A Perfect Woman is A Dead Woman - Misogyny in the “Empresses in the Palace”
Article - Yuyan Shen
If you ask anyone in China if they know who Chun Yuan is, they will immediately tell you all they know about her. This is how popular tv-series “Empresses in the Palace” is, and Chun Yuan is not even the female lead. “Empresses in the Palace,” also known as “The Legend of Zhen Huan”, has captivated audiences in China for over a decade. While the series primarily focuses on the life of Zhen Huan, a young noblewoman's journey through the intricacies of the Qing Dynasty's Forbidden City, this article will focus on the enigmatic figure of Chun Yuan Empress and explore how she embodies the underlying misogyny prevalent in Chinese cultural contexts.
Illustration of Chun Yuan Empress
Photo: 陈柏言 / Weibo
The Ethereal Presence of Chun Yuan
"Empresses in the Palace" unfolds as a complex and emotionally charged narrative, chronicling the transformation of a young woman from innocence to an influential figure within the palace. Unlike stereotypical kind-hearted female leads, Zhen Huan grapples with power struggles, betrayals, and moral compromises as she ascends the ranks of concubines, ultimately becoming the Queen Mother. Therefore, many viewers argue Zhen Huan is a rather complicated character, and she has many flaws in terms of ethical and moral decisions such as setting up poisonous flowers causing others to miscarry, and using her natural miscarriage to frame another woman.
Intriguingly, the series introduces us to Chun Yuan through the words and recollections of other characters, but she remains absent throughout the show, much like the titular character in Alfred Hitchcock's “Rebecca.” The audience gets to know Chun Yuan solely through descriptions of her as the epitome of kindness, talent, and beauty, a woman who met a tragic end due to dystocia. Her image, albeit ethereal, casts a shadow over all the concubines, who seek to emulate her virtues in the pursuit of the emperor's favor.
Chun Yuan's aura becomes a "statue of perfection" in the minds of the other characters. Concubines strive to replicate her dance moves, singing techniques, musical prowess, and even recite her favorite poems while cultivating her beloved flowers, all in an attempt to capture the emperor's attention. This fosters a toxic phenomenon term in China known as “雌竞,” or “Female intrasexual competition.”
Trapped in The Emperor's Game
In a time when monarchies, feudal systems, and polygamy were the norm, women who married into royal families found themselves trapped in a relentless competition for their husband's favor like the animals in the Colosseum. This was a brutal fight for survival, where those who didn't actively vie for their husband's affection risked powerlessness, bullying, and potential loss of dignity or even life. Paradoxically, even those temporarily favored by their husbands were not spared from jealousy, becoming targets in the never-ending cycle of intrigue. It was an environment in which concubines depended on the emperor to secure higher status and power, both to protect themselves and their families.
Although the series never reveals Chun Yuan’s real appearance, she is still perceived as the perfect woman, embodying an unattainable ideal cherished by both the characters within the show and the viewers across China. This is one of the points this drama wants to criticize is that women were expected to be so many things at once. One must be both kind from the inside, and attractive from the outside while being capable of providing food on the plate and managing to give birth and take care of children. And if a woman fails to reach the standard, they are not the perfect woman that society needs.
However, in the real world full of imperfections, perfect women are not realistic. It comes from a kind of society's fantasy about women or the restraint of women. A beautiful and pure woman in every aspect can only become a perfect attachment in the real world. Otherwise, she would not be able to bear the pressure of life and face the cruelty of reality. Chun Yuan, despite her absence, serves as a symbol of unattainable perfection and underscores the deeply ingrained misogyny that shaped the lives of women within this complex historical context.
Everyone seems to respect Chun Yuan, but what they see is no longer the real Chun Yuan, but a story that can be interpreted arbitrarily and a tool that can be used by others. In this, the emperor used the dead Chun Yuan to create a perfect image of an infatuated widower for himself, making the world sympathize with this true royal love. At the same time, the emperor uses Chun Yuan to create a gaslighting game that satisfies his emotional control over all the concubines, thus showing the many contradictory positions of men towards women in a patriarchal society.
Taking down The "Statue of Perfection"
“There is no feminist who has not come from misogyny. To be a feminist means to engage with and struggle against misogyny. Women free from misogyny (if they really exist) have no reason or necessity to become feminists. Sometimes I hear women claim, ‘I have never been constrained by the fact that I am a woman,’ which actually can be translated into ‘I have been avoiding combating misogyny face to face.’”
Looking at the entire drama, all the concubines in the palace are tragedies of the times, and they are characterized by the competition between women and women. No woman is born to live for men and love, they should thrive on their own lives and should not be a man's accessory. The series provides a poignant commentary on the power dynamics and oppressive systems that constrained these women and invites viewers to contemplate the enduring impact of these challenges on women in contemporary society.