By Wen-Jie Qin
In a critical examination of changing concepts of beauty and sexuality in modern China, Woman Being illustrates how a flood of Western pop culture is adversely affecting women's expectations and self-worth. Revisiting her hometown Chengdu after a long absence, videomaker Wen-Jie Qin traces the impact of a newly booming beauty industry in a country where thirty years ago women were beat up for wearing makeup. Combining interviews and footage from glamour photo studios and television, Woman Being explores the rise of a new super-feminine, highly sexualized ideal. "This hard-nosed look at women in contemporary China makes a persuasive case for how the economies of pleasure, beauty, and consumption are transacted through exploiting women's bodies and images. It provides a sobering prognosis of what Ofreedom' might mean for women in China today." - Marina Heung, Baruch College, CUNY
Reviews
~ "Insightful and distinctiveĦshows how young women's passion in grasping Western concepts of beauty reflects China's economic transformationĦ" - Vivian Huang, Asian Cinevision
~ "This candid film takes you into the heart of Chinese women's lives." - Richard Rogers, Harvard Film Study Ctr
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