TY - JOUR
T1 - Heroism as Narrative Strategy
T2 - Children’s Animation and Modernity in Chinese TV
AU - Zeng, Wenna
AU - Chan, Kara
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/11/1
Y1 - 2021/11/1
N2 - Entertaining animated television programs often carry significant educational and national discourses that are rarely given much scholarly attention. This article examines the Chinese children’s animation program Boonie Bears and explores its narrative strategies in portraying heroism. By employing content analyses, in-depth interviews, and focus groups, the article discusses how producers construct animation heroes according to the ideological framework of the Communist Party, economic preferences embedded in the Chinese market, and broader cultural expectations held by society. Finally, this article offers a preliminary exploration of the collaboration between political power and market forces in children’s animation, thus revealing the changing needs and interests of the government, producers, and audiences in the process of modernization, and the social significance of animation in Chinese modernity.
AB - Entertaining animated television programs often carry significant educational and national discourses that are rarely given much scholarly attention. This article examines the Chinese children’s animation program Boonie Bears and explores its narrative strategies in portraying heroism. By employing content analyses, in-depth interviews, and focus groups, the article discusses how producers construct animation heroes according to the ideological framework of the Communist Party, economic preferences embedded in the Chinese market, and broader cultural expectations held by society. Finally, this article offers a preliminary exploration of the collaboration between political power and market forces in children’s animation, thus revealing the changing needs and interests of the government, producers, and audiences in the process of modernization, and the social significance of animation in Chinese modernity.
KW - children animation
KW - entertaining narrative
KW - heroism
KW - modernity
KW - production studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086850299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1527476420933584
DO - 10.1177/1527476420933584
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85086850299
SN - 1527-4764
VL - 22
SP - 743
EP - 759
JO - Television and New Media
JF - Television and New Media
IS - 7
ER -