"from sparrow to phoenix": Imagining gender transformation through Taiwanese women's variety TV

Abstract

Through analysis of the fashion-and-beauty variety program 《女人我最大》 (English title Queen), launched in 2003 by Taiwan cable channel TVBS-G and now spreading in syndicated adaptations in China, this paper examines the pop-cultural consolidation of a new category of feminine identity: the 輕熟女 (qingshounü, lit. “young-mature woman”). Drawing on interviews with viewers conducted in Taipei in 2011, the article analyzes audience responses to the program to argue that Queen both reflects and (re)constructs a popular understanding of qingshounü as a new, transitional stage in the life cycle of femininity in urban, late-modern commodity culture. Positioned between “girl (student)” (女生) and “respectabl..