The generational retellings of the "Ballad of Mulan," a folk song dating back to the Northern Dynasties, have made the cross-dressing heroine one of the most iconic representations of Chinese nationalism. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a rewriting of the ballad by a junior school student was circulated by Chinese state media, in which female medical staff assigned to support Wuhan, whose gender identities were obscured by protective coveralls, were praised as Mulans of the pandemic era. Tracing this virus-combating Mulan back to relevant news reports and drawing on Sara Ahmed's affect theory of the "stickiness" of emotions to bodily signs, this paper reveals that female bodies--having accumulated affective value, or become "sticky" with emotions including hatred of the virus, grief for suffering, fearlessness in the face of death, and love of the country--occupy a crucial position in the contemporary reimagination of Mulan. By sensationalizing physical injuries and (in)voluntary deviations from Confucian bodily ethics and gender norms, the national discourse framed these female doctors' bodies as defenders of bio-political sovereignty during the pandemic's "state of exception"--both vulnerable to and resistant against the virus. Such discourse was effective not only in evoking public sympathy but also in transforming physical pain into a national trauma that could function as a nationalistic antidote to the panic and anger of the uninformed public at the early stage of the pandemic. What is also noteworthy is the reversed dynamics between the state and the populace in terms of propaganda supply and consumption.

Authors:
Liying Wang, The University of Osaka, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Liying Wang is a PhD candidate in cultural studies at Osaka University, Japan. She obtained her M.A. in English literature from Yunnan University. She is currently working on her dissertation on Mulan-themed adaptations.

Additional website of interest
https://researchmap.jp/liyingwang

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