The Cultural Power of Chinese Language in Firefly

This episode features a lively conversation with Fan Yang, Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, about her new book Disorienting Politics: Chimerican Media and Transpacific Entanglements. 

The term “Chimerica” is a portmanteau word, blending “China” and “America.” The neologism denotes the economic, political, and cultural entanglements of the two countries. Fan Yang uses the concept of “Chimerican media” to explore how the conflicts and tensions between the world’s two superpowers are played out in movies, television series, journalism, and media products that are often viewed by people in both countries.  

Drawing upon media examples such as House of Cards, The Martian, and Firefly, Prof. Yang shows how the tendency of American media to portray the Chinese state as a racialized “other” tends to complicate the two countries' increasing geopolitical entanglement. The conversation also touches on the reconceptualized Netflix version of The Three Body Problem and the complex reactions on both sides of the Pacific to the depictions of Cultural Revolution violence in the series.