Crossover stardom on small screens: the case of Zhang Ziyi

ABSTRACT

Arguably no Chinese stars have sparked as much domestic controversy as Zhang Ziyi, nor have any achieved the same level of international recognition. Amid a growing interest in the study of East Asian stars, existing scholarship has addressed, at length, the major controversies that have surrounded Zhang Ziyi. However, little attention has been paid to the changing construction of Zhang’s star persona in recent years, during which time she has begun to assume a more active role in television and on social media platforms. This article addresses this gap in literature and explores the ways in which Zhang Ziyi has reinvented her image using emerging media practices, including making use of television genres, Weibo entries, and WeChat public accounts. Zhang’s foray into small screen entertainment is not only useful for understanding the role that television and digital media play in reconstructing film stardom, but it also showcases the drastic changes in media ecologies that have occurred over the past decade in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Zhang Ziyi
• stardom
• film
• reality TV shows
• motherhood
• social media

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. This research was supported by a Carleton College Faculty Development Endowment Grant. The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shaohua Guo

Shaohua Guo is Associate Professor of Chinese at Carleton College. She received her Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin and her M.A. and B.A. from Beijing Normal University. Her research interests focus on contemporary Chinese studies, digital media studies, and cultural studies. She is the author of The Evolution of the Chinese Internet: Creative Visibility in the Digital Public (Stanford University Press, 2021).