‘I’m ugly, but gentle’: performing ‘little character’ in post-Mao Chinese comedies

Abstract

Stars are often associated with glamour and beauty, but in this paper I would like to question how the concept of “chou” (literally meaning ugliness) is embraced in contemporary Chinese cinema. The popularity of chouxing (ugly star) in the Chinese cinema since the late 1980s has challenged the star system in Chinese film industry during the previous decades when a male actor’s handsome appearance was regarded as an important criterion for him being cast as a leading man. Directing the public attention to a male star’s physical appearance by stressing the attributive adjective chou, this newly-coined word raises a question: how the cinematic emphasis on a male star’s physical appearance engages with the social construction of a star’s screen charisma under the transnational context? To answer the question, this article takes Ge You (b.1957) as a case study and explores the star’s impersonation of xiao renwu (little character) in Chinese comedies. I argue that the Chinese cinema’s emphasis of a chouxing’s physical appearance is a visual manifest of the character’s imperfectness and ordinariness. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the cinematic emphasis of the star’s unattractive appearance often signifies a little character’s unprivileged social status, it neither marginalises nor makes the character a social outsider. Instead, the imperfectness and ordinariness has endowed the little character with the power as an insider of the Chinese society.

Keywords:

• Ge You
• Chinese cinema
• beauty
• ugly
• star
• China

Notes

1. Sheng (men), dan (women), jing (painted face male character), mo (old men) and chou (clown) are five major role types in the Chinese theatre tradition. The classification of these roles is often standardized and appearance, including physicality, make-up and dress, is one of the most explicit signifiers of the role’s category.

2. During the 1960s and 1970s, many young people willingly left or were forced to leave the cities and went to live and work in rural areas under the national ‘Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside’ movement promoted by Mao. These young people are often referred to as ‘sent-down youth’ or ‘rusticated youth’. It is estimated that nearly 18 million people became rusticated youth between 1962 and 1978. For further details, see Riskin (2000, 37).

3. Chinese propaganda cinema’s casting strategy was rather different regarding the physiognomy of its male and female characters. In contrast to handsome male leads, feminine beauty was deliberately deprived from female heroines, who were often de-sexualized. Beauty was more often associated with seduction and the honey trap set-up with female espionage, such as Wang Xiaotang in Intrepid Hero (Yan Jizhou and He Guang, 1958) and Lu Lizhu in The Eternal Wave (Wang Ping, 1958).

4. Garrison’s Gorillas was broadcast to China’s general public by Central China Television (CCTV) in the 1980s. However, the programme was suddenly cut short after 11 episodes due to concerns that its immoral values would have a negative impact on Chinese youth. It was not until 1992 that CCTV completed the broadcast of this programme. For further details, see Xia (2006).

5. Since 1978, China’s economic and Open Door policies have encouraged privatization and foreign investment, which radically reformed Mao’s planned economic policy. In 2001, China formally joined the World Trade Organization, and the restrictions on foreign investment in banking, financial services, insurance, mass media and telecommunications were also loosened up. China not only continues to encourage foreign investment and global trade, but also encourages Chinese business to invest overseas. For further details, see Branstetter and Lardy (2008, 657).