Research Article

Analysis of the Feminism in the Flowers of War

Yixin SunQingdao No.9 High School Sihan YuQunxing Foreign Language School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

The film The Flowers of War depicts the story between 13 women and 13 female students in the crisis of the country, and the film ends with the self-sacrifice of the women, achieving the theme of sublimation. The whole story takes the Nanjing Massacre as the background, revolves around the contradiction and integration between women, reflects the common suffering of women and the awakening of female consciousness, and subverts the traditional image of prostitutes. This paper mainly studies the contradictions and entanglements between the characters in Flowers of War, analyzes the plot and characterization of the film based on socialist feminist theory and ancient Chinese literature, and finds that the film presents the aesthetic imprisonment of women, deep-rooted patriarchal ideological control, and the noble spirit of self-sacrifice. The hidden incomplete feminism, the estrangement between women and the inescapable male gaze and virginity complex broaden the audience's understanding of the film, break the traditional perspective of analyzing the film, and analyze the identity construction, consciousness awakening and sacrifice significance of women in the film.

Keywords: The Flowers of War; suffering; feminism; redemption
Published: December 7, 2023
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/21/20231475
Volume: CHR Vol.21
pp. 196-202
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