Open AccessGender Essentialism in Chinese Reality TV: A Case Study of You Are So Beautiful
Author(s) -
Altman Yuzhu Peng
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
television and new media
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.252
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1552-8316
pISSN - 1527-4764
DOI - 10.1177/15274764211027234
Subject(s) - essentialism , reality tv , china , context (archaeology) , sociology , queer , power (physics) , politics , authoritarianism , phenomenon , capitalism , aesthetics , gender studies , reality television , media studies , political science , epistemology , art , history , law , democracy , philosophy , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
This article provides a feminist analysis of Chinese reality TV, using the recent makeover show— You Are So Beautiful (你怎么这么好看) as a case study. I argue that the notion of gender essentialism is highlighted in the production of You Are So Beautiful, which distances the Chinese show from its original American format— Queer Eye. This phenomenon is indicative of how existing gender power relations influence the production of popular cultural texts in post-reform China, where capitalism and authoritarianism weave a tangled web. The outcomes of the research articulate the interplay between post-socialist gender politics and reality TV production in the Chinese context.