This excellent book begins with a definition of the Cultural Revolution's model dramas: they were “a small group of visually exciting, artistically innovative and ideologically extreme modernised Beijing operas, ballets and symphonies” (p. 1). Despite a few misgivings, I remain an enthusiast of these works and agree that they are visually exciting, artistically innovative, and ideologically extreme. These “models” are worth studying, and I commend Rosemary A. Roberts for making them the focus of this book.
Early sections define the research focus and discuss the historical background and theoretical framework. The theory is multifaceted, encompassing theater, semiotics, gender, and sexuality. Roberts applies her theory to individual models in interesting and instructive ways, for example, by discussing costume and “the revolutionary body” through Haigang (On the Docks) and Hongse niangzi jun (The Red Detachment of Women).
The central argument, viewed through the lens of several of the models, is about gender and sexuality. Whereas scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s tended to see Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, as using female authority and revolutionary heroism in the models to promote women in general, and especially herself, later feminist scholars believed that the Cultural Revolution and the models “masculinized” women through Mao's particular form of revolutionary equality. However, Roberts sees a gender continuum with ultrafemininity at one end and ultramasculinity at the other: “what happened in the Cultural Revolution was not the erasure of gender and sexuality from public . . . discourse, but a shifting of gender parameters along political lines,” with masculinity being revolutionary and femininity counterrevolutionary (p. 23).
One of the many places this idea is developed is in chapter 7, which deals with negative characters and is titled “Gendering the Counter-Revolution: The Feminisation of Villainy.” Roberts argues that the yang and yin concept, in which yang represents both maleness and goodness and yin the opposite, is very important in the symbolism of the models. The yin examples discussed are actually mostly men, but with features that show homosexuality, smallness in stature, and other supposedly feminine features, as well as some foreigners, who are represented negatively. The Japanese general in Hong deng ji (The Red Lantern) is feminized because he wears a traditional robe, not a military uniform. For Roberts, this feminized counterrevolution raises “significant questions about the continuing relationships between the concepts of good, evil, masculine and feminine in Chinese culture, questions which have significant implications for understanding issues of sex and gender identity in both the Cultural Revolution and in post-Maoist society” (p. 258).
There are various subthemes relevant both to China and to gender issues. They are far too complex to pursue here, even to a small extent. However, one of the most interesting is Roberts's insistence that Chinese cultural norms and values survive in the models to a greater extent than appears at first sight. Besides the yang–yin dichotomy, sexlessness in female leaders is attributed in part to Chinese culture. Leaders such as Jiang Shuiying in Long jiang song (Song of the Dragon River) “are denied any consideration of issues of sexuality” (p. 179). There is nothing new in the proposition that the depiction of sex in the Cultural Revolution's literature and arts was very restrictive. But Roberts makes a very interesting further point in seeing the “desexualised female leader” as “not just a Maoist aberration” but with “its roots set much more deeply in Chinese culture” (p. 181).
Roberts's interpretation is a much more nuanced and less absolute than the view that sees the models as “erasing” gender and sexuality from public discourse. As an opponent of absolutism, I consider this a step in the right direction. She is effective in her argument that theater reform retained a good deal of traditional cultural norms. However, I am worried by Roberts's occasional slip into cultural essentialism. A good example is the automatic association of femininity with evil because of the yin–yang dichotomy. A male villain may be smaller than a male hero, but it seems to me unnecessary to interpret him as thereby more feminine. At one time, and even now, many believed that is was human nature that made female different from male. Roberts would not share such a belief, but she comes close to falling into another trap, one that regards Chinese culture as essentially sexist because of the yin–yang concept. Most women (and men) I know in contemporary China, especially young ones, would be surprised at the suggestion that the traditional yang–yin idea makes femininity in China basically evil.
As is obvious, I do not share all of Roberts's views. However, I admire her theoretical mastery and complex multidisciplinary approach. The book's scholarly appurtenances, such as bibliography, filmography, and index, are exemplary. The pictures add not only interest but also scholarly value. Her writing style is fairly easy to follow. I strongly recommend this book to scholars of Chinese theater, gender, and society.
