Series Site
"To commemorate Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Spectacle Theater is proud to present HALF THE SKY, a new series examining the evolving depictions of, and cultural attitudes towards, the role of women in Chinese society during the early years of the Chinese film industry.
"Following the end of China’s dynastic era and the founding of republican China in 1912, cinema had exploded in popularity throughout the country. By the 1930s, studios, filmmakers, and performers began to realize the medium’s massive potential for widespread social and political messaging. In the decades that followed, cinema became an invaluable tool in disseminating progressive ideologies among the masses in what became known as the “Golden Age” of China’s leftist cinema movement.
"There was arguably no greater aspect of Chinese society where these shifting perspectives were more pronounced than concerning the role of women. Historically, Chinese society had operated on a conservative model of gender roles in which a woman’s ostensible purpose was to strive to be a “virtuous wife and good mother” (贤妻良母)— A model that was effectively continued under China’s Nationalist government which promoted the virtues of marital monogamy and child rearing while cracking down on vices like prostitution and gambling.
"Many of the creative voices working within China’s film industry, however, saw another story: One in which education and moral character were more important to good citizenship than tradition for tradition’s sake. Filmmakers like Sun Yu, Wu Yonggang, and Cai Chusheng began to incorporate these ideas directly into their work, crafting female-centric stories that expanded beyond archetypal gender roles and instead focused on the woman workers, artists, farmers, athletes, soldiers, warriors, wives, and mothers who were as integral to modern society as their male counterparts. China’s leftist cinema movement ultimately helped revolutionize the role of women in Chinese society, reinforcing the government’s obligations towards gender equality that, within a few short decades, would culminate in Mao Zedong’s famous 1968 pronouncement that, “Women hold up half the sky.”
"We return to the series this month with two 1940s releases by the team of director Sang Hu and novelist/essayist-turned-screenwriter Chang Ai-ling, aka Eileen Chang.
"Where the last installment of the series centered around two adaptations of centuries-old folk tales, steeped in tradition but imbued with new meaning among wartime audiences, this installment features two romance stories firmly rooted in the economic and social concerns of the present day. Both films were produced in the wake of the Second Sino-Japanese War, against a backdrop of a civil war, hyperinflation, and skyrocketing unemployment. Yet despite these circumstances, Sang and Chang’s films resonated deeply with post-war audiences, owing to their nuanced takes on the universally shared— yet still often private— affairs of love, family, marriage, and divorce." —Spectacle