ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 investigates a popular wanghong girl, Timo’s performance of femininity in her livestreaming videos. The analysis shows the predominance of modern values of individualism, career-orientedness, physical attractiveness, and cheerfulness, but these are entangled with traditional values of filial piety, inferiority, purity, and patriotism. On the one hand, traditional values are often conveyed in the rhetoric of individualistic choices to highlight that the values are embraced as part of Timo’s modern identity; on the other hand, modern values are often legitimized or mitigated by traditional values (e.g., making money to fulfill filial piety, and getting her grandfather’s support for her dream pursuit). The social semiotic analysis of Timo’s multimodal performance as resources for identity construction offers a kaleidoscopic view of her fragmented and multifaceted identity as a marketable entity. The hybridization of modern and traditional attributes in Chinese postfeminism is shaped by complex forces of Western postfeminism, the neoliberal consumer culture, Chinese traditional culture, as well as the state’s regulations and social needs. The analytical method and findings are useful for further studies of China’s evolving gender politics in various socio-cultural contexts.
