2020 CTS Film Week: Taiyu Social Comedy or the Destruction of the KMT Myth?

Dr Wafa Ghermani (Cinémathèque Française)

Abstract

If melodrama is the most famous and promoted genre of the taiyu cinema nowaday, one should not forget that social comedy was also an important and popular genre. Melodramas tend to undermine the image of an harmonious modernization of Taiwan under the KMT rule, social comedies were just blowing it up. Turning their back on the social model of meritocracy and harmonious society, taiyu comedies proposed another ideal made of solidarity, social evolution, quick fortunes for their heroes being most of the time members of the lumpenproletariat . These comedies relied on some very famous actors whose persona blend with their character. This presentation will focus on the alternative image conveyed by taiyu comedy in comparison with the mandarin cinema of the era, and on the actors that embodied a certain model of Taiwanese people : poor, generous, prompt to transgress social barriers and to earn money by all means…

Speaker Biography

Wafa Ghermani holds a PhD from the Université Paris 3 – La Sorbonne Nouvelle in film studies. Her PhD focused on Taiwan cinema and National Identity from the Japanese colonial period to nowadays. She currently works at the Cinémathèque française where she curated the program "Taiwan "mauvais" genre cinema" and is a curator for many festivals and Taiwan film related events (Vesoul International Asian Film Festival, Warsaw Five Flavours Film Festival, Rencontres du cinéma taiwanais in Paris...)

* All SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies are free and open to all to attend. We suggest you arrive a few minutes early at the venue to secure your seat.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ml156@soas.ac.uk