Consuming the Anti-Japanese War on the TV Screen in China: State Ideology, Market and Audience

Abstract

This paper addresses Chinese television’s enigmatic obsession with a war that ended seventy years ago. Despite increasing criticism and concern from the media and even the government about its quality, “anti-Japanese drama”, a sub-genre of TV drama depicting the atrocities committed and resistance faced by the Japanese army during the Anti-Japanese War (1931–1945), continues to flourish on the Chinese TV screen, even reaching new heights this year with the high-profile celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the war’s end. This complex phenomenon cannot simply be attributed to the Sino-Japanese tensions of recent years and the patriotic education campaign promoted by the Chinese government. This paper explores the political, cultural and economic factors that give rise to the proliferation and popularity of anti-Japanese dramas by positioning this sub-genre of TV production within the media network of production, representation and consumption. It argues that anti-Japanese drama represents both state-sanctioned and market-oriented consumerist nationalism in today’s China. Through textual analysis and audience study of a hit 2014 TV drama entitled Red, the paper also explores the multiplicity of ways in which these TV texts are given meaning by different viewers.