Reconfiguring Red: Class discourses in the new millennium TV adaptation of The Red Detachment of Women

This paper uses a case study of the 2006 TV series remake of the Maoist classic The Red Detachment of Women to examine the way the reproduction of the Red Classics in the reform era has functioned to maintain Party foundation myths that validate and morally legitimise its continued rule while accommodating a major shift in class politics in Chinese society. By tracing the change in the identity of the central hero, Hong Changqing, from working class child labourer and son of an ordinary seaman to a middle class, wealthy, overseas Chinese with family origins in the local gentry, the paper argues that the TV series functions to consolidate the symbiotic relationship between the Party and China's new middle class, while promoting a consumer lifestyle and consigning the working class to the margins of social and political power