution, in the form of a ballet and a film adaptation of the ballet. This text is appropriate for use in undergraduate and graduate classes of modern Chines literature.

 

The personal story of Wu Qinghua, a former peasant-slave in the estate of rich and highly corrupt landlord, Nan Batian, can be interpreted in many possible ways beyond the purely political reading. These interpretations reveal the story of Qinghua as a truly personal narration with romantic and friendship attachments, human woes and joys, ups and downs. We consider but a few such interpretations, namely feminist, psychoanalytical, religious (hinting at Buddhist enlightenment), as well as the reading through the lenses of common human relationships. Red Detachment of Women may be an instructive example of melding the gender normativity of ballet, putting the ballerina in the centre of the whole performance, together with the ancient Chinese tradition of female warriors, many of which even attained to the rank of general, such as Hua Mulan, and Mu Guiying.

 

Another helpful analytical tool may be found in studying the twenty-first century “afterlife” of model dramas of the Cultural Revolution, when the dramas started to be treated commercially and/or nostalgically. For Red Detachment of Women, such “life after death” may be traced to the resurrection of staged performances, the establishment of the Red Detachment of Women Memorial Park in Hainan or collecting porcelain figurines in the Jianchuan Museum compound partially devoted to the Cultural Revolution.

 

The methodology of multidimensional hermeneutic readings of the model dramas, elaborated through analysis of Red Detachment of Women, may be successfully applied to other art works of the Cultural Revolution, e.g. White-Haired Girl or Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. The logic is one and the same for them all, i.e. treating cultural artefacts of the Mao era outside the boundaries of “propaganda approach”, regarding them as literature, or drama, or film, or art.

© 2020 Kirk A. Denton.
Licensee The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

CC Licence

Return to the issue


go to