Modern China's Idols: Heroes, Role Models, Stars and Celebrities

Jeffreys, E

Modern China's Idols: Heroes, Role Models, Stars and Celebrities

Jeffreys, E

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Publisher:: UTS
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 2012, 9 (1), pp. 1 - 32
Issue Date:: 2012-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Jeffreys, E https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8269-7080	en_US
dc.date.issued	2012-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 2012, 9 (1), pp. 1 - 32	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1449-2490	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/23366
dc.description.abstract	This paper examines the diversity of Chinas popular culture idols with reference to a commemorative website called `The Search for Modern China, which was launched in late September 2009 to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party on 1 October 1949. The websites framing narrative suggests that the history of idol production and celebrity in the PRC can be viewed crudely as marked by disjuncture: the decline of heavy-handed Party-state involvement in the propagandistic manufacturing of socialist idols of production, followed by the grafted-on rise of western-style media-manufactured celebrities as idols of capitalist consumption. However, an analysis of the websites pantheon of idols reveals that while some idols from the Maoist and early reform period have been relegated to the realm of fiction, revolutionary kitsch or are now simply passé, others remain very much alive in the popular imagination. A state-led project of promoting patriotic education has ensured the coexistence in commercial popular culture of revolutionary idols and contemporary celebrities, via memory sites associated with broadcast television, DVDs and the Internet, and the historical locations, museums and monuments of `red tourism.	en_US
dc.publisher	UTS	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.5130/portal.v9i1.2187	en_US
dc.title	Modern China's Idols: Heroes, Role Models, Stars and Celebrities	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	9	en_US
utslib.for	1608 Sociology	en_US
utslib.for	2002 Cultural Studies	en_US
utslib.for	2005 Literary Studies	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/e-Press
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	9	en_US

Abstract:

This paper examines the diversity of Chinas popular culture idols with reference to a commemorative website called `The Search for Modern China, which was launched in late September 2009 to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party on 1 October 1949. The websites framing narrative suggests that the history of idol production and celebrity in the PRC can be viewed crudely as marked by disjuncture: the decline of heavy-handed Party-state involvement in the propagandistic manufacturing of socialist idols of production, followed by the grafted-on rise of western-style media-manufactured celebrities as idols of capitalist consumption. However, an analysis of the websites pantheon of idols reveals that while some idols from the Maoist and early reform period have been relegated to the realm of fiction, revolutionary kitsch or are now simply passé, others remain very much alive in the popular imagination. A state-led project of promoting patriotic education has ensured the coexistence in commercial popular culture of revolutionary idols and contemporary celebrities, via memory sites associated with broadcast television, DVDs and the Internet, and the historical locations, museums and monuments of `red tourism.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/23366