“Leftover Women” in Urban China
An Analysis of the Chinese Reality Show, My Little One
MA in Television and Cross-Media Culture (Media Studies) Yihan Zhu
Student no.: 12250341 Supervisor: Dr. Jeroen de Kloet Second Reader: Dr. Misha Kavka
Abstract
My Little One is a Chinese reality show which was broadcast its first season in 2019.
As a reality show derived from the South Korean show My Little Old Boy, My Little
One records the daily lives of five female celebrities who are all actresses, hostesses, or
athletes, and invites their fathers to the studio to observe their daughters’ lifestyles. Although it differs from the original format since those female guests are single and middle-aged, My Little One draws on female celebrities’ romantic relationships and urges them to get married. Through its narrative, those successful and famous professional females are portrayed as “leftover women” who are stressed, selfish, and cannot take care of themselves. They suffer evaluations of their lifestyles from the hosts—their fathers—and the public. Even though reality shows are presented is entertaining, according to Ouellette and Hay’s research on the governing function of reality television, they argue that reality shows have been playing a role in guiding citizens’ lifestyles from a distance catering to the targets of the state’s development. Reality television establishes a model for the audience in a range of aspects and tells them which are the “right” ones. In My Little One, the hosts and guest fathers offer suggestions on love and marriage to those “leftover women” to teach them how to be a “perfect” woman. Resultingly, the main research question of this thesis is: what kind of gendered subjectivities does My Little One encourage and discourage, and how do these subjectivities resonate with the social discourse in China surrounding leftover women? I will explore the image of “leftover women” in My Little One, discussing how the show conducts its female member casts as well as the female audience and its effects on constructing the identity of “leftover women,” in order to better grasp the governing logic that underlies reality TV in China.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ... 2
INTRODUCTION ... 4
1. BACKGROUND ... 4
2. GOVERNING FUNCTION AND SUBJECTIVITIES OF REALITY TV ... 7
3. GENDER AND SINGLEHOOD ... 9
4. RESEARCH METHODS ... 11
CHAPTER 1. “LEFTOVER WOMEN” IN CHINA’S REALITY TV ... 13
1.1REALITY TV ... 13
1.2CHINESE MEDIA ... 15
1.3MEDIA AND GENDER ... 18
1.4LEFTOVER WOMEN IN CHINESE TELEVISION ... 21
CONCLUSION... 24
CHAPTER 2. CONSTRUCTION AND REPRESENTATION OF “LEFTOVER WOMEN” IN MY LITTLE ONE ... 26
2.1FROM MY LITTLE OLD BOY TO MY LITTLE ONE ... 26
2.2WU XIN:THE DILEMMA BETWEEN CAREER AND FAMILY ... 29
2.3YUAN SHANSHAN:THE STANDARD FOR MARRIAGE AND INDIVIDUAL LIFE ... 32
2.4JIAO JUNYAN:THE BALANCE BETWEEN PARENTS AND SELF ... 35
CONCLUSION... 38
CHAPTER 3. REGULATION AND RECEPTION IN MY LITTLE ONE ... 39
3.1THE CONFLICT AMONG SAVVY AUDIENCES ... 39
3.2DISCIPLINED FEMALE CAST MEMBERS AND AUDIENCES ... 42
3.3AUDIENCE RECEPTION ... 47
CONCLUSION... 49
CONCLUSION ... 51
Introduction 1. Background
On a weekend in July, while the weather is hot and humid, a corner of Shanghai People’s Park remains crowded. Parents, many over sixty or seventy years old, are sitting behind a row of umbrellas upon which billboards with their unmarried sons’ and daughters’ photos, personal information, and requirements for a spouse have been placed. Those elderly parents seem like salespersons at the market, waiting for buyers to enquire about their goods—they are more anxious than their adult children who have already passed the “appropriate” age for marriage: they are talking to other parents, thinking about whether both children match, judging the conditions of the other “contestants,” and even loudly hawking their sons or daughters’ “selling points” to attract attention. The “matchmaking corner (xiang qin jiao 相亲角)” in the People’s Park has long been the symbol of the largest city park in the center of Shanghai. Such marriage markets in city parks have been spontaneously organized by citizens and have spread throughout major cities in China, thus illustrating the plight of the unmarried, middle-aged men and women and their families in a condensed epitome of the culture surrounding love and marriage in Chinese society.
My Little One (Wo jia na guinu 我家那闺女 [hereafter MLO]) is a reality show that debuted on Hunan Satellite TV in early 2019 and concentrates on the modern-day lifestyles of single women, discussing the familial conflicts caused by the daughters’ later marriages or non-marriages from the perspective of the adult in the parent-child relationship. MLO records the daily lives of six female celebrities, including actresses, hostesses, and Olympic champions, in the form of a reality show. Simultaneously, it invites those celebrities’ fathers to watch the videos, comment, and express their attitudes towards their daughters’ marriages and lives. However, these professional women, who are all outstanding in their respective fields, have all been labeled “leftover women” and suffer from the pressure placed on them from their parents, friends, and the show’s hosts who urge them to marry. Furthermore, the lifestyles of these ladies are judged on the show according to whether or not they are “suitable for marriage.” Briefly,
in MLO’s discourse, it seems that marriage is the only criterion to judge whether women are successful.
MLO paints a picture of the lifestyles of “leftover women” in contemporary urban China. The term, “leftover women,” has been extensively used in the media and the press. Furthermore, “leftover women”(sheng nu 剩女), meaning “women left on the shelf” (Sun), has become a prevailing term to describe single, middle-aged women in China over the last decade, and which was officially formalized by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China in 2007 (Fincher, “China’s ‘Leftover’ Women”). The Ministry of Education defines “leftover women” as highly successful unmarried women over the age of 27 with advanced degrees (Wang). It is like the slang “3S women,” which stands for “single, seventies (1970s), and stuck.” The images of leftover women fill news reports and TV screens, with many dating shows drawing upon the theme of a blind date, thus leading to the process of looking for a partner becoming itself a reality show. The agenda setting of reality television plays a role as an entertaining form to constitute the “leftover women” discourse in the marriage practice. In contrast, my study approaches “leftover women” not as an accepted demographic reality with a causal explanation, but rather as a process of discursive construction. The panic over “being leftover” has been constructed by the mass media in order to develop a negative connotation in the discourse on “leftover women.”
Therefore, the main research question that I want to explore in this thesis is: What kind of gendered subjectivities does My Little One encourage and discourage, and how do these subjectivities resonate with the social discourse in China surrounding leftover women?
This research question involves three sub-questions: 1. How are “leftover women” featured in Chinese media?
2. How does My Little One represent “leftover women” in urban China?
3. How does MLO insert the self-fashioning process of the female guests as well as the female audiences, and what is the audience’s reception to My Little One? The television screen and entertainment format magnify the gap between two generations, which generates plenty of online buzz. MLO seized upon the social issue
of “leftover women” and the “pressure to get married” by their families that underlie the lifestyles of unmarried, middle-aged women and the adult parent-child relationship pattern in contemporary modern China. From the initial episodes to the conclusion of its broadcast, it displays an obvious linear process: representing and magnifying the conflicts, resolving those conflicts, and providing solutions and behavioral guidance. It can be seen that, on the one hand, the show plays a role in the self-empowerment of the female guests who have become more determined to find their own self-worth, matching the values of young people in modern Chinese society; on the other hand, the relationship between the female guests and their parents has grown closer. MLO not only encourages the female cast members to change themselves and accept marriage, but also disseminates this discourse to the female audience members. Those women’s behavior have apparently changed and they now harbor a positive attitude toward marriage, which, to a certain extent, could be associated with a declining marriage rate and an increasing number of single, middle-aged women in China. Therefore, this thesis discusses the role MLO has played in the guidance of social order and its effects on constructing the identity of leftover women, in order to better grasp the governing logic that underlies reality TV in China.
To explore the research questions, this thesis is divided into three parts:
The first chapter will discuss the question of “what are ‘leftover women’ in China and how are they featured in Chinese media” to explain the relevant background for the research. It starts from the shaping role played by reality TV shows as proposed by Ouellette and Hay, and the idea of constructing subjectivities in television. Next, the development and features of Chinese television, particularly reality shows, are discussed. Narrowing the focus down to leftover women in China, this chapter will also illustrate the relationship between media and gender in China. Last, in connection with the traditional Chinese marriage culture and femininity, this chapter examines the images of leftover women in Chinese media.
The second chapter, with the sub-question of “how does My Little One represent leftover women in urban China,” analyzes the construction and representation of the image of leftover women on the show. It will draw upon the production strategies,
including the dual scene design, narrative, and editing which influence discourse.. Here, it will focus on three main characters and scenes, as well as the three topics reflected in the show that are closely related to leftover women, involving their careers, the importance and influence of their parents, and so on. Many leftover women express satisfaction with their single status, although they receive too much pressure from their parents and friends, reflecting the conflict between the collective norms and the individual conscious in the rapidly developing Chinese society.
In the third chapter, the interaction between the show and the audience will be examined in order to discuss how the governing function of reality television operates, therefore establishing a normative model for the entire society. When MLO first debuted, the audiences did not agree with the program’s technique of representing female celebrities as leftover women and they made criticisms. MLO adjusted its content in later episodes, emphasizing the importance of independence for women and identifying the importance of communication when it came to dealing with conflict regarding marriage with their parents, to finally achieve harmony both on and off the program.
2. Governing Function and Subjectivities of Reality TV
During the early stages of the development of television, television’s governing purpose of educating viewers was primarily illustrated in the documentary genre broadcast on the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), although it currently extends to the genre of reality TV, which “reinterprets” and “integrates” the meaning of this genre (Ouellette 68). Ouellette and Hay pointed out television’s civic function, which is connected to the ongoing social transformation in Western neoliberal states (Lewis et al. 537). According to their analysis of “makeover” programming in the U.S., they illustrate “how reality-based entertainment enacts experiments in governance and ‘civic laboratories’ for testing, refining and sharpening people’s abilities to conduct themselves in accordance with the new demands being placed on them (32)”.
As identified by Ouellette and Hay, the concept of governmentality in television— particularly reality TV—is derived from Michel Foucault, and involves the processes
through which subjectivities shape and guide the conduct of oneself and others based on certain purposes and goals. “In its simplest sense, governmentality refers to “how we think about governing others in a wide variety of contexts” (Ouellette and Hay 9). Other works have specifically extended this argument to television studies. For instance, Graham and Hajru suggest that driven by the participants’ lifestyles, reality TV in the U.K. serves as a “trigger” to incite political discussion among audiences, including the topics of lifestyle, image, and identity. Thus, in these programs, individuals are encouraged to take on new attitudes and behaviors which are described as “self-fashioning” (Ong).
Concerning the nature of identity (Lewis; Miller; Ouellette and Hay), the governing function of television is related to the construction of subjectivity. Foucault explains there are two meanings for the word “subject”: “subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge” (781). He claims that “all types of subjection are derived phenomena, that they are merely the consequences of other economic and social processes: forces of production, class struggle, and ideological structures which determine the form of subjectivity” (Foucault 782), which implies subjectivity is the product of social relations. Regarding the realm of television studies, Morley emphasizes that television texts and the actions of watching TV should be examined together as a dynamic activity that constantly moves between similarities and differences, which is a way of experiencing hegemony and resisting conflict (Lu). Fiske further expounds upon hegemonic construction in the ideology of television text, television viewers, and television culture, arguing that television viewers are the subjects constructed by the late capitalist society.
Ong and Zhang describe a new trend in Chinese society, which is considered to be “privatizing China” and refers to the “gap between state action and self-interested endeavors,” a space that has been taken over by “neoliberal tools of privatization, (…) animating a new kind of self-consciousness and self-governing among Chinese subjects” (5). Though there is “a greater emphasis on individual responsibility and self-reliance have been created by the globalization of the market economy and an ideology of consumerism”, Yan argues that “individualization in China is characterized by the
management of the party-state and the absence of cultural democracy, the absence of a welfare state regime, and the absence of classic individualism and political liberalism” (Yan 510). Along with the trend of a “privatized” society, a wide range of media genres and formats have emerged to tap into these collective concerns, which “defuse discontent or even anger which comes from various types of social inequality, be it along the line of gender, class, and place” (Sun 2). Media content in the form of entertainment works more effectively than the news in encouraging “self-sufficiency and less dependence on the state, and to assist in maintain social stability and defusing class-based social conflict” (Sun and Lei 35). During this process, the role of reality television has been a subject of the discussion surrounding the conduction citizens’ behavior.
3. Gender and Singlehood
During the early days of the PRC, in order to enhance labor productivity throughout the entirety of society, Mao publicly expressed his support for gender equality with the famous statement that “women hold up half the sky” to emphasize the importance of female labor participation (Fincher). In the 1950s, China possessed one of the largest female workforces in the world, and Chinese women displayed higher levels of labor participation than in most other countries (United Nations’ Report in 2000). The professional development of women made them economically independent from men, which encouraged women rid themselves of their dependency on marriage and men to a certain extent (Feldshuh; Gaetano; To; Zhu). In addition, women’s higher education levels and stronger employment competitiveness empowered their identities. This improvement in women's social competitiveness and the wider expansion of the scope of their social interaction increased their chances for spouse selection, and the marriage age was raised accordingly (Zhu). As a result, many modern women believe that marriage is no longer the only way for society to embrace them or to gain social recognition and access to social resources.
However, alongside its rapid economic reformation and modernization, China has witnessed a resurgence in patriarchal Confucian traditions in recent years (Fincher; Ji and Yeung; Sun and Chen). The increase in women’s educational levels and the
improvement in their professionalization has weakened the competitiveness of women on the marriage market. Some population economic studies of leftover women groups demonstrate that the higher the education level of women, the greater the proportion of single women. Conversely, the percentage of singles in the lower educated male demographic is the largest (Zhang et al.). The Chinese Ministry of Education (2007) attributes the single status of these women to their own “overly high expectations for marriage partners,” implying that they are the ones to blame for their own incompetence and independence (Yang). Moreover, the predominant patriarchal culture also lacks any positive concepts for describing independent career women who do not fit into traditional domestic roles. To be more specific, the patriarchal culture still demands that women accept the stereotype that men work outside the home and women are the ones to do the housework (nanzhuwai, nvzhunei 男主外女主内) and to take responsibility for serving the husband and instructing the children (xiang fu jiao zi 相夫教子). In addition, through the methods utilized for conducting the interviews and surveys, a series of studies on the leftover women group in China argue that parents and partners strongly affect these women’s opinions of marriage and their choice of spouses (To; Ji). Although arranged marriages are banned in China, parents remain actively involved in their children’s choice of mate (Riley; Xu and Whyte). In this sense, women's recognition of marriage and themselves are influenced by the people around them and even the mainstream discourse of the entire society to a great extent.
In other words, marriage is still a “must” for Chinese women, and as a result, there has been a proliferation of nationwide matchmaking reality shows and matchmaking events at public parks in almost every mainland Chinese city, the latter being the aforementioned situation where parents advertise their daughters and sons’ physical and economic attributes on billboards in the hope of getting them married off as soon as possible (Yang). The guiding function of dating shows has been discussed (Wang; Sun; Luo), and as Sun points out, these entertaining shows provide information on “how to conduct oneself in an intimate relationship”(2). According to the performances of the male and female candidates in the studio, dating shows instruct viewers on how to showcase their own charm in the short-term, improve their appeal to future partners,
and optimize their potential in the marriage market. This discourse dictates that young women must undergo sustained pressure to return to their family in their 20s in order to take on the responsibility of having and raising children (Fincher).
4. Research Methods
This thesis applies the combined methods of textual analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), which aim to examine the visual techniques used and the linguistic content. CDA is a “linguistics tool” (Fowler 481) focusing on “social problems, especially on the role of discourse in the production and reproduction of abuse of power or domination” (van Dijk 96). The combination method contributes to the idea constructed through video images, narratives, and language used in the show, before then revealing the power and knowledge contained in the text, especially the prejudice, discrimination, and distortion of facts that people are used to. It then explains the social conditions that led to their existence and their role in the power struggle.
There are two resources in the corpus. The first is the content of MLO, which has only broadcast one season which consists of 12 episodes that are 85 minutes long. The corpus of the audience’s responses to the show is derived from two significant Chinese social media platforms, Weibo and Douban. The former serves as the Chinese version of Twitter and is one of the most popular social media websites in China, and is primarily concerned with celebrities, entertainment, and social affairs. By 2018, Weibo had more than 400 million active users, mainly between 17 and 33-years-old, covering the whole country and the expatriate Chinese population. However, its user base has gradually sunk to smaller sized cities’ citizens (2018 Weibo User Development Report). The “Trending Topics” (or most searched hashtags) is one of the most significant functions of Weibo, which is updated in real time, displaying hot online topics.
Another source of the audience response survey is Douban. As one of the largest online interest group SNS’ in China, Douban has gradually transformed from a small literary website into an extremely popular one. Its users are mainly 20–39-years-old and living in first and second tier cities. The rating system for Douban Movies (including films, television dramas, and programs) is scored by the users (one to ten
points) and is both influential and authoritative in the Chinese film and television industry. People can rate series and post their comments and critiques of them. For example, there are 5,745 short comments and 151 review articles written by viewers on MLO’s homepage. Douban also has a “like” function for comments and commentary that have gained a large number of likes and is representative, so I will select some of the comments on MLO’s homepage on Douban with the most “likes” to summarize and analyze them. In addition, according to the release date of the comment, it can be discerned during which period of the show the comment was written, thus demonstrating the shift in the audience’s attitudes as the first season went on. I will also select some of the comments on MLO’s Douban homepage with the most “likes” to similarly summarize and analyze from January 5th, 2019 to April.
Thus, by summarizing MLO’s relevant hashtags on Weibo during the broadcast period and combining the popular comments from Douban’s Movie section (according to the number of replies), this thesis will outline the audience’s overall impression of the program and analyze the audience’s recognition and acceptance of the show’s content in detail.
Chapter 1. “Leftover Women” in China’s Reality TV
In this chapter, the governing function of reality television will first be explained. Next, the development and features of Chinese television, particularly reality shows, are discussed. Narrowing down the focus on leftover women in China, this chapter will also illustrate the relationship between media and gender in China. Lastly, in connection with traditional Chinese marriage culture and femininity, this chapter examines the images of leftover women in Chinese media.
1.1 Reality TV
Raymond Williams argues that the development of television as an institution both contrasts and competes with “public service” and “commercial” institutions (30). In the UK, public-oriented broadcaster the BBC has always played a main role, but it has also been challenged by United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting (UKIB). In the US, commercial broadcasts dominated the television market for a long time, with public broadcasting not emerging until 1967, albeit the public benefit of commercial television has been gradually rationalized (Ouellette and Hay 24) and the government is trying to achieve a balance between the two. The television market’s swing between public and commerce reflects “the intricate relationship among a public authority and State and corporate political and economic interests” (Williams 32).
Facing financial scarcity and labor unrest, the early form of reality shows emerged during the late 1980s as a fiscal and production strategy in response to the restructuring of the U.S. television field (Raphael 96) to help television institutions cut down on expenses. Furthermore, the commercial characteristics of reality TV was not only embodied in for-profit programming, but also sold a “lifestyle” based on these consumer goods (Williams 36). In their book Better Living through Reality TV, Ouellette and Hay explain the concept of governance and explore this feature in reality television:
“According to Foucault, it is the State’s ability to encourage ‘freedom’ as long as behavior is exercised responsibly that enables it to ‘govern at a distance’ rather than primarily by force… Governmentality in this sense refers to a relation by the State to civil society, defined as the array of social institutions and private
forms of association that comprise indispensable networks for exercising power and governing at a distance” (Ouellette and Hay 9-10).
James Hay contends that television plays a significant role in this governing process, one that “is not limited to sanctioned forms of news and public affairs” (Ouellette 226). According to Hay, “popular reality television may be better suited to the indirect, diffuse mode of cultural governmentality” (Ouellette 226), due to the interaction between the program and the audience. For instance, the makeover genre provides “the skills, problem-solving techniques, step-by-step demonstrations, intimate feedback, motivational support mechanisms, and suggestions for everyday application,” which are more effective than current methods of regulation in cultural governance (Ouellette and Hay 474). Because personal suggestion and guidance are combined with components of “voyeurism, suspense, humor, and emotional intensity” as a part of the program, reality shows are likely to be more appropriate to the “indirect, diffuse mode of cultural governance”(Ouellette and Hay 4).
This view is based on the neoliberalist background of Western countries, which emphasizes individual freedom and will, rather than the regulation of state power. Yet, its essence borrows the ability of other institutions to indirectly discipline the citizens’ behavior. Since “a neoliberal form of governance assumes that social subjects are not and should not be subject to direct forms of State control, it, therefore, relies on mechanisms for governing at a distance,” through the conducting and shaping of “self-disciplining subjects (Ouellette 226)”. According to Nikolas Rose, the “regulation of conduct” in late modern capitalist societies is rarely associated with a top-down agenda, but is more often presented as the individual’s “own desire” to achieve optimal happiness and success (Ouellette 57). While China’s broadcasting is controlled by the government and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), it also has the dual nature of being both a public service and serving commerce (Keane and Zhao; Fung; Li). Neoliberalism in China is merely a discussion instead of a fact; with the continued opening of the market economy and the influence of Western ideology, China’s market economy has driven a consumer transformation in which the mentality of “consumer choice and agency” has pervaded the Chinese way of life since the 2000s (Luo 88). The
global neoliberal values of state deregulation, marketization, privatization, and consumerism have taken hold in the Chinese market and the privatization of modern China is an undeniable fact (Zhang and Ong).
“Lifestyle and reality television have been stitched into the contemporary dynamics of the governmental, helping to translate neoliberal policies and discourses as opportunities for individuals to empower themselves through their conduct and choices” (Ouellette and Hay 2). Various types of reality shows illustrate their governing function. For instance, the mediation shows (Love Thy Neighbor; Families at War) help to solve civil issues in a mild way. Queer Eye is a famous makeover show that reinvents the lifestyles of straight guys according to the living standards of healthiness and happiness set by gay people. Gaming shows, such as Big Brother and Survivor, emphasize people’s relationship and social behaviors. One of the most typical genres to exemplify the mediating role reality television plays are court programs, which teach the audience the principle that personal freedom is built on self-control (Ouellette 232).
1.2 Chinese Media
The idea of cultural governance has existed for a long time in China, particularly within the context of the role of media. To a great extent, Chinese media is regarded as “the mouthpiece of the Party,” playing a vital propagandistic role. However, the State’s conduct is not only represented through top-down guidance by the CCP and state institutions including the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) and the State Administration for Radio, Film, and TV (SAPPRFT), but is also “outsourced” to private media producers to subconsciously influence viewers using media products. As Florian Schneider has claimed:
“The role of State and Party has changed from institutions that govern cultural content in a straightforward fashion to agencies that now mainly use soft controls and market mechanisms to influence the wider framework in which cultural production takes place; the second is that cultural production involves a wide range of actors in collaborative efforts to produce and disseminate culture” (Schneider 189).
In 1958, the first television station was established in China as a result of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward in Broadcasting Work” during the late 1950s (Schneider 192). In 1979, the Reform and Opening Up of China began. Seeking to modernize and expand its media industry, the shiye-qua-qiye model (government-funded institutions transforming into enterprise or industry formations) prevailed among Chinese television stations of the 1980s and 1990s. Then, along with the further development of the socialist market economy in 1992, Chinese television stations were required to be financially self-sufficient instead of relying on subsidies from the state. This policy was also aimed at containing the threat Hollywood posed as China geared up for its entry into the World Trade Organization (Bai), and which promoted the establishment of the Chinese television industry’s commercial operating mechanisms. Meanwhile, satellite TV was widely adopted in the late 1990s so that provincial TV stations could be broadcast across the country, opening up the possibility of competing with CCTV. Because news control was still concentrated in the central area of China, local stations focused on commercial programs.
The birth of China’s reality television was later than that of European and American TV, but it followed a business mentality similar to its Western counterparts. In 2002, Guangdong TV station utilized its geographic advantage to learn from the Hong Kong program Radio Boy and launched the first reality program Survival
Challenge (Shengcun da tiaozhan 生存大挑战). In 2005, Hunan Satellite TV’s talent
show, Super Girl, triggered a heated debate among the public, which empowered the audience to vote for and select their idol. This is evident according to the data from 2005, as the viewers’ votes cast via text messages generated over RMB 100 million (Zhu). Despite the policy of continuously strengthening control over entertainment programs (e.g., votes cast outside the studio, including those sent via mobile phones, were banned; the contestants must be older than 18 years old), the development of China’s TV market system was driven by politics as well as profit (Sun and Zhao; Wang; Li). In addition, the types of Chinese reality shows have gradually diversified. Many overseas programming models such as The Voice of China and China’s Got Talent were introduced, and China’s communication and relationship with the global TV market
grew closer. As such, Chinese television displays both commercial and political characteristics.
Chinese political thought has placed a particularly high premium on “cultivating morally correct conduct” (Schneider 190), which normally consists of models and guidelines for behaviors in daily life, rather than instilling a sort of moral value, participating in the establishment of people’s subjectivity and helping them to become good individuals who meet the requirements of the state on their own initiative. Good examples are popular TV productions—for example, those reality shows and soap operas that tend to provide scenes of contemporary society that are “compatible with the CCP’s interpretations” (Schneider 194). Reality shows teach the viewer how to stay healthy and keep fit (Baibai la rourou 拜拜啦肉肉; Battle! Hao shenca I 好身材); how to create a warm and comfortable living space (Mengxiang gaizaojia 梦想改造 家; Jiaohuan kongjian 交 换 空 间 ); how to improve themselves to display an
appearance that complies with the mainstream fashion aesthetic (Nushen de xinzhuang 女神的新装; Baituole yichu 拜托了衣橱); how to be successful in their careers (Zhi lai zhi wang职来职往; Feinimoshu 非你莫属); how to start a romantic relationship
and showcase your charm (Fei cheng wu rao 非诚勿扰; Fei chang wan mei非常完美); and even how to deal with intimate relationships between couples, parents, and children as well as family members (Xingfu sanchongzhou 幸福三重奏, Yilushang youni 路上 有你; Baba qu nar 爸爸去哪儿; Mama shi chaoren 妈妈是超人; Jinpai tiaojie 金
牌调解). Briefly, reality TV has diffused informal “guidelines for living” (Ouellette and Hay 2), which call upon the viewers to learn from and follow them, while also expressing standards for “well-behaved” people to intervene in the construction of their subjectivity.
In addition, the emergence of social television in the Internet-era has fostered interaction between the audience and the program. Consequently, television’s intervention in the audiences’ behavior and their subjectivities have grown. The CPP’s zeal for media convergence is part of a state strategy entitled “Internet+,” which was officially inaugurated when Premier Li Keqiang released his “Government Work Report” in 2015. More specifically, the Internet+ initiative focuses on “convergence
and innovation surrounding, on the one hand, the new generation of information technologies of cloud computing, the Internet of things, and big data, and modern manufacturing industries and service industries on the other” (see: National Development and Reform Commission 2015). There was a clear boundary between producers and receivers in traditional television since it required one-way broadcasting, which impeded the level of interaction. However, the emergence of social television and social media platforms in the Internet era reflects the contemporary dynamics of interactive media and user-generated content, which provides a better platform for attracting attention and interaction. Establishing an official webpage, Weibo, and WeChat accounts, signing distribution agreements with multiple online-visual content providers, and using social media to gain free publicity and distribution venues have become a common routine in the program production process. These digital platforms also provide a stage for audiences to express their attitude towards the show, thus forming a dialogue between the two sides of the television screen.
1.3 Media and Gender
When discussing the connection between media and gender, previous studies (Hirschman and Stern; Zayel et al.) have argued that media can be a significant platform for examining the social construction of gender since, through repetition, some normative ideas surrounding gender standards are likely to be legitimatized (Peng). Be that as it may, spaces to test gender roles are restricted in China (Rofel), especially concerning news and media products, which usually reinforce gender stereotypes. Wood and Skeggs suggest that “it is the form of television that secures class and gender’s theatrical emergence (207)”. According to David Morley, reality TV is “central to the ‘moral economy’ of our period, in which particular types of persons, families, and lifestyles are presented as worthy of emulation, while others are devalued and classified as pathological or dysfunctional” (490). It is the “entertainment bias” of television (Peter Dahlgren) that strengthens or subverts the conventional stereotypes regarding the notions of femininity and masculinity during the process of pursuing spectacle and attention.
The discussion surrounding masculinity is reflected in many Chinese reality shows. For example, Idol Producer (Ouxiang lianxisheng 偶像练习生) was launched in early 2018 on one of China’s biggest online video platforms, iQiyi. Based on the famous South Korean show, Producer 101, Idol Producer aims to select nine people from a hundred contestants to debut as a boy band/group based on the viewers’ votes. However, along with the popularity of the program, the male contestants’ images and their standards for masculinity were also discussed. Most of the boys who participated in this competition had the appearance of Japanese and Korean “Flower Boys” (hua mei nan 花美男)—meaning they looked pretty with their long curly hair and smooth fair skin. In front of the camera, makeup was necessary, and some boys even wore pink—a symbolic color of girls—eyeshadow during their performances. There was the opinion that the image of “flower boys” reflects the lack of masculinity in modern Chinese society and that one of the reasons for this phenomenon is the absence of a father figure in the boy’s environment as he grew up (Zeng). However, this discussion set the social standard for male behavior as the standard of masculinity and that we cannot negate the connotation of “flower boy” with experimenting with different kinds of masculinity.
Indeed, in China, women—often nannies and grandparents—take on the most responsibility for taking care of the One Child Generation (Keane and Zhang 637). Numerous scholars have explored this TV program’s construction of the father's role in a family (Keane and Zhang). Additionally, Chinese women have a double burden of responsibilities for both family and work (Luo, “Television’s ‘Leftover’ Bachelors and Hegemonic Masculinity in Postsocialist China”). Compared with the father, the mother spends more time taking care of the family, while also work having to outside the home as a professional. Simultaneously, the mother “leaving the family” did not bring about the father’s return. Under such circumstances, many parent-child reality shows such as
Where Are We Going, Dad? (a reality show about fathers taking children to travel
together) won the hearts of the female audience, since they have portrayed and created a new trend of fathers taking care of their children, which in the past they have not been well equipped for and thus has seemed ridiculous. However, it is noteworthy to point out that the reason why many reality shows cater to the preferences of female audiences
is that women comprise their major target audience groups. Despite the possibility of challenging the traditional gender norms, these are merely “a superficial rebranding of gender relations within consumerist ideology” (Luo 199). Just as those “flower boys” in Idol Producer represent a voyeuristic interest in the appearance of “flower boys” on the television screen, such as with Idol Producer which has become desirable, it does not mean a weakening of masculinity but rather an increase in women’s spending power. Commercial TV sells a youthful, sexy male body to attract female audiences, which is the same as the role of using the female body within the traditional consumer market (Deery). Thus, although an increasing number of TV shows have considered female insights and their spending power, this does not represent an actual improvement in female social status.
In 2005, Hunan Satellite TV’s Super Girl made a tremendous breakthrough in Chinese commercial TV. Drawing from American Idol and The X Factor, Super Girl selected young women who were talented at singing. This talent show prompted the renewal of female gender perceptions in Chinese society as a whole, referring to “performances of the authentic self-connected to gender and sexuality”(de Kloet and Landsberger 135). The winner of Super Girl 2005, Li Yuchun, sparked a national media craze. As an ordinary girl who was born in the 1980s, she has androgynous looks with short hair, and a low and magnetic voice, while always wearing pants instead of dresses. Some people criticized her for not meeting the definition of ideal femininity, and even deliberately conflated her gender by calling her “Brother Chun (Chun ge 春哥).” Over the next few seasons of Super Girl, there were always a few contestants who had a style similar to Li Yuchun, helping them to gain many fans. However, the role of girls like “Brother Chun” in popular programs has gradually moved away from gaining public attention as a form of voyeurism to instead evolve into an indispensable symbol of the diversity of the female gender. Traditional Chinese femininity in feudal society has largely been influenced by traditional Chinese culture and patriarchal social systems, and Confucianism was once the ideological and cultural foundation for Chinese society. From the Confucian point of view, women are characterized by their weakness and obedience, considered to be lower and subordinate to men, and playing the role of “a
filial woman, a dutiful wife, and a good mother” (Lin). While the opening of the Chinese market allowed for the entrance of Western culture and the appearance of more Western models in Chinese media, the sexy and young image became a part of Chinese femininity (Johansson; Yang). Therefore, China’s modern ideal of femininity was generated by combining “Western modernity” with “Confucian tradition” (Notar 29– 30).
Just like when Super Girl was popular and its winner Li Yuchun served as a gay icon, Chinese homosexual groups have been exploring the possibility a living space in media for a long period of time. The image of the LGBT community in the Chinese media has experienced a process of stigmatization, marginalization, and entertainment. Additionally, some entertainment programs have edited intimate behaviors between two male actors to attract attention. However, there is an online talk show, U Can U
Bibi (Qipa shuo 奇葩说), which is very popular among young audiences for its values
of freedom and openness. In an episode on whether gays should come out to their parents, the contestants and hosts deeply discussed the dilemmas of the LGBT community in contemporary Chinese society. Unfortunately, U Can U Bibi’s effort to display a positive attitude towards LGBT as a popular mass program failed. In the face of China’s national policy, this episode had to be banned.
1.4 Leftover Women in Chinese Television
The term “leftover women” has attracted attention over the last decade in Chinese society. According to a series of social science studies, the emergence of leftover women is a result of the modernization of Chinese society as well as a byproduct of the conflict between tradition and modernity (Wang; Zhu). To be more specific, “family ideation and behaviors, arranged marriage, parental control, male domination, and extended family structures” are regarded as traditional, whereas “love marriage, individual autonomy, women’s independence and personal development, and nuclear family structure” are regarded as modern (Ji 1061). The conflicts caused by leftover women are linked to a few aspects. The first being the conflict between the will of single women to pursue successful careers and the request for women to return to the family. After receiving an education, most women want to pursue careers in order to realize
their individual value, and as such they can play more important roles in society than they ever have before. However, “traditional gender norms still regulate gender relations and family life in the private sphere” (Ji 1059). The next point of conflict is the rising awareness of women regarding their own identities, which rejects parental control over their lives. The trend toward consumerism, which is steadily being strengthened by market-oriented reforms, has also strengthened people’s private and individual consciousness. Instead of concerning themselves with their contribution to families, collectives, and the nation, young people tend to pursue their happiness. In the view of a single woman who is unwilling to marry, if her parents persuade her to get married to obtain happiness, then she will respond that she already feels satisfied with herself, thus she does not need to get married. However, in most Chinese families the parents are still in close contact with their children, even if the children have grown into adults and have their own lives. Those parents often impart the values and conduct that they are convinced of on their children. Regarding marriage, while arranged marriages are banned in China, parents actively remain involved in their children’s choice of spouse (Riley; Xu and Whyte). If it is said that the responsibility to pass on the family line is the greatest pressure exerted by the family on leftover men, the attitudes of “will not be lonely and old” and “reassuring parents” could be the basic form of moral blackmail committed by the parents towards the leftover women. Borrowing from the power of filial piety (xiao 孝 ), this traditional Chinese virtue forms an ethical framework which pressures typical adult children into getting married to shoulder their family responsibilities.
However, to some extent, “leftover women” do not exist. It is not an accepted demographic reality but rather a process of discursive media construction (Feldshuh). As femininity and masculinity are the embodiments of the social discourse concerning what a woman or a man should be (Butler), the concept of “leftover women” is a negation of certain features of women that are “unvalued” by the greater society. For Chinese women, this term is the equivalent of a language policing tool, which implies that “a category of women concocted by the government to achieve its demographic goals of promoting planning population, and maintaining social stability” (Fincher 3),
in order to “motivate conformity to marriage norms” (Feldshuh 9) under the threat of being labeled “leftover.”
Several dating and matchmaking shows have appeared on Chinese television screens over the last decade—for example, Television Matchmaker (Dianshi hongniang 电视红娘 1988), Dating on Saturday (Xiangyue xingqi liu 相约星期六 1998), Red
Rose Date (Meigui zhi yue 玫瑰之约 1998), and If You are the One (Fei cheng wu rao
非诚勿扰 2010), which have all gained unprecedented popularity in China. These
shows have established platforms for strangers to meet their potential future spouses and in doing so have also created a new matchmaking culture (Wang 505). When it comes to the topic of single women, these reality shows are confined to the mainstream attitude, emphasizing the gender disparities and patriarchal impacts on marriage, while also including the topic of leftover women in order to attract their audiences’ attention.
Hello, Mr. Right (Shizhou jia chuqu十周嫁出去 2015) has a similar format to The Bachelorette, which invited An Youqi, the champion of Super Girl Season 1, to be the
actress looking for her Mr. Right on the show. Despite having won such a prize and being famous nationwide, this 33-year-old girl admitted that she did feel anxious about getting married, and since it was becoming harder to find an appropriate partner as she grew older and her fame made her suitors feel stressed, she had no choice but to rely on the power of television. Another makeover reality show produced by TVB in Hong Kong, Bride Wannabes (Shengnu ai zuozhan 盛女爱作战 2012), helps single women to make themselves over on the show and invites gender relations experts to teach them how to attract the opposite sex. The show changes the single women’s appearances according to male aesthetic standards and teaches them some strategies on how to become “more charming,” which seems to blame their singleness on merely a lack of effort. Chinese Dating (Zhongguo xin xiangqin中国新相亲 2018) even invites the contestant’s parents on stage. It lets the parents choose spouses for their children based on the parents’ preferences and their understanding of their children, before then leaving the final decision up to the contestants themselves. This format solidifies the parent’s role in intervening in their children’s choice of spouse. Furthermore, one of the most popular dating shows on Chinese TV, If You are the One, introduces two
popular emotional experts on stage to provide advice and guidance to single women in the marriage market. However, when older women and young women stand together, the latter is often easily chosen by male guests.
Similarly, though MLO does not position itself as a dating show, it spends a considerable part of its runtime to discussing the romantic relationship of female casts and provides instructions on marriage to single women. A great number of dating shows and reality shows participate in guiding and intervening in the female lifestyle and their attitudes towards marriage, which “center around the themes of love, romance, and sexual intimacy, and specialize in emotional and psychological counseling and relationship therapy” (Sun). Moreover, as Luo argues,
“the ideological purpose of dating shows is twofold: to alleviate tensions in the marriage market as part of the long-lasting repercussions of the one-child policy, and to reconstruct post-socialist gendered subject positions in alignment with new economic modalities… Public broadcasters not only discipline manhood but also naturalize new gender mandates in alignment with global neoliberal values and local States’ pursuit of capitalist economic development” (Luo 192).
By constructing the concept of leftover women and highlighting its negativity, television programs intend to convince young, single, and well-educated women to enter marriage when they can instead of fulfilling their career ambitions and other pursuits (Fincher). This discourse places enormous pressure on young women to get married by their mid-20s and reflects a “visceral anxiety about marriage and romance, which pulses through nearly every aspect of contemporary Chinese culture” Larson 2012).
Conclusion
Under the control of the state and the CCP, Chinese television has always played a role in guiding not only the daily behaviors of the public, but also their values and ideologies. But now, accompanied by the marketing of China’s television industry, the governing function of reality television that exists in China has replaced the news as a
tool for conducting people’s behavior from a distance. Images on television screens define symbols of masculinity and femininity. For TV producers, the topic of women is a highlight of their shows in order to attract the audiences’ attention, which is a popular topic for society as well as a selling point for commerce. Illustrated by the term of “leftover women”, a number of reality shows such as MLO involve themselves in this discourse. It seems to help female guests to make over themselves to have better life, while actually reestablishing their identities according to the requirement of the state’s development of its population.
Chapter 2. Construction and Representation of “Leftover Women” in My Little One
In this chapter, I will first provide a general overview of how the show depicts its female guests as leftover women and how it displays the relationship between the celebrity guests and their fathers. Then, I will focus on three female guests and related topics, using their stories to discuss three discourses about leftover women: family and career, marriage and individual life, as well as the strained relations between leftover women and their parents. The series is in Mandarin, so I will translate the sampled content into English as accurately as possible.
2.1 From My Little Old Boy to My Little One
The research subject of this thesis, the reality show My Little One (Wojia na guinv), illustrates the media’s construction of the discourse on “leftover women” from the perspective of the parent-child relationship within the context of contemporary urban China. It is produced by Hunan Satellite TV, one of the most successful provincial television stations in China. My Little One has had two respective seasons for male celebrities and female celebrities (Wojia na xiaozi 我家那小子 and Wojia na guinv 我 家那闺女). The former was broadcast in the summer of 2018, and the latter was aired every Saturday night from early January 2019 onwards, including 12 episodes and lasting for three months.
MLO is derived from a South Korean TV format, My Little Old Boy, which has broadcast over a hundred episodes since early 2017. The original version is a show observing the adult children’s growth, which helps celebrities’ mothers learn more about their children’s daily lives and features commentary from the mothers as they watch the footage of their sons’ daily activities. Also, some celebrities are invited as temporary guests in each episode as a model son/daughter or model parent to share their experience with the guest mothers. Faced with their children who are middle-aged but still single, the guest mothers express their concerns for their sons—for instance, worrying that their children feeling lonely, or that nobody will be able to take care of
him after he gets older. Thus, marriage is an important topic in the program. But more importantly, although the guest celebrities are middle-aged, My Little Old Boy demonstrates the childish side of these celebrities that is fun-loving and naïve by recording their daily lives. Also, the warmth and conflict in parent-child relationship is presented through the comments made by the celebrities’ mothers.
However, in the localized Chinese version, particularly in the “daughter season,” the concern over their adult children’s romantic relationship and marriage has become the dominant theme—even if is the only one present, which seems to be a departure from the show’s original format as a dating show and marriage guide. There are five female cast members: Wu Xin (吴昕), a famous hostess; actresses and also university classmates: Yuan Shanshan (袁姗姗) and Jiao Junyan (焦俊艳)；and Olympic athletes Fu Yuanhui (傅园慧) and He Wenna (何雯娜). In the first episode of MLO, the first sentence uttered is “do you have a plan for matchmaking recently?”, which comes from a preproduction interview. Thus, the program has set the tone for its content from the very beginning—i.e., the emotional attribution of middle-aged single women. This interview also illustrates how, as a popular Olympic swimming champion, Fu Yuanhui, was taken to a matchmaking dinner by her father, though she is only 23 years old now. “Trampoline Princess:” He Wenna just retired as an athlete for one year, while her parents constantly mention that it will be too late if she does not put in the effort to find a husband now. This tends to illustrate that when a daughter grows to a marriageable age but remains without a partner, it will become an urgent issue for the entire family. However, the ladies are enjoying their present lives. As He says, “Marriage is not the only standard that can prove your happiness. I just retired (from an athletic career) for less than two years, and my life has just begun.” However, they still suffer from the pressure to get married from their fathers and the hosts of the show. According to an article, the hosts and fathers suggest that female guests should get married and have expressed eagerness in their expectation for the daughters’ marriage 23 times within the first three episodes of MLO (Lan). Even a temporary guest in one episode, Wang Lin, misspeaks in claiming that it is a “matchmaking show.”
Moreover, in MLO, the narrative about the daily life of single women is limited to the discourse surrounding marriage. Each female star’s story has a matchmaking plot: when the female star is with a single man, they will be marked with subtitles of being a “leftover woman” and a “leftover man” by the editor. When a friend of the opposite sex appears, romantic post-editing effects such as pink filters and heart-shaped stickers are added to create a romantic atmosphere. Also, in the “son season” of MLO, one of the male celebrities starts learning to fly a plane to challenge himself while another tells a story of communicating with his family members and then opening his heart. In contrast, in the “daughter season” of MLO, the plots of the female celebrities are learning to cook, taking care of children, or having dinner with married friends to ask and learn how to be a good wife.
The show represents scenes in the lives of contemporary urban women, but it evaluates their behavior according to the demand for marriage and attributes their singlehood to certain “bad behaviors and characters.” For example, Wu Xin is an introvert who enjoys being alone, though she is a professional hostess. When she does not have a performance to prepare for, she usually stays at home for over a week. Thus, her father criticizes her by stating that she is “a homebody who cannot get a chance to meet a boyfriend.” Similarly, as a bold and forthright lady, actress Yuan Shanshan has many friends of the opposite sex who come to her house as guests. But when the host asked if it was possible to develop a relationship with one of these friends, Yuan’s dad denied this and claimed that “her character is too boyish, and she is a buddy with the boys. How can she find a boyfriend? I hope she could more like a girl.” But there is actually no right or wrong character to some extent. Here, being single and older seems to be the original sin for women, which implies that their values and lifestyles are incorrect. Only by being equipped with the ability and character required by marriage can they seem to obtain happiness.
Here, I focus on three female celebrities, Wu Xin, Yuan Shanshan and Jiao Junyan in order to explore the image of leftover women. Since each cast has different characters and lifestyles which are respectively related to typical dilemmas for the entire group of leftover women—career ambitions and family responsibilities, marriage discipline for
women, and the relationship between the self and parents—which are presented in the show, in order to examine how the program constructs the discourse surrounding “leftover women.”
2.2 Wu Xin: The Dilemma Between Career and Family
Wu Xin is a well-known hostess in China who has also played roles in some TV series and usually attends fashion shows. Wu participated in a national talent show to select the top host and won second place, therefore becoming one of the hosts of Happy
Camp (Kuaile dabenying 快乐大本营), the most influential variety show in China, and
making her rich and famous. In the eyes of ordinary people, Wu is the personification of the story of the ugly duckling turning into a white swan, which is what many dream of. However, Wu is 36 years old and single right now, so she is a typical “leftover woman” according to the definition. She often shares her anxiety on the program about her relationship with her parents and planning her future life while her biggest trouble is that she has been suffering from the pressure to work and get married at the same time.
In the first episode, Wu’s friend Shen Ling, who is also a host, visits her house. When they talk about their working status, Wu expresses that she has encountered a bottleneck in her career this year and feels “particularly powerless.”
“I want to have an achievement in my job at first, and when it becomes better, it is not too late (to find a spouse). Only when you become better, can you then find a better one.” Thus she is putting in the effort to improve herself to have a better chance. This principle is not only present in her working values, but also impacts her romantic values. But, Qin Hailu, a temporary guest who serves as a “model” woman who succeeds at “both family and career,” tells her that her opinion could merely limit her when choosing a spouse. Moreover, Wu considers finding a boyfriend and getting married when her work is not busy, but the family’s huge obstacle to her career makes her lose courage. “Assuming that I now find a person to marry, it will take around a
year and a half from pregnancy to recovery. If my work pauses during this time, can I still come back to this field of work? ...I'm so anxious and panicked.”
Though she wishes to develop her career, Wu feels a strong threat from getting older, which provokes her lack of confidence in her career. “I didn‘t care about skin care until I was 30 years old. But when a young guy born in 1998 stands next to me, I definitely look like an aunt.” A similar lament appears during the classmate reunion for Jiao Junyan, another female celebrity guest of MLO. Jiao and her classmates graduated from the Performance Department of Beijing Film Academy ten years ago, which is one of the best film colleges in China. Most of them should be well-known actors and actresses now. They also complain that older age has caused them to lose their competitive edge: “We were like steamed buns when we had just graduated, and then slowly grew colder after opening the lid. Others (younger actors) are fresh buns.” “When you are over 30 years old and have an interview for a role, it’s quite bitter.” Jiao says, “You are like a cabbage being picked by people, and they dislike your rotten leaf, or that your production date is not new enough.” A mature age causes more problems at work, rather than giving them advantages. This may be due to the performer’s working nature, but as a male guest of the popular matchmaking TV show
If You Are the One, 25-year-old Zhang Junfeng, remarks: “I believe men’s golden age
period is different than that of women. For women older than twenty-five, life is a downward spiral.” This infers that the social value of women diminishes as their reproductive capacity is believed to decrease in their late twenties (Luo 204). Tang Wan, Jiao’s female classmate who attends this classmate reunion, broke her contract with her agency because of her marriage. In the footage, she says it will be much harder than before if and when she wants to be an actress again and that she feels she did indeed fail, although she has never regretted it. Tang’s feeling of failure comes from the frustration that she is not able to achieve a balance between work and family, but even if she is aware of how marriage and childbirth have impeded her career development, she does not consider not taking care of her family. This indicates that as a woman, Tang herself accepts the role that society assigns to women, which is
mainly to undertake family responsibilities. Therefore, both work and family are the items she must choose, which leads to a double burden on herself.
At the end of Wu Xin and her friend Shen’s conversation, Shen asks Wu between marriage and work, which makes her feel more stressful, with Wu selecting work. After watching this part, the host in the studio asks a similar question to Wu’s father about which one is more important for Wu in his mind—family or a career. “Of course, I hope she could have a boyfriend and get married as soon as possible,” Father Wu replies. Instead of receiving the full support of their fathers to pursue a career, these ladies are required to be family centered. Jiao’s father also remarks, “The girl should concentrate on family. If I have a son, I will let him spend more time working.” This argument implies an idea that the gender roles present in Chinese society differ, and in this case, a woman who focuses on work but remains unmarried is regarded as undisciplined. Except for the pressure coming from their parents, the living space outside the family is restricted for women and greatly limits their career development. A successful professional woman is frequently considered to be a person who has the characteristics of being a workaholic, lacking femininity, and does not care about their family and home in the popular media (film: Sheng zhe wei wang 剩者为王 2015; TV series: Zanmen jiehun ba 咱们结婚吧 2015). Likewise, the female doctor is jokingly referred to as “the third gender,” which implies that the Ph.D. is an excessively high educational degree for women and that female doctors and scientists lack femininity. They are often well past the so-called “prime age” and are no longer desirable. Career-oriented women are usually described as being “selfish,” “unfeminine,” and “irresponsible towards household needs,” whereas the husband’s failure to be the breadwinner is often the primary source of marital conflict in China (Zuo and Bian). This series of stereotypes presented above when put together construct a negative image of women, which is linked to the term “leftover women.” It prevents women from displaying their career ambitions, and instead, threatens professional women with the possibility they will lose the happiness of their family and home if they spend too much time and effort towards their jobs or academic studies, and thus persuades them to get married and return to the family.
2.3 Yuan Shanshan: The Standard for Marriage and Individual Life
Yuan Shanshan is a 32-year-old actress. She is an independent woman who left home at 15 to work hard for her future. As she says, “I don’t need someone who relies on me”. She suddenly became popular playing the lead role in a TV series but also simultaneously incurred the wrath of a panel of anti-fans on the network and was thus frustrated by that. On the other hand, she became stronger than ever before and eventually won back the support of the masses.
Yuan wakes up at 6 a.m., listening to English while running on a treadmill. Then, she listens to a recorded lecture of an economics course while having breakfast, which displays a very self-disciplined and positive image. However, such a positive image is aimed at contrasting her later portrayal that she is not good at tidying up and lacks the ability to take care of herself. Her visiting friend Bao Wenjing displays a shocked face as she enters the door and complains that the house is too “tidy” (meaning in fact that it is too messy)，“you are so terrible, (your room) is the same as the pigsty and the wholesale market” states her with a look of disgust. Her exaggerated expressions and language are, on the one hand, for the dramatic effect of the program and, on the other hand, emphasizing the discourse that Yuan does not know how to clean up her room. The camera also captures certain details: numerous slippers are scattered around on the ground and clothes are piled up on the sofa with a post-editing caption, “too horrible to look at.”
Actor Yu Haoming is Yuan’s friend who is a temporary guest in this episode. After watching the recording of Yuan's house, he comments, “I will never do something like this, though I am a man.” The host agrees and states, “a man is better at cleaning than
