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Dancing with Handcuffs and Shackles: How Product Placement Is Dancing With Handcuffs and Shackles: How Product Placement Is Adopted By the Chinese Film Industry. Wei Li Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of East Anglia School of Art, Media and American Studies Submitted September 2015 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived there from, may b written consent. e published without the authors prior, Abstract This PhD researches the role of product placement in modern Chinese cinema, exploring the shifting discourses and textually-specific practices that are unique to the practice of product placement within the Chinese film industry. Existing studies have focused almost exclusively on the Hollywood film industry, and have analysed product placement in terms of its effectiveness with audiences, and as a potential influence on consumer behaviour, often from a psychological or marketing viewpoint. This study approaches product placement from industrial and textual perspectives, more interested in the process of product placement in film production: how trade press reports, state and industry discourse, and practitioner commentary, frames product placement within the Chinese film experience. Therefore, this is a shift from work on the consequences of product placement, or simplistic notions of good/bad product placement, to an investigation of the discursive and textual strategies used by the Chinese film industry when using product placement in modern film production. This allows the thesis to focus on how the Chinese industry offers an illusion of serving the public, able to use its expertise to position product placement as what an assumed audience wants. Examining different players in product placement deals such as film producers, product placement agencies, brand companies, and the Chinese government, also allows the study to consider the shifting hierarchies of expertise and power. Within this, the study identifies and analyses two specific power relationships: state vs film industry, and creativity vs commercialisation. Alongside industrial commentary, the study examines the textual status of product placement through close mise-en-scène analysis of a range of contemporary Chinese film examples. It identifies three elements – 1 narrative, character, and genre as key areas where product placement is most overtly displayed, visualised– and embodied, and considers the impact this has on narrative coherence. Through this combination of discourse analysis and film analysis, the study is able to critically investigate the role product placement plays within the modern Chinese film industry. 2 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... 1 LIST OF TABLES AND IMAGES .................................................................................... 5 LIST OF MODERN CHINESE FILMS ............................................................................ 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ 8 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 9 SECTION 1. LITERATURE REVIEW: PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN FILMS ................................ 15 1.1 Definitions of product placement ............................................................................ 16 1.2 A historical overview of product placement in Hollywood .......................... 20 1.3 Types of product placement ....................................................................................... 23 1.4 Academic debates on product placement in films ........................................... 27 SECTION 2. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................... 32 SECTION 3. CHAPTERS BREAKDOWN .................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 1. A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY ............................................................................................................................................ 50 SECTION 1. A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY FROM THE EARLY CINEMA ERA TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY............................................................. 53 SECTION 2. CHANGES IN THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY S RELATIONSHIP WITH HOLLYWOOD .............................................................................................................................. 59 SECTION 3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY IN THE TWENTY- FIRST CENTURY: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY ......................................................................... 65 3.1 The definition of the Chinese film industry ......................................................... 66 3.2 Changes in the Chinese film industry during the twenty-first century... 67 3.3 The continuity of state intervention ....................................................................... 71 SECTION 4. PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN MODERN CHINESE CINEMA: AN OVERVIEW FROM AN INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE ..................................................................................................... 73 4.1 The development of product placement in the modern Chinese film industry ....................................................................................................................................... 74 4.2 The distinctive role of product placement in the modern Chinese film industry ....................................................................................................................................... 76 4.3 The operational model of product placement in the modern Chinese film industry ....................................................................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER 2. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: POWER RELATION BETWEEN THE STATE AND THE FILM INDUSTRY IN PRODUCT PLACEMENT OPERATIONS ............................................................................................................................................ 83 SECTION 1. INTERNAL POWER HIERARCHY IN PRODUCT PLACEMENT OPERATIONS ..... 87 1.1 The state vs the film industry .................................................................................... 88 1.2 The film industry vs. audiences ................................................................................. 93 1.3 Product placement agency vs other participants ......................................... 100 SECTION 2. EXTERNAL POWER RELATIONS: HOLLYWOOD VS THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY .................................................................................................................................104 2.1 The growth of the power of the Chinese film industry in product placement deals .................................................................................................................... 105 2.2 The power of Chinese product placement agencies in product placement in Hollywood blockbusters .............................................................................................. 108 CHAPTER 3. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: CREATIVITY VS COMMERCIALISM IN PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY ......................... 116 3 SECTION 1. DIALECTICAL THINKING THAT PRODUCT PLACEMENT EXISTS IN DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS OF CREATIVITY AND COMMERCIALISM BY THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY ....................................................................................................................................................119 SECTION 2. CHANGES IN THE POWER RELATION BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS AND COLLABORATIVE CREATORS ..................................................................................................127 SECTION 3. ARTISTRY VS PROFESSIONALISM IN THE CREATIVITY OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN FILMS .............................................................................................................133 CHAPTER 4. THE DELICATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRODUCT PLACEMENT AND FILM NARRATIVE IN MODERN CHINESE FILMS: INTEGRATION AND DISRUPTION ........................................................................ 140 SECTION 1. TERMINOLOGY: INTEGRATION AND DISRUPTION .........................................144 SECTION 2. HOW PRODUCT PLACEMENT IS INTEGRATED INTO FILM NARRATIVE .......147 2.1 How is product placement integrated into the film narrative from a visual perspective? .............................................................................................................. 147 2.2 How is product placement integrated into the film narrative from an aural perspective? ............................................................................................................... 151 2.3 How is product placement integrated into the film story? ....................... 155 2.4 How does narrative time influence the prominence of product placement in modern Chinese films? .......................................................................... 159 2.5 How is product placement integrated into film narrative space?......... 163 SECTION 3. HOW PRODUCT PLACEMENT DISRUPTS THE COHERENCE OF FILM NARRATIVE IN MODERN CHINESE FILMS .............................................................................168 CHAPTER 5. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRODUCT PLACEMENT
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