Exploring the Meaning of Shanghai Cheongsam from the Perspective of the Male Gaze
These authors contributed equally.
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.211220.093How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Shanghai cheongsam; “Spouses of Warlords” Trend; Male Gaze; the Development of Meanings
- Abstract
The male gaze is a popular research angle in the media and fashion industry. Still, the current academic research on the phenomenon of the male gaze in China mainly started with literary works and consumer psychology, and the research angle was relatively scattered. From the perspective of the male gaze, this paper combs the changes of the meanings of Shanghai cheongsam in different historical stages. We hope that the paper can further enrich the background information of the male gaze and provide new ideas for the research of other scholars. The sources of data included an academic website, social media platforms, and an online survey. Through questionnaires, we studied the opinions of contemporary Chinese people towards Shanghai cheongsam in different contexts, and found out the mainstream and dominant meanings generated by this garment currently were “dignified” and “graceful”, which tended to be positive, partly progressive, and heavily influenced by the government. When we further cross-contrasted the attitudes towards three typical types of the “Spouses of Warlords” video screenshots with the respondents’ binary gender, finding that male respondents generally felt more positive than female respondents. From the perspective of viewing, with the combination of consumerism and patriarchy, Male Gaze was hidden behind the screen, reinforced the woman’s self-objectification unconsciously. Shanghai cheongsam, as a fashion, has become a political discourse in the complicated contemporary context. We expect that the phenomenon of the male gaze in Chinese society can be emphasized and concerned by more people politically and socially to advocate gender equality in the future society.
- Copyright
- © 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Yunlin Huang AU - Yuqing Liu AU - Fangxin Yang PY - 2021 DA - 2021/12/24 TI - Exploring the Meaning of Shanghai Cheongsam from the Perspective of the Male Gaze BT - Proceedings of the 2021 4th International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2021) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 550 EP - 561 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211220.093 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.211220.093 ID - Huang2021 ER -