Female Consciousness and Stereotypes in Chinese Female-Directed Cinema: Insights from the film Send Me to the Clouds

Mao Wenyu¹  & Roslina Ismail^2*
1 Ph.D. Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
² Associate Prof, Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. *Corresponding author.

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n3.07g
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Abstract

This paper analyzes Chinese female director Teng Congcong’s film Send Me to the Clouds to reveal the relationship between female consciousness and ideologies of power in the context of the current Chinese era. We examine the narrative strategies, imagery symbols and power ideologies in the film through Foucault’s body theory and feminist film theory. Send Me to the Clouds takes the redemption of life as its narrative strategy and incorporates elements of humor and absurdity. The film changes the initiator of sexual pleasure to the female protagonist, and the male becomes a passive character who is a cheater, a coward which is an attempt to break the “stereotype” of female passivity in the traditional Chinese cultural settings, to create an important role for female consciousness and ideology of power in this life-saving film. However, it is important to critically examine the limitations and subjectivity of the film, especially whether it subverts the traditional mainstream ideology in its artistic expression of “female consciousness”. This study provides insights into Chinese feminist film narratives and further discusses the significance and role of Chinese female consciousness in the global feminist film discourse.

Keywords: Female Directors, Stereotypes, Female consciousness, Feminism.