The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the international cultural dominance of Hollywood films. More precisely, I have focused on the changesin how China has been portrayed. My touchstone is Edward Said's theory of
orientalism. I focus on nine films...
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the international cultural dominance of Hollywood films. More precisely, I have focused on the changesin how China has been portrayed. My touchstone is Edward Said's theory of
orientalism. I focus on nine films - most intensively on Forbidden Kingdom and Kung Fu Panda.
My main conclusion is that Hollywood's portrayals of China have significantly changed. They are more diverse and employ more original characters than the stereotypes of old.
I have also analyzed Forbidden Kingdom and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which were made respectively by Chinese and American director to review Chinese audiences' attitudes to the representation of China based on the different cultural viewpoints. as a result, Chinese audiences show the same positive attitude to the representation of Chinese traditional culture in both films, but the different attitude to the method of the representation. The positive attitudes to the representation of China by Kung Fu and the other traditional elements prove to be that Chinese have received the Western viewpoints to some extent. showing the status of self-orientalism.
In conclusion, the portrayals of China in Hollywood have changed considerably since much since China's reform and opening out to the world, especially with China's economic and cultural advances internationally over the past decade, although orientalism and self-orientalism still exist, and Western culture is still playing the leading role. The exportation of culture plays an important part in this process. and this can provides some reference to the research in South Korea and Japan.