Censorship, Pandemic, and the Field of Power: The Death and Revival of a Chinese War Epic

Abstract

This case study examines the dramatic change of fortune of the Chinese war epic “The Eight Hundred”. The movie was censored in 2019 during China’s celebration of the country’s 70th anniversary but became the market-saving hero in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Through the lens of Bourdieu’s theory of the field of cultural production, this study argues that the movie’s changing fate is essentially the change of its political, symbolic and economic capitals, under different field conditions. The subfield of commercial films in China is subject to the control of political and economic forces in the field of power, but is also becoming an economic power itself.

Keywords

• Bourdieu
• case study
• Chinese movie industry
• COVID-19
• field of cultural production
• pop culture