Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:20:28.453Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Anxiety in the Revolutionary Turn

Shanghai Film Personnel in the 1950s

from Part III - Legitimacy and Local Agencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2023

Anja Blanke
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
Julia C. Strauss
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Klaus Mühlhahn
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
Get access

Summary

The transformation of the film industry was tightly bound up with the plan of the Chinese Communist Party for creating the new nation and its socialist culture and the “revolutionization” of film stars was an essential part of it. This chapter focuses on the story of one individual, the actress Li Ming, who started out as a military arts soldier in the New Fourth Army, to illustrate the everyday politics at the Shanghai Film Studio in the 1950s. Li Ming suffered an identity crisis as both actress and party cadre, witnessed the complicated relationship between the new nation and film stars, and experienced the impact of the “organization” on her new individual career. From a perspective of “the party’s own,” her story provides us with an intriguing way to understand the revolutionary cultural agenda, examine the degree to which the power of the Party permeated the grassroots, and comprehend the everyday politics in the socialist transformation of the urban culture.

Type
Chapter
Information
Revolutionary Transformations
The People's Republic of China in the 1950s
, pp. 198 - 211
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×