The Demon Child and His Modern Fate
Reconstructing the Nezha Myth in Animated Fabulation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19144758 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chengcheng You (0000-0001-9403-7346, University of Macau, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 286-301 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Animation (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1746-8477 • E-ISSN: 1746-8485 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/17468477221114365 |
| OpenAlex | W4309034163 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 9 |
Emerging from the 17th-century Chinese classic Fengshen yanyi ( Creation of the Gods), a generic mixture of myth, folklore, history and legend, Nezha, a 7-year-old superboy who is decreed by fate to return his own flesh and bones to his parents and unyieldingly confront paternal authority in combat, has been popularized as an unconventional hero in animated adaptations since the 1970s. This article examines the cultural and historical significance of Nezha’s changing fate in the three Chinese animated feature films produced thus far: Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (Wang et al., 1979), Nezha (Jiaozi, 2019) and New Gods: Nezha Reborn (Zhao, 2021). The author argues that Nezha’s variations of personal individuation reflect China’s shifting historical contexts, changing intergenerational relations and reconfigured notions of selfhood by presenting an existential paradox of fate and freedom of action that ultimately preserves the social systems of patriarchy and filial piety, and puts forward a negotiated compromise between social collectivism and individualism. Combining theories of intertextual aesthetics with Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualization of fabulation, the study proposes a conceptual framework of ‘animated fabulation’ to account for the profound interaction between the literary and the cinematic, the social and the mythic, with a detailed analysis of the aesthetic and socio-political entanglements in the three animated adaptations
Aesthetics · Art · Compromise · Conceptualization · HERO · Individualism · Literature · Mythology · Social science · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Cinema and Media Studies · Law · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
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Mediatization of Religion and Its Impact on Youth Identity Formation in Contemporary China
Filial Obsessions
In Memory of Meishu Film
Oedipal God
Fortune-tellers and Philosophers
Deleuzian Fabulation and the Scars of History
Fate, Agency, and the Economy of Desire in Chinese Ritual and Society
Heartache of the State, Enemy of the Self
The Concept of Fate in Chinese Folk Ideology
Fate in the Narrativity and Experience of Selfhood, a Case From Taiwanese Chhiam Divination
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |