Negotiating national identity on film: competing readings of Zhang Yimou’s 'Hero'
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Accepted Version
Date
2007
Authors
de la Garza, Armida
Journal Title
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Published Version
Abstract
How are national identities transformed? If they are mostly narratives of belonging to a community of history and destiny to which people subscribe, those boundary-making procedures that constitute the political field by instituting differences can provide a tentative answer to this question. This paper is concerned with one such cultural practice, namely film-viewing. Globalisation, a boundary-blurring practice, has been the backdrop against which transformations in national identity are often discussed, either bemoaned as cultural imperialism or celebrated as ongoing hybridisation. This piece of research took Zhang Yimou’s controversial film Hero as a point of departure, and asked groups of Chinese audiences how they understood the Chinese identity it conveys. Although it is still a work in progress, provisional results are reported below.
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Keywords
Zhang Yimou , National identity , National cinema
Citation
de la Garza, A. (2007) 'Negotiating national identity on film: competing readings of Zhang Yimou’s 'Hero'', Media Asia, 34(1), pp. 27-32. doi: 10.1080/01296612.2007.11726842
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© 2007, Taylor & Francis. This is the Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Media Asia 34(1), 2007, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01296612.2007.11726842