The Historical Evolution and Cultural Interpretation of Xiaoqing's Character
Image in the Film Adaptations of The Legend of the White Snake
RAN Jiangjiang
(RAN Jiangjiang Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Gansu,China)
Abstract: As a core supporting character in The Legend of the White Snake, one of China's Four Great Folktales, Xiaoqing's character image has undergone a paradigmatic transformation froman "instrumental subsidiary existence" to a "subjective rebel" in the millennium-long cross-medianarrative evolution. From a loyal maid in the texts of the Ming Dynasty, to an assistant withbudding individuality in the film and television adaptations of the20th century, and then to a coreprotagonist embodying female independent consciousness in the cross-media works of the 2lstcentury, the evolution of Xiaoqing's image not only responds keenly to the social and culturaltrends of different eras, but also reflects the logic of modern transformation of classic folkliterature amid media iterations. Through text tracing and case analysis of film and televisionadaptations, combined with the perspectives of folk literature theory and feminist criticism, thispaper systematically sorts out the three-stage evolution trajectory of Xiaoqing's image-"subsidiary existence, budding individuality, and subjective awakening"analyzes thecultural motivations, media empowerment, and value reconstruction mechanisms behind theimage changes, and reveals the inherent law of how traditional IPs achieve cross-era emotionalresonance through the innovation of character images.
Key words:The Legend of the White Snake;Xiaoqing; image evolution; cross-media adaptation;subjective awakening; feminism
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