Whom was Feng’s Chinese New Year Film Tailored for?

Whom was Feng’s Chinese New Year Film Tailored for?

A Preliminary Exploration on the encoding and decoding model of

Feng Xiaogang’s Comedy: Personal Tailor as a Case Study

                                        MCL 650  Xi Li

Synopsis

Four people, director of dreams (Yang Zhong), personal fantastician (Xiao Bai), caterer of whims (Xiao Liu) and spiritual anaesthetist (Ma Qing), set up a company called “personal tailor”. Their business involves creating a temporary personalized fantasy for their clients, in order to help them “achieve their dreams”.  No matter how tough or absurd a clients “dream” is, the team makes this “dream” something their clients can actually experience. They try to fulfill all the clients’ requests; just as their company motto says “fulfill others by debasing ourselves”. A lot of clients with weird dreams come to “personal tailor” to look for help achieving their fantasy. These fantasies included a driver that wanted to become an ''honest government official'' that refused bribes and temptation, a “vulgar” director who dreams of producing “fine art”, and a river way cleaner who wished to be rich on her birthday. Because of this, the team faced many challenges. In the process of fulfilling their clients’ fantasies, there are many hilarious situations that arise. Finally, each of the clients “dreams” was accomplished.

Feng Xiaogang and his “Chinese New Year Film”

Directed by Feng Xiaogang, Personal Tailor was released on December 19th 2013 in Mainland China. Within four days, the film had achieved over 320 million RMB (51 million USD) in the box office and broke the previous box office record. However, this film was neither publicly released nor promoted in North America. It is even not available on the major video sites. It seems that the publisher did not take the American market into consideration from the beginning.

While being such a success; and a heated topic among Chinese, this film is seldom known by Americans. What will be American audience’s attitude towards this film? Would they regard it as interesting or boring? Would they be attracted by it, or get lost while watching? I interviewed three American audiences about their feeling towards this film, the feedback is as I expected. They rated this film 3 out of 5. In their opinion, the idea of dream factory is creative and the way of expressing humor is intelligent. However, being a comedy, this film is not as funny as popular Hollywood ones. Two of them believe that the film is social critical, it satirizes some contemporary social problems in China. But it cannot arouse their sympathy.

The different opinions towards this film do not only exist between Chinese audiences and American audiences, but also exist among Chinese audiences themselves. Whether Personal Tailor is another of Feng’s successful New Year film appealing to the mass or a “rough combination of several TV comedy skits” for commercial profit aroused a heated debated on the weblog, newspaper and websites. Right after being released in mainland China, this film received substantial criticism from the majority of the film critics. Beijing Daily said that the film is out “to make quick buck” and that it “doesn’t respect audiences”. However, many audiences posted blogs to support the director Feng and the film Personal Tailor. Meanwhile, the box office was still growing and reached 700 million RMB (about 115 million USD) by the 32nd day. 5 out of 6 of my interviewees from mainland China think this film is interesting, especially my father who loves this film. One thinks it is OK but not bad.

Feng's unparalleled success and ascendance to cultural broker status may be attributed to adopting the model of the New Year film (hesuipian). The marketing ploy of releasing a comic film tagged for the Chinese New Year had become standard practice in Hong Kong since Xiyouji di yibailingyihui zhi yueguangbaohue (a Chinese Odyssey, 1994), starring Stephen Chow. The film Bureau introduced the term in the PRC when distributing Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx under this rubric in 1995 (Braester, 557). Feng's Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory, 1997) is generally regarded as the first New Year Film made in the PRC. After the success of Da Wan (A big shot's funeral, 2001) and Fei Cheng Wu Rao (If you are the one, 2008), Feng Xiaogang became an icon of Chinese new films. Feng Xiaogang became known for his ''Feng comedy style''. The protagonists in Feng's films differ from the ones found in many Hollywood films in that Feng's protagonists are not ''heroes'' but rather, ordinary citizens trying to survive in a changing environment (Wang, 148).

For what reason is one of the most famous directors, Feng Xiaogang seldom known in America? For what reason is the most popular film in 2013 in mainland China, Personal Tailor not appealing to American audience? For what reason is it loved by the common Chinese audience; while being harshly criticized by professional film critics? In the following sections of this paper, I will try to explore the reasons employing Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory in the subject of semiotics.

Semiotics and Film

Semiotics is the science of the signs. (Metz) One system of signs we all know is language. The subject of semiotics was first posited by Ferdinand de Saussure in his lectures in the University of Geneva. Regarded as the father of linguistics, Saussure envisaged that linguistics, already a highly developed discipline, would eventually be considered a particular branch of semiotics, the general science of signs. (Wollen, 17) Most attempts to develop Saussure’s idea of semiotics have concentrated on micro-languages, such as highway-code, and a ship’s signaling system. Nowadays, semiotics are employed to analyze the aesthetics of highly developed system such as music and painting, particularly at a popular level songs, cartoons, etc. Film, of course, is another case in point. (Wollen, 18) Film can be regarded as a kind of language made up by sounds and pictures. Film is a vast subject, and there are more ways than one to enter it. Taken as a whole, it is first of all a fact, and as such it raises problems of aesthetics, of sociology and of semiotics as well as of the psychologies of perception and intellection.

Semiotics heavily emphasize on codes. It is axiomatic in semiotics that meaning is not synonymous with message, but rather that meaning is mediated through the use of a code understood by both the sender and receiver of the message. (Roth, 21) Saussure defines that signs have two aspects: the thing that is being represented (the signified) and the thing that is representing this signified (the signifier). In another words, the code can be regarded as a signifier and the meaning behind it can be regarded as the signified.

Saussure conceptualizes language as having three aspects: langage, langue and parole. Langege is the capacity, mental and physical, for humans to communicate. Langue is the language system, or set of conventional rules which govern our individual utterances or discourse. Parole is actual communication or individual discourse. Only parole can be directly observed in the “real” world. Metz, the founder of the film semiotics, justifies the application of semiotics to film study because films are units of discourse. Although there are many types of films, by far the most popular type of film is the narrative film. (Roth, 24) Metz defines narrative as “closed discourse that proceeds by unrealizing a temporal sequence of events.” Every narrative film is discourse which is not the same as language. Metz defines discourse as a statement or series of statements (27). This is the same as Saussure’s parole.

Encoding and Decoding

One of the most influential theories in the domain of semiotics is Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model. Hall takes a semiotic approach and builds on the work of Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco. His combination of Marxist philosophy and semiotics in the scope of mass communication is revolutionary. Therefore, the model of the process of communication, sender – message - receiver, is re-examined as the linked but distinctive moments: production, circulation and distribution/consumption.

The “object” of these practices is meaning and messages in the form of sign-vehicles of a specific kind organized, like any form of communication or language, through the operation of codes within the syntagmatic chain of a discourse. (Hall, 51) Therefore, if no “meaning” is taken by the audience, there is no “consumption”. Based on Hall’s model of encoding and decoding, the model of mass communication of film can be drawn as the following:

As labeled in the diagram “meaning structures 1” and “meaning structures 2”may not be the same. The codes of encoding and decoding may not perfectly symmetrical. The degree of symmetry- that is, the degrees of “understanding” and “misunderstanding” in the communicative exchange- depend on the degree of symmetry/ asymmetry established between the positions of the personification’s encoder-producer and decoder-receiver. (Hall, 54) The director Feng Xiaogang is the encoder/ producer in this model, and the audiences are the decoders/ receivers.

According to Hall’s model, what frame the constitution of the production structure includes knowledge on the routines of production, historically defined technical skills, professional ideologies, institutional knowledge, definitions and assumptions, assumptions about the audience and so on. Being the reigning box office king of China, Feng was a former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Theatre Troupe set designer before he turned to be a director. Different from most of the well known directors, he had never been studied in any film schools before he became famous. This might be one of the reasons that his early works are all low-budget comedies, such as Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory, 1997), Bu Jian Bu San (Be There or Be Square, 1998) and Mei Wan Mei Liao (Sorry Baby, 1999). The topics of these films are all close to people’s daily life. Meanwhile, all of the main characters are ordinary people whose personality and behavior may remind the audiences of their neighbors, co-workers, relatives or even themselves. In each of Feng’s film, the male main character is acted by Ge You, who is Feng’s close friend since before he was a director. Xu Fan, Feng’s wife, also acted the female main character in some of Feng’s films, especially his early comedies. Later these films are taken as classic and Feng is regarded as the founder of the Chinese New Year Film by mainland Chinese audiences.

Without the support of advanced technology, famous actors or high budget, the success of Feng’s early films contributed to its appreciation among common Chinese. In these films, the behavior of the characters reflects the mental states of common people and the jokes employed satirize the contemporary issue. All these elements are wrapped into one and another absurd but creative story. Thus, the “meaning structures 1” and “meaning structures 2” are symmetrical to a great extent in the above practices according to Hall’s model.

However, popular culture is seldom treated as fine art, since the real art is supposed to be beyond the understanding of the ordinary people. In the film Personal Tailor, Feng tried to explore what is fine art through the story of the successful commercial film director, Li Chengru, wishes to get rid of the label of “vulgar”. Li smashed all of his cups and luxurious ornaments, tore down his nice house and moved to the immigrant workers’ temporary shed. In the end, he changed his blood with an peasant since he believed his ''vulgar'' had spread into his blood and bones. Finally he became an artist who produced what was considered to be “refined art” that nobody could understand. This story was actually a reflection of Feng Xiaogang (the director himself), and was a self-mocking personal reference to the failure on the box office of his war/famine epic Yijiusier (Back to 1942, 2012). Feng expressed his frustration in an interview: "I can't do 'Back to 1942' anymore; some people just don't understand its meaning." Of course, Feng did not take any extreme measures, after the experiments of a war film Jijiehao (Assembly, 2007), a disaster film Tangshan Da Dizhen (Aftershock, 2010) and Yijiusier (Back to 1942, 2012), Feng returned to his roots and strength, Feng’s style comedy.

The film Personal Tailor, originally decided to be named as Jiafang Yifang 2 (Dream Factory 2), borrowed the framework of Feng’s Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory). As the result of a new edition of a classic, if the new version is very different from the original one, the asymmetry between the new information and the old one stored in audiences’ memory may cause misunderstanding. On the contrary, if the new version is similar to the original one, audiences would be bored because of the lack of new information. The only one who regards this film as “OK” among all my mainland Chinese interviewees is also the only one who has watched Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory) before. It might explain why this film was criticized by the professional film critics but not the common audiences. Since Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory) was made in 1997 when film was much less popular than it is now, most of the audience, especially the young generation, did not watch it, let along reviewing it again before the release of Personal Tailor as most of the film critics did. Although being judged as “a new story in the old book” by professional critics, for most of ordinary audiences, Personal Tailor is still “a new story in a new book”.

As for my American interviewees, although none of them have watched Jiafang Yifang (Dream Factory) before, Personal Tailor still failed to attract them. It is not because of the structure is not innovative to them; it is because of the asymmetry during the process of decoding. As introduced above, the signifier (code) and signified (meaning) are not synonyms. For example, a tree is called “tree” in English but “shu” in Chinese. One of the main features of code is arbitrary. Film is a discourse made up of images and sounds (music and conversation). The functioning of images as a type of codes on the decoding side frequently assumes the status of naturalized perceptions. However, the articulation of an arbitrary sign, whether visual or verbal, with the concept of a referent is the product not of nature but of convention. (Hall, 56)

Hall argues that for each set of signs, there is a “preferred reading” which has the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of social structures, of “how things work for all practical purpose in this culture,” the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions. (56) Because of the cultural gap between the Chinese director and American audiences, there exist different versions of “preferred reading”. One of the examples could be found in the first of story of this film which involves a government official's driver who cannot understand how government officials are unable to avoid corruption. His “dream” is to become a government official in order to prove to himself that he would “incorruptible” if he was put into the same situations. While two of the members of the “dream factory” team were acting as his secretary and health-care assistant, the other two members were acting as ambassadors from Thailand. They dressed in traditional Thai dress and spoke about nonsense with funny sounds imitating the Thai language. All of my interviewees, Chinese and American, laughed here. After the secretary said: “you both studied mandarin in Beijing, so you needn’t speak you silly language here”, Ge You, pretending a Thai ambassador, immediately talked with a strong Beijing accent. As I predicted, only my Chinese interviewees laughed here.

Furthermore, Feng’s comedy is famous for its talkative characters. Most of the meaning lies under the perceived dialog. Therefore, it is more difficult for foreign audience to obtain the connotation of these verbal signs since they are more arbitrary and conventional than visual signs. A typical example can also be found in the driver’s story in the film. This driver was repeatedly tested with everything from family requests, to bribery, and even seduction. At the end, he cried and read his self-criticism. The last sentence of his self-criticism was commented as funny by my Chinese interviewees which is translated as “some people are just plain mean” in the subtitle. However, the original line “there is huairen in the qunzhong” carries much more connotation. Huairen, bad people, is often used by children and qunzhong, the mass, is a political-sound word used to refer common people in Mao’s age. This line reflects his innocence and outdated mentality.

Hall proposed two hypothetical positions of the process of decoding: 1)The dominant-hegemonic position: when the viewer takes the connoted meaning from the signs fully and straight, and decodes the message in terms of the reference code in which it has been encoded, we might say that the viewer is operating inside the dominant code. 2)The negotiated position: decoding version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations, while, at a more restricted, situational level, it makes its own ground rules- it operates with exceptions to the rule. (Hall, 61) The decoding process of Chinese audiences belongs to the first position, while the decoding process of American audiences belongs to the second. Since, the great majority of so-called “misunderstandings” arise from the contradictions and disjuncture between hegemonic-dominant encodings and negotiated-corporate decoding; the misunderstanding of American audiences is predictable and avoidable.

Conclusion

  “Feng's stories are full of up-to-the-minute jokes, and his characters are often China’s new middle-class climbers. They’re always trying to better themselves, duly earning the mockery Feng pours on in large quantities, but without malice.” (Frater, 2014) Most of Hollywood films employ advanced technology creating stunning special effects. Meanwhile, the themes are mostly universal regardless of the cultural background of audiences, such as love, friendship, teamwork and justice. Different from commercial Hollywood films, in Feng's comedies there aren't any overly dramatic scenes, heroic characters, advanced technology, or high budget productions. Feng’s “light hearted comedies” can arouse neither painful sadness nor up roaring laughter in the audience. However, they are appealing to the Chinese audience who value the smile of understanding.

Femg Xiaogang is a master of film encoding. His mastery of encoding is very apparent when examining the stark contrasts found in his films. Feng's comedies provide the audience with a comedic film while also providing meaning and depth within the story. In film, codes refer to images and sounds. Feng encoded contemporary Chinese issues, including an aging population, corrupt officials, and the death of artistry in mass marketed films, by means of images and conversations into one and another of his comedies about ordinary life. According to Hall's encoding and decoding model, the misunderstanding is caused by the asymmetry of "preferred reading" of codes between encoder and decoder. Instead of employing universal codes with less connotation in order to appeal to a broader audience, Feng deliberately encoded his films by means of culturally rooted codes. Therefore we can say that the target audience of Feng's films are specifically mainland Chinese.  

Reference

Braester, Yomi. "Chinese Cinema in the Age of Advertisement: The Filmmaker as a Cultural Broker." The China Quarterly 183.-1 (2005): 549. Print.

"Feng Xiaogang Blasts Film Critics." - Xinhua. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2014.

Feng, Xiaogang, You Ge, Rosamund Kwan, Paul Mazursky, Donald Sutherland, and Da Ying. Big Shot's Funeral. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Hall, Stuart. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Cultural Studies, U of Birmingham, 1973. Print.

Hall, Stuart. Encoding/Decoding. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Metz, Christian. Film Language; a Semiotics of the Cinema. New York: Oxford UP, 1974. Print.

Rosen, Philip. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. New York: Columbia UP, 1986. Print.

Roth, Lane. Film Semiotics, Metz, and Leone's Trilogy. New York: Garland Pub., 1983. Print.

Zhang, Rui. The Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema after 1989. Aberdeen, Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2008. Print.