The portrayal of romantic relationships in Chinese romantic films

Abstract

This qualitative research aims to examine the portrayal of romantic relationships in Chinese romantic films from 2010 to 2016. Ten Chinese romantic films were selected according to box office and scores on Douban.com firstly. Fourteen romantic relationships picked from these films to be the sample of this study. Then, the data, including dialogues, images, and symbolic plots were analyzed by using textual analysis approach. And the triangle theory of love is the basis of this study. The findings are revealed as follow: (1) all the three components (intimacy, passion and commitment) were contained in selected romantic relationships. The scenes which contained passion appeared in eight relationships, while the scenes of commitment appeared in seven relationships. (2) the selected romantic relationships covered four of seven types: companionate love, liking, romantic love, and consummate love. (3) the stereotypes in character aspect were found significant contrast between male and female: blue collars and white collars; rich family and poor family; positive view of love and negative view of love; expressing love in words and in actions. (4) the stereotype in visual scenes aspect were found that stories basically happened in big cities and love always was the private thing for people. (5) the persistence of true love was the main promoting element of romantic relationships, while the doubt and hesitancy of true love, the influence of social status and family background were the main impeding elements. The results show that comparing to the past, female’s social status has been improved. The romantic relationships nowadays are more open in the aspect of intimate behaviors and sexual behaviors, but commitment gradually ignored by nowadays people. This causes some negative

effects such as the phenomenon of more and more young people get abortion every year. Then, comparing Chinese films with Hollywood films, conflicts of parental interference, personal development versus self-sacrifice, and different social status are similar. Big cities are regularly seen as a story background of the story which is a way to provide chances for people from different classes to meet, to build romantic relationships.