Revolutionary Appropriation of Disability in Socialist Chinese Literature and Film

• Published in: China perspectives Vol. 2021; no. 2 (125); pp. 61 - 69
• Main Author: Wang, Zihan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hong Kong Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine 01.06.2021; French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC); CEFC
• Subjects: Appropriation; Asian literature; Censorship; Chinese literature; Communism; Communist parties; Consciousness; Cultural change; Cultural Revolution; Cultural Revolution (China : 1966-1976); Disability; International relations; Medical assistance, Chinese; Medical practices; Motion pictures; Motion pictures and literature; Narratives; Paradigms; People with disabilities; Physical disabilities; Rehabilitation; Society; Veterans; War; China; love; literature; disability; Soviet or Chinese medical practices; Sino-Soviet relations; socialist China; film; Mao cult
• ISSN: 2070-3449; 1996-4617
• DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.11799

Literature and film in socialist China represented disabled people primarily in two ways: either as courageously contributing to socialist development in spite of physical impairments, or as recovering miraculously due to the medical practices supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This article seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of these two narrative paradigms. In the first case, it examines a mutually constitutive structure of love and disability, and then demonstrates how writers maintained a certain agency under socialist censorship by deviating from this structure. In addition, this article traces the formation of miraculous recovery stories and argues that this process was a complex interaction among disability, Soviet or Chinese medical practices, Sino-Soviet relations, and the Mao cult. I will further explore why the second paradigm became more influential than the first one during the Cultural Revolution.