Description
Book SynopsisThe Art of Useless offers an innovative way to understand China's political-economic, social, and cultural transformations, showing how consumer culture helps anticipate, produce, and shape a new middle-class subjectivity. Calvin Hui examines changing representations of the production and consumption of fashion in documentaries and films.
Trade ReviewA sophisticated analysis that is ambitious in its historical and textual scope. * The China Quarterly *
From
Never Forget, a 1964 socialist film intent on educating a factory worker who longs for a fancy suit, to the forty dazzling costume changes in 1980’s
Romance on Lu Mountain, to the white-collar fashion presentations in 2010’s
Go! Lala Go!, the politics of how one dresses has been a crucial coordinate for navigating cultural identity in contemporary China. In
The Art of Useless, Calvin Hui takes us on a fascinating cultural tour that remaps our understanding of the relationship among fashion, politics, and visual culture during an era of unprecedented social transformation. -- Michael Berry, author of
Speaking in Images and A History of PainA cutting-edge work of cultural studies, this book shines a penetrating light on the rise of a middle class in China. Examining the powers of mass media, film, and fashion industry, Calvin Hui offers us fascinating scenarios and critical insights into how consumerist fantasies raise the pretensions of a status-seeking “bourgeoisie” while opening up dream spaces for alienated labor. -- Ban Wang, author of
Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern ChinaBy closely examining a broad selection of documentaries, feature films, and other artistic works and cultural products, Hui illuminates not only the works themselves but also the sociocultural environments that have nurtured these works and in turn been shaped by them. A useful and enlightening perspective on Chinese middle-class consumer culture. -- Tze-lan D. Sang, author of
Documenting Taiwan on Film: Issues and Methods in New DocumentariesA superbly original study of the media construction of the middle-class sensibility in post-1949 China, Calvin Hui’s
The Art of Useless demonstrates the indisputable value of Western Marxism and cultural studies in Chinese-language film studies. The ingenious tripartite structure moving from consumption to its underside affords an irresistible riveting read. -- Yiman Wang, author of
Remaking Chinese Cinema: Through the Prism of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and HollywoodThe Art of Useless is notable for its innovative methodologies of cultural studies [. . .] The study of social class is an important field, but in China studies, this subject is dominated by sociological methodologies. This book makes a welcome contribution by bringing in humanistic concerns and a cultural studies perspective. * Journal of Asian Studies *
This book will be of great use to anyone exploring consumer culture in China as well as the cultural changes that have taken place in the transition from a socialist to a post-socialist China. It is a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand fashion’s role in shaping culture or in understanding the role of consumption in shaping social class. * Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context *
[This] book tells a compelling story about the waning of proletarian culture and the rise of middle-class consumer culture. * Chinese Literature and Thought Today *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: The Trouble with Naming: Middle-Class Culture, Petty-Bourgeois Sensibility, and
Zhuang (裝)
1. Dirty Fashion: Ma Ke’s Fashion Exhibit
Useless (2007), Jia Zhangke’s Documentary Film
Useless (2007), and Cognitive Mapping
2. The High-Quality Suit, Class Struggle, and Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Consumption in Xie Tieli’s Film
Never Forget (1964)
3. “Mao’s Children Are Wearing Fashion!” Romantic Love, Fashion Consumption, and Modernization Politics in Huang Zumo’s Film
Romance on Lu Mountain (1980)
4. Imag(in)ing the Chinese Middle-Class Culture: White-Collar Work, Romantic Love, and Fashion Consumption
5. Between Production and Consumption: Chinese Migrant Factory Workers in Documentary Films and Ethnographic Works
6. The Psychic Life of Rubbish: On Wang Jiuliang’s Documentary Film
Beijing Besieged by Waste (2010)
Notes
Works Cited
Index
