An Analysis of the Changing Representation of the Female Ghost in Chinese Horror Cinema

本项目旨在探讨中国文化、社会历史背景与女性和女权主义的民族观建构之间的相互关系，并分析电影工业如何将这些观念转变为中国恐怖电影中的女鬼形象。恐怖电影作为一个国家电影文化的一部分，揭示了一个国家的关切和问题。正如罗宾·伍德所说，恐怖电影提供了一个地方，让我们表达压抑的情绪，反抗我们被告知要遵守的主流规范换句话说，恐怖电影使我们能够探索社会和文化的变革和颠覆，特别是与妇女解放运动的联系。超自然的词汇被用一种不协调的方式来表达不公正，在那里鬼魂可以是寓言和政治颠覆。在中国的民族电影中，这样的鬼怪形象一直被认为是一个敏感的话题，因为它们似乎违背了马克思主义的历史唯物主义和社会主义的现实主义教条，而政府认为这是一个难以控制的叙事，任何人都可以把它作为一种政治工具尽管如此，鬼仍然是中国电影的一部分。今天，他们以模糊的鬼/人的比喻存在，作为精神病态的幻觉，作为幻想，所有这些仍然吸引着观众。中国民间传说和文学作品中有许多核心的鬼魂形象，它们是出现在银幕上的超自然人物的原型。鬼故事最初出现在《志怪小说》中，并在公元4世纪和5世纪得到发展，后来被翻译并传播到日本、东亚和东南亚，与当地的民间传说、文化和宗教融合在一起。在中国乃至大多数亚洲国家的万物有灵论背景下，鬼可以是任何形式的精灵、怪物、恶魔、神或其他与人类共存以保持宇宙平衡的生物。除了被认为是恐怖的对象，鬼魂也被视为崇拜的偶像，这导致了社交和媒体对鬼魂遭遇故事的痴迷。这些媒体叙述反过来又影响了社会、文化和政治观点，并激发了关于超自然现象的故事。简而言之，鬼魂的表现形式是在民间传说、文化、社会和媒体的相互作用下不断形成的，这些相互作用是我们现实变化的一面镜子。中国鬼的概念将生者和死者同等地呈现为受性别建构的影响。因此，在大多数亚洲电影中，女鬼经常被设定为受爱的驱使，等待认可、轮回、复仇或为他们所爱的人。通过对中国信仰和文学中女鬼的讨论，特别是对女相思病（处女）鬼、（被遗弃的）鬼妻、受冤枉的复仇鬼等形象的研究，本项目旨在系统分析女鬼形象在银幕上的表现，以及它是如何随着时间的流逝而形成和发展的，以及它与时代和国家语境的相关性。目前，关于中国恐怖女性形象的文献大多集中在中国恐怖电影短暂复兴时期（20世纪80年代至21世纪初）的电影中，或提供碎片化的案例研究，如黄玉天、秦晨、李增等人的作品。

This project intends to investigate the interrelation between China's culture, social- historical context, and the construction of the national views of women and feminism, to present an analysis of how the film industry shifts these notions towards female ghost figures in Chinese horror cinema. Horror films, as part of a national film culture, reveal the concerns and issues of a nation.As Robin Wood addresses, horror films offer a place that allows us to express repressed emotions and rebel against the dominant norms we have been told to observe.2 In other words, horror films enable us to explore social and cultural change and subversion, especially in connection to the women's liberation movement. The supernatural lexicon is used in an incongruous way to express injustice, where ghosts can be allegorical and politically subversive. Such characterisations of ghosts have always been considered a sensitive topic in Chinese national cinema because they seem to counter Marxist historical materialism and socialist realist dogma, and the government believes this to be a hard narrative to control and which anyone could use as a political tool.3 Nonetheless, ghosts have remained a part of Chinese cinema. Today, they exist in ambiguous ghost/human tropes, as psychopathic illusions, and as fantasies, all of which still appeal to the audiences.Chinese folklore and literature feature a number of core ghost figures that have served as archetypes for supernatural characters that have emerged on screen. Having first emerged in 'accounts of the stranger' (Zhiguai xiaoshuo) and developed through the fourth and fifth centuries CE, ghost tales were translated and disseminated across Japan as well as East and Southeast Asia where they merged with local folklore, culture, and religion. In the animistic context of China, and even most Asian countries, ghosts can be any form of spirit, monster, demon, deity, or other creature that coexists with humankind to keep the balance of the universe. In addition to being considered objects of terror, ghosts have also been presented as idols of worship, which has resulted in social and media narratives that obsess over stories of ghost encounters. These media narratives have in turn influenced social, cultural, and political views and inspired stories about the supernatural. Put simply, the representation of ghosts is continuously shaped through the interactions between folklore, culture, society, and the media, and the interplay between these is a mirror of the changes in our reality. The concept of the Chinese ghost presents the living and the dead as equally affected by the construct of gender. As such, in most Asian cinema, the female ghost is frequently established as being motivated by love and waiting for recognition, reincarnation, revenge, or for their loved ones. Drawing from the discussion of female ghosts in Chinese beliefs and literature, particularly research on figures such as female lovesick (virgin) ghosts, the (abandoned) ghost-wife, and the vengeful ghost of a wronged woman, this project aims to carry out a systemic analysis of the on-screen representation of the female ghost figure, how it has been shaped and developed over time, and the relevance of time period and national context. As research on this topic is quite limited, my work seeks to contribute to the literature by creating a review of the changing representation of the female ghost in Chinese horror films produced in mainland China after 1949, and provide a glimpse into how changes in Chinese society have affected national views of women and what issues of gender in these contexts have been told. Currently, most literature on female figures in Chinese horror focuses on films produced during the brief revival period of Chinese horror cinema (1980s-2000s) or provides fragmentary case studies, such as the works of Erin Yu-Tien Huang, Qin Chen, and Li Zeng.