Construction of Chinese-American Women's Identity from the Perspective of Cultural Dimensions: A Case Study of Fresh off the Boat Season 1
Abstract
Fresh Off the Boat is the first American family sitcom in the 21st century centered on a Chinese family. It depicts the story of the Huang family from Taiwan, China, who moved from Chinatown in Washington, D.C., to settle in Orlando, Florida, in 1995. Taking the first season of Fresh Off the Boat as the research object, this study focuses on its core female characters, Jessica Huang and Grandma, aiming to explore the image construction mechanism of Chinese immigrant women in Western mainstream media under the context of globalization. Adopting case analysis and semiotic analysis, this paper analyzes the image construction, characteristics and underlying reasons of the major Chinese female characters based on Roland Barthes' semiotics and Hofstede's Cultural Dimension Theory. The study finds that the female characters vividly demonstrate the complex game and dynamic negotiation across different cultural dimensions through a series of specific material symbols. They are reshaped from stereotyped objects "being spoken for" into proactive "cultural negotiators" and "spatial sovereigns". Such image reconstruction provides an enlightening sample of discourse strategies for cross-cultural communication and the international communication of Chinese culture.
References
- He, Z.Q. (2021) An analysis of the images of Chinese-American women in American TV dramas from a cross-cultural perspective: A case study of Fresh Off the Boat. 5.
- Jiang, R.Y. (2019) An analysis of Sino-US cross-cultural communication conflicts in the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat from the perspective of Hofstede's cultural dimension theory. In: Sichuan Western Literature Compilation and Research Center (Ed.), Research on the Innovation and Development of Foreign Language Education and Translation (Volume 8), Chengdu: Sichuan Western Literature Compilation and Research Center, 650-654.
- Kuang, F. and Tian, D.X. (2022) On the differences in the concept of face between China and the West from the perspective of Hofstede's cultural dimensions: A case study of the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat. Appreciation of Masterpieces, 15, 56-58.
- Xu, X.B. and Huang, J.Y. (2016) On the "American Dream" of Chinese-Americans from the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat. Journal of Zibo Normal College, 1, 55-57.
- Sun, L.M. (2018) On the challenge of the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat to the stereotyped images of Chinese people. Journal of Mudanjiang University, 27, 119-121+125.
- Wu, K.X. (2018) A study on the presentation of Chinese elements in American TV dramas from the perspective of the "Other" (Master's thesis, Jilin University, Changchun).
- Yang, J.B., Tian, H. and Chang, J. (2021) The media mirror of Chinese images and Chinese culture: An investigation of acceptance discourse based on the American TV series Fresh Off the Boat. Journal of Journalism and Communication Review, 74, 118-128.
- Li, Y.G. (2021) The construction of Chinese images in the American TV series Fresh Off the Boat (Master's thesis, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou).
- Cai, X.L. (2021) An analysis of the stereotyped and new images of Chinese people in American TV series: Taking the American drama Fresh Off the Boat as an example. School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.
- Gao, D. (2020) The interpretation of diversified Chinese images in American film and television series. College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, Daqing, China.