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A Comparative Study on Historical Trauma Narratives in Korean-Chinese Cinema —An analysis of the Films A Petal and XiuXiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Feminism and Korean Literature / Feminism and Korean Literature, (P)1229-4632; (E)2733-5925
2021, v.0 no.53, pp.391-417
https://doi.org/10.15686/fkl.2021..53.391
Liu Xiaoman

Abstract

This paper examines how popular memories of historical trauma have been constructed in Korea and China by comparing the narrative strategies of the films A Petal and XiuXiu: The Sent-Down Girl. A Petal represents the historical trauma of the Gwangju Incident through the hysterical symptoms of a girl. The girl’s amnesia, aphasia, and hysterical seizures are a metaphor for the concealed and misleading popular memories of Gwangju in the 1980s. In contrast, the movie XiuXiu is a representation of traumatic experiences. By recreating Xiuxiu’s process of degenerating from a state of innocence to a state of paranoia, she portrays the tragic fate of all of the “educated youth” caught up in “the Cultural Revolution.” Although the methods of representation are different, both films recreate the historical trauma of the people traumatized by political violence through the image of a girl. Both the hysterical girl in A Petal and the obsessed girl in XiuXiu are objectified as victims in these historical narratives. In addition, both films employ a triangular structure composed of a “girl-narrator-middle-aged man” in the process of reconstructing individual memories/ experiences into collective trauma. The subaltern Mr. Jang takes on part of guilt himself by transferring the girl’s trauma into his body. In this way, a sense of collective responsibility is formed through guilt and punishment, leading to a political and ethical subject. By reproducing the process of forming a sense of indebtedness and collective responsibility through guilt and self-punishment, the films A Petal and XiuXiu demonstrate different approaches to overcoming trauma. This difference can be seen as the result of the cultural reflection of “educated youth” and the “386 Generation” in the 1990s.

keywords
Historical trauma, the Cultural Revolution, Gwangju Uprising, Educated youth, 386 Generation, 역사적 트라우마, 문화대혁명, 5·18 광주, 즈칭(知青), 386세대

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Feminism and Korean Literature