The Blooming Plum Blossom: the representation of women and the film and television in Taiwan (1985-2013)

The status of women in Taiwan has undergone a significant transformation since the feminist movement in the early 1970s, which was founded by ex-vice president of Taiwan Hsiu-Lien Lu. Women in current Taiwanese society have the right to equality in education as well as employment, unlike women in the 1970s. The thesis explores how new feminist culture has influenced the representation of women in Taiwanese film and television drama. It focuses on an examination of gender in relation to the representation of women in Taiwanese film and television drama from 1985 to 2013. The main body of the thesis is taken up with an analysis of the representation of women in selected Taiwanese films and television dramas, for instance The Fierce Wife: Woman Onerous: Seeking Mr. Right (Pei Hua Wang, 2012) and The Fierce Wife (Fun Jun Xu, 2010). The thesis discusses how new feminism has influenced Taiwanese popular culture through films and television dramas, and how these films and television dramas treat the central themes of marriage, love and the role of women. The thesis also discusses female authorship and films directed by women through an examination of Sylvia Chang’s films, for instance 20, 30, 40 (2004). The thesis further explores the representation of women in conjunction with a feminist discussion of the power and function of these narrative structures in constructing female identities