Intermedial Laughter: Hou Baolin and xiangsheng dianying in mid-1950s’ China

Lu, Xiaoning

Abstract

Comedy film in the early Mao era is a site of negotiation and contestation. The ephemeral presence of satirical comedies in the Hundred Flowers period (1956–1957) and the long–awaited reemergence of the genre, albeit in the form of eulogistic comedies, in the early 1960s bespeak at once the challenge of producing sociopolitically appropriate laughter and the unceasing popular yearning for it. Recent studies have explored the determinants of laughter’s tortuous path to screen by paying great attention to the varied kinds of conflict and negotiation among film artists, audiences, critics, cultural administrators, and party authorities.¹ They have also...

Citation

Lu, X. (2019). Intermedial Laughter: Hou Baolin and xiangsheng dianying in mid-1950s’ China. In P. Zhu, Z. Wang, & J. McGrath (Eds.), Maoist Laughter (73-88). University of Hong Kong Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvs1g9hm.9

• Acceptance Date: Mar 22, 2025
• Publication Date: Oct 25, 2019
• Deposit Date: Aug 28, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 28, 2019
• Pages: 73-88
• Book Title: Maoist Laughter
• ISBN: 9789888528011
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvs1g9hm.9
• Related Public URLs: https://hkupress.hku.hk/pro/1731.php