摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research purpose 2

1.3 Structure of the thesis 2

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 Overview of the images of the Chinese American women in Hollywood movies 3

2.2 Previous researches at home and abroad 3

3. An Analysis of the Images of Chinese American Women in Hollywood Movies from the Cross-cultural Perspective 5

3.1 The 20th century: Conquered women and professional prostitute with the negative imagination 5

3.2 After World War II: Hardworking women in the miserable land 7

3.3 After the 1980s: Women soldiers fighting side by side and heroines rescuing the West 8

3.4 The hidden factors contributing to theses changes 10

3.4.1 The political factors 10

3.4.2 The economic factors 11

4. Conclusion 12

References 13

Acknowledgments 14

Abstract

As a symbol of American film industry, Hollywood has been shaping the images of Chinese women for a hundred year. In the early days, the image of Chinese women in Hollywood movies was too single and negative. However, recently, with the constant development of China’s economy and the persistent improvement of China’s social status, the portrayal of Chinese women image from Hollywood has become more and more complex and diversified. It has been widely concerned by Chinese and Western societies. Among them, they are ladies who are deeply influenced by Chinese culture, rural women who are simple and kind or kungfu girls who are cool and charming. This paper will try to analyze the images of Chinese women created in Hollywood movies the Toll of the Sea, the Good Earth and the 007 series of Tomorrow Empire at different stages and conduct a comparative study with Chinese women images in China at the same period from cross-cultural perspective and explore the hidden economic, cultural, political and other factors. It is meaningful to strength the economic and cultural exchanges, reduce misunderstandings and promote the friendship between China and the United States.

Keywords: Hollywood; the image of Chinese American women; cross culture

中文摘要

好莱坞作为美国电影界的符号，对于华人女性形象的塑造已有百年历史。早期，好莱坞电影中华人女性的形象过于单一负面。然而，随着中国经济的不断发展和社会地位的不断提高，好莱坞对于华人女性形象的塑造越来越复杂、趋于多元，一直受到中西方社会的广泛关注。这些屏幕形象中既有深受中国文化熏陶的大家闺秀、质朴善良的农村妇人也有冷艳动人的功夫女郎。本文以不同时期的好莱坞电影《海逝》、《大地》、007系列《明日帝国》中所刻画塑造的华人女性形象为切入点，进行归纳分析，并与同时期中国女性形象进行对比研究，从跨文化的角度分析好莱坞电影中的华人女性形象的特点，探究其背后的经济、文化、政治等多方面的原因。本研究对于加深中美之间经济文化事业的交流，减少误解，促进中美之间的了解和友谊，具有一定的意义。

关键词：好莱坞；华人女性形象；跨文化

Introduction

1.1 Research background

What is culture? Taylor (1871) presented that culture includes art, knowledge, law, custom, morality and abilities possessed by people. As a part of culture, films strength the exchange of different cultures.

In Orientalism, Said (1994) described that China is a distant exotic country and the Chinese in the East can be called exotic wonders. Therefore, Chinese women acted as ‘the other’ existed in Western travels, movies and TV works. In Hollywood, they have built up the Chinese female images for a long history and the Chinese female images have experienced a series of changes. In early years, the Chinese female images tended to be negative and single. However, the images of Chinese women has tended to be more and more positive under the development of China. At the same time, western mass media has paid more attention to Chinese women.

In 1919, the first image of Chinese women was created by Hollywood and Anna May Wong was very famous then. When she was young, movie was the most popular entertainment at that time. Anna May Wong was fascinated by it. In the American movie Red Lantern, She acted as an Englishman's mistress with few lines. Although it was just a small role, a door to Hollywood has opened to Anna May Wong. This was indeed the first attempt of Chinese women in Hollywood. From that time, more and more Chinese women were coming to Hollywood. Many famous Chinese stars such as Zhang Ziyi, Gongli, Fan Bingbing and Tangwei has taken part in Hollywood movies frequently such as Resident Evil: Retribution, Transformers: Age of Extinction, X-Men and a series of movies involving Chinese women which has stimulated a new round of strong enthusiasm for Chinese women.

According to this trend, there remained several questions which needed us to research. Firstly, what images and characteristics of Chinese women were created by western society. Secondly, what was the history evaluation of the images of Chinese

American women. Thirdly, what factors involved in these evolutionary processes had a impact on them.

1.2 Research purpose

It has been ninety years that the Chinese women took part in Hollywood movies. At that time, they have acted various images and gradually been known by the world.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main Chinese female images in Hollywood movies at different stages from the cross cultural perspective and find its hidden economic and political factors. Besides this, the paper also pay more attention on the newest works which could clearly illustrated the evolutionary process of the Chinese female images. The innovation of this paper was to conduct a comparative study with Chinese female images in Hollywood movies and China at the same time. Therefore, we could know better about the processes of historical evaluation of the Chinese female images in Hollywood movies and find its hidden economic and political reasons.

1.3 Structure of the thesis

This thesis was divided into four parts. The first part was introduction and it was composed of research background, research purpose and the organization of the paper.

Chapter two was mainly about the presentation of previous research at home and abroad and pointed out the questions of the previous research. In chapter three, this paper mainly made a analysis of the images of Chinese American women in Hollywood movies from the cross-cultural perspective. This chapter analyzed the images of Chinese American women from three times, including the 20^th century, after World War II and after the1980s and explored the hidden factors. There were three different images and characteristics in these three times. In chapter four, this paper concluded the change of the images of Chinese American women from the early time to the recent year. This chapter also restated the hidden reasons and signification of the paper.

Literature Review

2.1 Overview of the images of the Chinese American women in Hollywood movies

Hollywood build up the Chinese female images for one hundred year. From the history aspect, the earliest film Broken Flowers was the first attempt to build up Chinese female images by Hollywood in 1919. Meanwhile, Anna May Wong was the first famous Chinese American movie star in Hollywood. From that time on, more and more Chinese actresses have taken part in Hollywood movies such as Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Fan Bingbing and so on. They have successfully acted various images, from an exposed dusty woman to a dignified Princess, from blind worshipper around western men to heroines who saved lives, from simple and honest rural women to well-dressed urban white-collar women. Since 2013, a series of movies such as X-men, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Resident Evil 5 including the Chinese actresses have ignited the pursuit and admire on the Chinese actresses through the spread of American movies. Therefore, it is important for us to dig into the process of images evaluation and explore the hidden causes of politics, economics.

2.2 Previous researches at home and abroad

Liu Zhifeng (2012) focused on the famous Chinese female stars in Hollywood movies and analyzed the images they acted. Besides that, she classified the roles in the movies into femme fatale, sexy girl and Cinderella. Because of the background of her major, she failed to investigate the evolution process of these images and illustrated the hidden causes of this phenomenon. Liu Min (2016) analyzed the different characteristics of Chinese American women in American movies in the aspects of foreign imagination, soft showing and cross cultures. Chinese female took on different personalities in each aspects. Kang Qin (2015) mainly illustrated the female images in several classical Chinese female works. He thought that the Chinese images would become more and more diversified. Lu Yi (2014) and Chen Lin (2013)

mainly analyzed the female images of long nv and heroine. They managed to manifest that not all the Chinese female images were bad and thought that it was cultural prejudice resulting that phenomenon. Yang Peng (2007) thought that the Chinese female in American movies can be divided into two natures. One was the nature of been watched. These women wished for rescue from the western people and they were only viewed as the plaything. The other nature was the society nature. In this nature, they always fell behind and didn’t equal with western women. At last, the author pointed out that the Chinese female still fell behind up to now. Li Qi (2010) carried out the individual case in three Hollywood movies. He analyzed the Chinese female images in these movies and found the difference among them. At last, he concluded the historically cultural background behind the three works. Gao Xingmei (2015) held that the Chinese female images in Hollywood movies were the foreign imagination by the western society. She pointed out that the western men has the superiority feeling on the oriental female. As far as the author, she thought the standing of the Chinese female is rising and they gradually obtained the respect from western society. Ma Ting (2015) selected three works in different times and projected the individual case in a microscopic view. She thought that the Chinese female images in Hollywood movies became better and better according to the analysis of these three works. Gao Xinxin (2014) classified the Chinese female in Hollywood movies, including sad girl, heroine and siren and thought that the shape of the Chinese female was too simple unreal and gradually friendly. She attributed this trend to the cultural misreading.

Therefore, we can concluded that the research on film field is not enough and mostly among the individual cases of the Chinese female images in classical films, the integral research of the women in films and the classification research of the women in films. As we can see, there are still remained many questions.

An Analysis of the Images of Chinese American Women in Hollywood Movies from the Cross-cultural Perspective

3.1 The 20th century: Conquered women and professional prostitute with the negative imagination

At the beginning, the understanding of Chinese women in Hollywood movies came mainly from the performance of Anna May Wong, the first Chinese actress in Hollywood history. Anna May Wong was extremely interested in movies when she was young. In 1922, she participated in the first important work in her life. The movie was The Toll of the Sea and it was the first color film in the world. Because of this, Anna May Wong won wide acclaim in Hollywood for her outstanding performance. By the image of Lotus in the film, she successfully transformed from a small Chinese supporting role into a hot Chinese woman star instantly. The Toll of the Sea mainly told such a story. The young Chinese woman Lotus saw an unconscious man floating on the sea. With the help of fishermen around, they rescued him. The rescued man was an American named Allen Caffer. The fishermen around warned the Lotus that the sea was ominous, so the people who came were also ominous. But Lotus ignored them and fell in love with this American. In the heart of Lotus, Americans would leave all their property to their wives to enjoy their lives. Americans were the embodiment of dedication. People around said that Caffer just wanted to play, after all, the Lotus was Chinese. However, instead of listening to advice, Lotus considered the kind-hearted people to be bad one . At first Carver promised to bring the Lotus back to the United States, but his friends tried every means to persuade him to give up the idea. Carver left the Lotus there and returned to the United States alone. Lotus was very sad at that time. A few years later, Caffer finally came back to see the Lotus and his son, who was a survivor, and the Lotus gave him the American name Alan. As for the return of her lover, Lotus was overjoyed at first. She dressed herself in a Chinese