{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/375271"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/375271","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Bellicose Beauties: Villainesses, Gender Transgression, and Martial Drama in Beijing, 1774-1911","abstract":"This dissertation examines the narratives and performances of female warriors and villainesses in vernacular martial plays, with a special focus on the Beijing theatre during the second half of the Qing dynasty (1774-1911) when miscellaneous local performing arts (Flowery operas) flourished in the city. The visual-audio effect of martial performance, featuring acrobatic fighting scenes and boisterous percussions influenced by Flowery operas, targeted a broader audience of different literacy levels than the previously dominated Kun Opera (Kunqu 昆曲) of literati’s preference. The characters in my research, mostly villainous female warriors, often wage wars to seek vengeance against the male heroes or the authoritative forces. Adapting plots from fictions and folklores, the dramatized representation of these characters incorporated various dubious identities like wantons, outlaws, demons, and deities, whose intimidating power contradicted the Neo-Confucian value of normative femininity. However, portrayed as attractive capable characters with first-person voice to speak for themselves, these villainesses gained increasing popularity and sympathy from opera aficionados, challenging the conventional prejudice against the transgressive femininity in former written narratives and oral traditions. I approach the martial drama as polytextual plays that parodied former literary models in fiction narratives, hagiographies, and historiographies. Through intertextual comparisons in case studies, I argue that theatrical adaptations of villainesses in Beijing theatre experienced a tendency of “anti-villainisation” - transforming passive antagonists to attractive yet unconventional heroines. Facilitated by authors, actors, and audiences, the process of “anti-villainization” mocked the dramatic mode of binarism, enhancing the spectator’s enjoyment of watching unruly femininity in theatre and potentially negotiating the normative gender power in society. The stage combats between the villainess and the hero also epitomized the ongoing and multifaceted social debates, including the rationality of women’s sexual and political desires. Some plays of goddesses and demonesses also strongly linked to the conflict between state religion and local cultic traditions. This dissertation also sheds light on the understudied *wudan* 武旦 (martial female roles) role-type that dominated the performance of villainess-warriors in martial plays at Beijing urban theatres during the nineteenth century. Performed by male actors with feminine makeup and fighting costumes, these unconventional heroines on stage exuded physical charm and demonstrated a degree of gender fluidity. The first chapter of this dissertation delves into theatrical materiality of the wudan role type with a close analysis of the small-feet stilts, an originally compulsory technical prop applied by the *wudan* actors for better visuality. The remaining chapters explore idiosyncratic cases of villainesses including the wantons and outlaws in the Water Margin drama (*Shuihu xi* 水滸戲), the female bandits Tang Sai’er 唐賽兒 in history and Hu Yong’er 胡永兒 in fiction, the goddess Jinhua 金花, and the flood demoness Water Mother (Shuimu 水母). These cases elucidate deep-rooted discourses on gender and sexuality interwoven with religion and politics throughout late imperial China. The main objective of this dissertation is to examine the controversial yet overlooked villainess-warriors as a literary subgenre and to showcase the interaction of gender dynamics and popular theatre in the Qing dynasty. This dissertation adopts interdisciplinary methods of literary analysis and media studies, by utilizing diverse sources across genres, including drama scripts, full-length fiction narratives (*xiaoshuo*) and story anthologies, local gazetteers and other historiographies, literati notes and diaries, late-Qing newspapers, theatre reviews, as well as visual sources like theatrical paintings and photographs. These portrayals of women warriors in literature and drama complicate and often blur the boundaries between the obedient and the unruly, the chaste and the wanton, the divine and the demonic, and in so doing, they question - and sometimes even undermine - accepted moral and social norms.","abstract_html":"This dissertation examines the narratives and performances of female warriors and villainesses in vernacular martial plays, with a special focus on the Beijing theatre during the second half of the Qing dynasty (1774-1911) when miscellaneous local performing arts (Flowery operas) flourished in the city. The visual-audio effect of martial performance, featuring acrobatic fighting scenes and boisterous percussions influenced by Flowery operas, targeted a broader audience of different literacy levels than the previously dominated Kun Opera (Kunqu 昆曲) of literati’s preference. The characters in my research, mostly villainous female warriors, often wage wars to seek vengeance against the male heroes or the authoritative forces. Adapting plots from fictions and folklores, the dramatized representation of these characters incorporated various dubious identities like wantons, outlaws, demons, and deities, whose intimidating power contradicted the Neo-Confucian value of normative femininity. However, portrayed as attractive capable characters with first-person voice to speak for themselves, these villainesses gained increasing popularity and sympathy from opera aficionados, challenging the conventional prejudice against the transgressive femininity in former written narratives and oral traditions. I approach the martial drama as polytextual plays that parodied former literary models in fiction narratives, hagiographies, and historiographies. Through intertextual comparisons in case studies, I argue that theatrical adaptations of villainesses in Beijing theatre experienced a tendency of “anti-villainisation” - transforming passive antagonists to attractive yet unconventional heroines. Facilitated by authors, actors, and audiences, the process of “anti-villainization” mocked the dramatic mode of binarism, enhancing the spectator’s enjoyment of watching unruly femininity in theatre and potentially negotiating the normative gender power in society. The stage combats between the villainess and the hero also epitomized the ongoing and multifaceted social debates, including the rationality of women’s sexual and political desires. Some plays of goddesses and demonesses also strongly linked to the conflict between state religion and local cultic traditions. This dissertation also sheds light on the understudied *wudan* 武旦 (martial female roles) role-type that dominated the performance of villainess-warriors in martial plays at Beijing urban theatres during the nineteenth century. Performed by male actors with feminine makeup and fighting costumes, these unconventional heroines on stage exuded physical charm and demonstrated a degree of gender fluidity. The first chapter of this dissertation delves into theatrical materiality of the wudan role type with a close analysis of the small-feet stilts, an originally compulsory technical prop applied by the *wudan* actors for better visuality. The remaining chapters explore idiosyncratic cases of villainesses including the wantons and outlaws in the Water Margin drama (*Shuihu xi* 水滸戲), the female bandits Tang Sai’er 唐賽兒 in history and Hu Yong’er 胡永兒 in fiction, the goddess Jinhua 金花, and the flood demoness Water Mother (Shuimu 水母). These cases elucidate deep-rooted discourses on gender and sexuality interwoven with religion and politics throughout late imperial China. The main objective of this dissertation is to examine the controversial yet overlooked villainess-warriors as a literary subgenre and to showcase the interaction of gender dynamics and popular theatre in the Qing dynasty. This dissertation adopts interdisciplinary methods of literary analysis and media studies, by utilizing diverse sources across genres, including drama scripts, full-length fiction narratives (*xiaoshuo*) and story anthologies, local gazetteers and other historiographies, literati notes and diaries, late-Qing newspapers, theatre reviews, as well as visual sources like theatrical paintings and photographs. These portrayals of women warriors in literature and drama complicate and often blur the boundaries between the obedient and the unruly, the chaste and the wanton, the divine and the demonic, and in so doing, they question - and sometimes even undermine - accepted moral and social norms.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Li, Yizhuo"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Ganany, Noga"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-08-12","date_published":"2024-08-12","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:18Z","subjects":["gender","genre","martial drama","Qing dynasty","villainess"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/00456ee7-0f4e-4c3c-90f2-d3806a198cf9/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.113008","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Ganany, Noga"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Li, Yizhuo"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024-08-12"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/375271"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["gender","genre","martial drama","Qing dynasty","villainess"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/00456ee7-0f4e-4c3c-90f2-d3806a198cf9/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["controlled.access"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.113008"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/9c28df0a-f624-484e-835c-bf0e2886a57f/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation examines the narratives and performances of female warriors and villainesses in vernacular martial plays, with a special focus on the Beijing theatre during the second half of the Qing dynasty (1774-1911) when miscellaneous local performing arts (Flowery operas) flourished in the city. The visual-audio effect of martial performance, featuring acrobatic fighting scenes and boisterous percussions influenced by Flowery operas, targeted a broader audience of different literacy levels than the previously dominated Kun Opera (Kunqu 昆曲) of literati’s preference. The characters in my research, mostly villainous female warriors, often wage wars to seek vengeance against the male heroes or the authoritative forces. Adapting plots from fictions and folklores, the dramatized representation of these characters incorporated various dubious identities like wantons, outlaws, demons, and deities, whose intimidating power contradicted the Neo-Confucian value of normative femininity. However, portrayed as attractive capable characters with first-person voice to speak for themselves, these villainesses gained increasing popularity and sympathy from opera aficionados, challenging the conventional prejudice against the transgressive femininity in former written narratives and oral traditions. I approach the martial drama as polytextual plays that parodied former literary models in fiction narratives, hagiographies, and historiographies. Through intertextual comparisons in case studies, I argue that theatrical adaptations of villainesses in Beijing theatre experienced a tendency of “anti-villainisation” - transforming passive antagonists to attractive yet unconventional heroines. Facilitated by authors, actors, and audiences, the process of “anti-villainization” mocked the dramatic mode of binarism, enhancing the spectator’s enjoyment of watching unruly femininity in theatre and potentially negotiating the normative gender power in society. The stage combats between the villainess and the hero also epitomized the ongoing and multifaceted social debates, including the rationality of women’s sexual and political desires. Some plays of goddesses and demonesses also strongly linked to the conflict between state religion and local cultic traditions. This dissertation also sheds light on the understudied *wudan* 武旦 (martial female roles) role-type that dominated the performance of villainess-warriors in martial plays at Beijing urban theatres during the nineteenth century. Performed by male actors with feminine makeup and fighting costumes, these unconventional heroines on stage exuded physical charm and demonstrated a degree of gender fluidity. The first chapter of this dissertation delves into theatrical materiality of the wudan role type with a close analysis of the small-feet stilts, an originally compulsory technical prop applied by the *wudan* actors for better visuality. The remaining chapters explore idiosyncratic cases of villainesses including the wantons and outlaws in the Water Margin drama (*Shuihu xi* 水滸戲), the female bandits Tang Sai’er 唐賽兒 in history and Hu Yong’er 胡永兒 in fiction, the goddess Jinhua 金花, and the flood demoness Water Mother (Shuimu 水母). These cases elucidate deep-rooted discourses on gender and sexuality interwoven with religion and politics throughout late imperial China. The main objective of this dissertation is to examine the controversial yet overlooked villainess-warriors as a literary subgenre and to showcase the interaction of gender dynamics and popular theatre in the Qing dynasty. This dissertation adopts interdisciplinary methods of literary analysis and media studies, by utilizing diverse sources across genres, including drama scripts, full-length fiction narratives (*xiaoshuo*) and story anthologies, local gazetteers and other historiographies, literati notes and diaries, late-Qing newspapers, theatre reviews, as well as visual sources like theatrical paintings and photographs. These portrayals of women warriors in literature and drama complicate and often blur the boundaries between the obedient and the unruly, the chaste and the wanton, the divine and the demonic, and in so doing, they question - and sometimes even undermine - accepted moral and social norms."]},{"key":"dc:format.checksum.md5","label":"Dc Format Checksum Md5","values":["17893f393f2951a87a329235e72fa14a","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Bellicose Beauties: Villainesses, Gender Transgression, and Martial Drama in Beijing, 1774-1911"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Ganany, Noga"],"dc:creator":["Li, Yizhuo"],"dc:date.issued":["2024-08-12"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation examines the narratives and performances of female warriors and villainesses in vernacular martial plays, with a special focus on the Beijing theatre during the second half of the Qing dynasty (1774-1911) when miscellaneous local performing arts (Flowery operas) flourished in the city. The visual-audio effect of martial performance, featuring acrobatic fighting scenes and boisterous percussions influenced by Flowery operas, targeted a broader audience of different literacy levels than the previously dominated Kun Opera (Kunqu 昆曲) of literati’s preference. The characters in my research, mostly villainous female warriors, often wage wars to seek vengeance against the male heroes or the authoritative forces. Adapting plots from fictions and folklores, the dramatized representation of these characters incorporated various dubious identities like wantons, outlaws, demons, and deities, whose intimidating power contradicted the Neo-Confucian value of normative femininity. However, portrayed as attractive capable characters with first-person voice to speak for themselves, these villainesses gained increasing popularity and sympathy from opera aficionados, challenging the conventional prejudice against the transgressive femininity in former written narratives and oral traditions. I approach the martial drama as polytextual plays that parodied former literary models in fiction narratives, hagiographies, and historiographies. Through intertextual comparisons in case studies, I argue that theatrical adaptations of villainesses in Beijing theatre experienced a tendency of “anti-villainisation” - transforming passive antagonists to attractive yet unconventional heroines. Facilitated by authors, actors, and audiences, the process of “anti-villainization” mocked the dramatic mode of binarism, enhancing the spectator’s enjoyment of watching unruly femininity in theatre and potentially negotiating the normative gender power in society. The stage combats between the villainess and the hero also epitomized the ongoing and multifaceted social debates, including the rationality of women’s sexual and political desires. Some plays of goddesses and demonesses also strongly linked to the conflict between state religion and local cultic traditions. This dissertation also sheds light on the understudied *wudan* 武旦 (martial female roles) role-type that dominated the performance of villainess-warriors in martial plays at Beijing urban theatres during the nineteenth century. Performed by male actors with feminine makeup and fighting costumes, these unconventional heroines on stage exuded physical charm and demonstrated a degree of gender fluidity. The first chapter of this dissertation delves into theatrical materiality of the wudan role type with a close analysis of the small-feet stilts, an originally compulsory technical prop applied by the *wudan* actors for better visuality. The remaining chapters explore idiosyncratic cases of villainesses including the wantons and outlaws in the Water Margin drama (*Shuihu xi* 水滸戲), the female bandits Tang Sai’er 唐賽兒 in history and Hu Yong’er 胡永兒 in fiction, the goddess Jinhua 金花, and the flood demoness Water Mother (Shuimu 水母). These cases elucidate deep-rooted discourses on gender and sexuality interwoven with religion and politics throughout late imperial China. The main objective of this dissertation is to examine the controversial yet overlooked villainess-warriors as a literary subgenre and to showcase the interaction of gender dynamics and popular theatre in the Qing dynasty. This dissertation adopts interdisciplinary methods of literary analysis and media studies, by utilizing diverse sources across genres, including drama scripts, full-length fiction narratives (*xiaoshuo*) and story anthologies, local gazetteers and other historiographies, literati notes and diaries, late-Qing newspapers, theatre reviews, as well as visual sources like theatrical paintings and photographs. 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