A study of imagined Chinese identity formation in Hollywood movies: using Stuart Hall's cultural identity theory

In this dissertation, by selecting four Hollywood films with Chinese and Asian people as objects, a textual analysis method is used in conjunction with Stuart Hall's cultural identity theory to demonstrate that the imaginary narrative of Chinese or Asian identity has been dynamic in Hollywood films. This imaginary narrative has led to the positioning of the Chinese as a kind of Orientalist cultural other, to a kind of evil infidel who needs to be saved, and after Asian and Chinese-American directors entered Hollywood, the Chinese or Asian identity began to highlight diversity, hybridity and difference, and was temporarily in a state of negotiated identity in the diaspora depicted by the films. Stuart Hall argues that this temporarily stabilized identity, while essentialist in some respects, is clearly different from the original cultural identity of the home country, embodying the ambiguity and complexity of identity brought about by the intertwining of multiple identities, experiences, and contexts in human existence and that it is an ideal model for cultural identity reconstruction