Nation state meets popular culture : the construction of Chinese nationalism in anti-Japanese war dramas

This thesis explores how Anti-Japanese War Drama in Chinese TV becomes a field of negotiation in which the forces of dominant state ideology, liberal market and alternative discourses meet. Focusing how the notion of Chinese nationalism has been constructed in the negotiation, this work examines TV dramas as a homogenizing national project in which market forces and state intervention are no longer at odd with each other. By critically reading representations and narratives of bandits and women in two dramas To Advance towards the Fire and Auntie Duohe, the study points out how dominant nationalist discourses attempt to incorporate the marginalized or disadvantaged group as a consistent part of the nation. However, the anti-Japanese war dramas still allow a space for the alternative discourse to emerge which disturbs the perceived coherence of the nation.