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Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)

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Published/Copyright: August 23, 2024
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Abstract

In a time of anxiety about environmental annihilation and human extinction, many literary science fiction (sf) authors from the Sinophone area have explored and expressed their ecological concerns through depicting a devastated environment populated by supernatural beings. This article traces a similar trend in cinematic sf by analyzing the 2016 film The Mermaid (Meirenyu 美人鱼), a science-fictional fairy tale written and co-produced by Stephen Chow 周星驰. The choice of merfolk, half-human half-fish creatures employed in the movie, differs, but not completely, from Han Song’s 韩松 portrayal of “aquatic humans” (shuiqiren 水栖人) in his 2004 novel Red Ocean (Hongse haiyang 红色海洋). I believe that the marine humans present in both works, reminiscent of supernatural figures belonging to Chinese and global mythology that embody a harmonious relationship between humans and nature, can be read as an attempt to decolonize science fiction, via a symbolic display of multispecies entanglement.


Corresponding author: Chiara Cigarini, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, 30123, Veneto, Italy, E-mail:

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Received: 2023-09-19
Accepted: 2024-03-03
Published Online: 2024-08-23
Published in Print: 2024-08-27

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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