Strategic sisterhood and the girlfriend gaze: Representation of girlfriendship in the Chinese TV drama Ode to Joy
- 22 September 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies
- Vol. 16 (4), 394-411
- https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020211046378
Abstract
This article examines the representation of girlfriendship (Winch A (2013) Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) in the Chinese TV series Ode to Joy (2016–2017), and in particular, its representation of the interactions between urban women’s competence, experience of romance, postfeminist identity and class status in the Chinese gender context. Drawing on Winch’s concepts of ‘strategic sisterhood’ and the ‘girlfriend gaze’, we first explore how female friendship relies on networks of exchange in terms of economy, career and/or emotion, and then investigate the ways in which young women mutually monitor each other’s personal relationships to ensure their heterosexuality in society as a group.Keywords
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