Shanghai(ed) Babies

Abstract Chick lit's emphasis on choice, agency and conspicuous consumption has been linked to the impact of Anglo-American neoliberalism. This paper argues that the similarly themed global chick lit, springing up in developing countries and ex-communist countries in recent years, works in tandem with the economic policies of global capitalism that breaks down national/geographical borders and promises a desirable world order of universalized choice and freedom. More than just the Western commodities and Western-defined and locally endorsed values of beauty and femininity, the global chick lit propagates the idea of a neoliberal, global sisterhood of chic, empowered, consumerist and individualistically minded women who find freedom through consumption and progress in following Western commodities and values. Here geopolitics and biopolitics combine together to aid the expansion of Anglo-American neoliberal ideas. This paper uses Shanghai Baby as an example of the global chick lit in China, a hitherto unexplored market. Set in China's most Westernized city, this novel portrays a new generation of young, urban, professional Chinese women who celebrate material pleasure and increased sexual agency in the context of China's market liberalization and the influx of global capital. While reflecting the impact of neoliberalism, the global chick lit also hints at the gaps between the local and the Western and the uneven nature of economic development, thus setting into greater relief the inherent race and class hierarchies and exclusions behind the neoliberal rhetoric of universalized choice and freedom. Keywords: chick litneoliberalismtransnationalism Notes 1. For a discussion of the distinguishing traits of chick lit and its portrayal of a new type of femininity, see the special issue of Feminist Media Studies edited by Rosalind Gill and Jane Arthurs, vol. 6, no. 4, 2006. Imelda Whelehan writes that chick lit readers, trying to balance career and love, regard themselves as more sophisticated than readers of traditional romance. Chick lit provides a "post-feminist narrative of heterosex and romance for those who feel that they're too savvy to be duped by the most conventional romance narrative" (Imelda Whelehan 2005 Whelehan, Imelda. 2005. The Feminist Bestsell: From Sex and the Single Girl to Sex and the City, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Crossref, Google Scholar, p. 186). Feminists criticize the genre as commodifying and trivializing feminism, and as glossing over real social and political problems (see McRobbie 2007 McRobbie, Angela. 2007. "Postfeminism and popular culture: Bridget Jones and the new gender regime". In Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, Edited by: Tasker, Yvonne and Negra, Diane. 27–39. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Crossref, Google Scholar, p. 30; Imelda Whelehan 2000 Whelehan, Imelda. 2000. Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism, London: Women's Press. Google Scholar, p. 11). 2. Popular postfeminism as reflected in mainstream pop culture is different from academic postfeminism that uses a postmodern, poststructuralist approach to question the conventional definition of woman as an identity and subject. It appropriates the feminist terms of parity but views feminist activism as obsolete, advocating instead for individual gratification and empowerment through heterosexual and consumerist pleasure (see Naomi Wolf 1994 Wolf, Naomi. 1994. Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How to Use It, New York: Ballantine Books. Google Scholar; also see Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie & Rebecca Munford 2007 Gillis, Stacy, Howie, Gillian and Munford, Rebecca, eds. 2007. Third Wave Feminism: Critical Exploration, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Crossref, Google Scholar, pp. xxvii–xxviii). 3. For studies on chick lit in India, see Lakshmi (2007 Lakshmi, Rama (2007) 'India's cheeky "chick lit" finds an audience', The Washington Post, 23 Nov. , Online Available at: http: //www. washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201415. html (2 Nov. 2008) Google Scholar) and Raaj (2008 Raaj, Neelam (2008) 'Write up their alley: chick lit brigade grows', The Times of India, 27 Jul Google Scholar). For an analysis of the genre in ex-communist East European countries like Hungary, see Sellei (2006 Sellei, Nora. 2006. "Bridget Jones and Hungarian chick lit". In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction, Edited by: Feriss, Suzanne and Young, Mallory. 173–190. London: Routledge. Google Scholar). While these studies have importantly pointed out chick lit's role in reflecting changing attitudes toward gender and commodity culture in these countries, they have not linked such changes to the global spread of neoliberalism as both an economic and socio-cultural ideology. 4. See Linghan (2006 Linghan. 2006. 'Pink-collar Beauty Series' in Ecstatic by Oneself, Hefei: Anhui Art and Literature Press. Google Scholar) and Jing Xue (2008 Xue, Jing. 2008. Pink-collar Beauty, Nanjing: Jiangsu Art and Literature Press. Google Scholar) for the "Pink-collar Beauty Series" and Taotanglangji (2009 Taotanglangji (2009) Chengdu Baby, Online Available at: http: //www. wenxuejia. net/files/article/info/95/95403. htm (3 Mar. 2009) Google Scholar) for the Baby series. 5. Harvey devotes a special chapter, "Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics, " to China as a representative Third World subscriber to the neoliberal ideology. The dissemination of market rationality to the political sphere and social policy, the pursuit of economic development at all costs and the increasing emphasis on the citizen as self-responsible, enterprising individuals are hallmarks of China's market reform policies initiated in the early 1980s, under the slogan "Development is Everything. " 6. This does not mean that the economic principle, or the Marxian economic base, now determines everything including the superstructure, but rather that the economic principle is itself changed to take on the role of a mentality and a process of subjectification, so that the dichotomy between the economic base and the superstructure is more or less collapsed. As Jason Read (2009 Read, Jason. 2009. A genealogy of homo-economicus: neoliberalism and the production of subjectivity. Foucault Studies, 6: 25–36. Crossref, Google Scholar, p. 26) points out, neoliberalism is not just a transformation in ideology that results in a new ideology, but also a transformation of ideology, which situates the ideological and the material on the same plane of immanence. Foucault's lectures target two groups of neoliberal economists: the Ordo-liberal school in postwar Germany and the Chicago School arising at mid-century in the US. 7. The neoliberal process of subject-making effaces the old Marxian conflict between labor and capital, or between consumer and entrepreneur. As the subject is now seen as being constituted as his/her own producer and investor, his/her labor becomes an activity and capital becomes the effect of that activity and of self-calculating investment. Every action (including consumption) in life becomes an act of labor and investment. For more, see Read (2009 Read, Jason. 2009. A genealogy of homo-economicus: neoliberalism and the production of subjectivity. Foucault Studies, 6: 25–36. Crossref, Google Scholar, p. 31). 8. It must be noted that since Modleski's analysis, "traditional" romance has itself been considerably changed to include greater sexual explicitness, partly as a response to the rise of chick lit and to the sexualization of popular culture in general. 9. See the article "Helen Fielding: beyond Bridget, " in The Independent The Independent (London) (2003) 'Helen Fielding: beyond Bridget', 5 Oct. , Online Available at: http: //www. independent. co. uk/news/people/profiles/helen-fielding-beyond-bridget-582224. html (4 May 2010) Google Scholar (2003). 10. Sex and the City first appeared as a series of columns by Bushnell in the New York Observer in 1994, and retained its short column format when published as a book in 1996. Various generic shifts may have occurred when it appeared respectively as newspaper columns, then a book, then the TV series and finally the movie version, but this paper deals primarily with the ideological underpinnings which inform all its various forms. 11. See New York Times' Sunday Book Review (Rachel Donadio 2006, p. 31). The Washington Post also published an article by Rama Lakshmi entitled "India's cheeky 'chick lit' finds an audience" (2007), which lists additional chick lit novels like Almost Single. This novel features the American-educated Kala, who works as a job trainer for a big hotel group in India and is witty, outspoken and enjoying her single status. Kala deals with an overbearing mother and traditional pressure to marry the family choice in a skillful and humorous way and manages to have fun and material enjoyment. 12. India may long boast grassroots-level democracy, but it is only in recent years that the country has been moving away from protectionist policies and embracing market liberalization (see Inderpal Grewal 2005 Grewal, Inderpal. 2005. Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Crossref, Google Scholar, p. 83). 13. This new literature, also dubbed "70s and after" literature, is mostly penned by female writers born in and after the 1970s who are seen to be apolitical, materialistically oriented and preoccupied with individual desires and gratification (see Shao 2005 Shao, Yanjun. 2005. Study on the Phenomenon of "Beauty Literature"—From "70s and after" to "80s and after", Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press. Google Scholar, pp. 2–4). 14. Sex and the City as a novel has never been officially translated in China, nor has the TV series been broadcast on mainland Chinese TV or legally distributed on DVD, but pirated DVDs and online copies are very popular among China's college students and young professionals. The TV show has even inspired a thirty-two-episode Chinese series called "Really Really Want to be in Love" that appeared from 2004 to 2006, featuring four single, independent professional Chinese girls who yearn for romance. An indication of the popularity of the American show is seen in the fact that a number of magazine columnists and bloggers modeled themselves on Carrie Bradshaw, and that there was at least one bar in Beijing named after the show. See "Sex and the City Shanghai-style" (BBC News 2003 BBC News (2003) 'Sex and the City Shanghai-style', 20 May, Online Available at: http: //news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/entertainment/3043037. stm (2 Nov. 2009) Google Scholar), "Sex and the City Meme will not die" (Jeremy Goldkorn 2004 Goldkorn, Jeremy (2004) 'Sex and the City Meme will not die!', Danwei: Chinese Media, Advertising, and Urban Life, 14 Jun. , Online Available at: http: //www. danwei. org/magazines/sexₐndₜhecityₘemewillₙot. php (2 Nov. 2009) Google Scholar), and "Chinese views of 'Sex and the City'" (China Digital Times 2009 China Digital Times (2009) 'Chinese views of "Sex and the City"', 8 Nov. , Online Available at: http: //chinadigitaltimes. net/2008/06/chinese-views-of-sex-and-the-city (2 Nov. 2009) Google Scholar) listed in the reference section. 15. Fulong Wu (2000 Wu, Fulong. 2000. The global and local dimensions of place-making: remaking Shanghai as a world city. Urban Studies, 37 (8): 1359–1377. Crossref, Web of Science ®, Google Scholar, p. 1359) writes that direct Western capital, including that from Hong Kong and overseas Chinese origin, totaling over US15. 96 billion by 1996, spilled over from Pudong into other urban areas of Shanghai, leading to massive redevelopment and expansion of the city. Urban governance and planning by the municipal government was geared in line with international practice, and aggressively sought Western expertise and media publicity in the designing and promotion of financial areas and high-end real estate. As pointed out by Yehua Dennis Wei, Chi Kin Leung and Jun Luo (2006 Wei, Yehua Dennis, Leung, Chi Kin and Luo, Jun. 2006. Globalizing Shanghai: foreign investment and urban restructuring. Habitat International, 30 (2): 231–244. Crossref, Web of Science ®, Google Scholar), by 2002, 299 out of 500 global corporations had headquarters, offices or factories in Shanghai, making it the most heavily invested city in China. 16. This is seen, for instance, in the marketing process of Shanghai Baby in the US. The book's US version cover-page blares the words "deliciously naughty, " "intoxicating cocktail of sex and love, " "a shocking, sensual book" about a dark, "unacknowledged" China and a "people determined to break free" that "the Chinese Government does not want Westerners to read. " 17. This is an example of what David Harvey calls China's localized version of neoliberalism, where state subscription to neoliberal market rationality is dominant but not complete. Direct state power is still seen in the several campaigns in the 1990s waged by the state against "Western decadence and corruption, " campaigns that stressed Chinese "spiritual values" and aimed to limit the Western influence to the material level. Overall, however, the campaigns have proved to be not very effective (see Rofel 2007 Rofel, Lisa. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Crossref, Google Scholar). 18. The author, Weihui Zhou, herself designed the book's cover which featured a revealing picture of herself as a Shanghai babe with the words "an alternative erotic novel set in the secret garden of Shanghai" pasted on her naked shoulders. Her nationwide book tour successfully grabbed tabloid attention when she was accused of using her own sexualized image to boost sales (see Shao 2005 Shao, Yanjun. 2005. Study on the Phenomenon of "Beauty Literature"—From "70s and after" to "80s and after", Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press. Google Scholar, p. 20).