Insulting Portrayals of the Present Era?: Selling one’s Son, Murder, and Human Trafficking

Local response to global capitalism in China and its resulting social changes are central to socially conscious films of various directors whose works first circulated in international art-houses before occasionally inhabiting movie theaters in their homeland. While the state addresses moral anxiety by holding up examples of altruistic Party members, non-state-sponsored productions portray ruthless, immoral, profit-making economic subjects of the lower social class. In this chapter, I will examine the films Lost in Beijing, Blind Shaft, and Blind Mountain, with a special focus on Lost in Beijing, in order to understand how non-state—sponsored films reveal the underbelly of society by portraying immoral and/or illegal profit-making schemes carried out by poverty-stricken characters. These economic subjects make money at the expense of others—strangers or even their own children and wives—through murder, selling children, and human trafficking. Their profit-making schemes also suggest that economic opportunities and victims of financial predators are highly gendered. As the perpetrator navigates his social space, we often find misfortunate females who prostitute themselves for a living. When analyzed together, the experiences of downtrodden innocents and opportunistic offenders reveal a complex network of quandaries facing Chinese migrant workers.