Two Ghost Scripts

Mao’s curse versus exorcism of Mao

Creator: The [In-]House Poster Group [of the Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Press] (本社宣传画组) Title: Raise up the Great Red Flag of Mao Zedong’s Thought and Carry on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (高举毛泽东思想伟大红旗把无产阶级文化大革命进行到底) Date: 1967 Extent: 1 colour poster Format: Poster Image ID: F8177 Rights Info: No known restrictions on access Repository: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Canada, M5S 1A5 Creator: The [In-]House Poster Group [of the Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Press] (本社宣传画组) Title: Raise up the Great Red Flag of Mao Zedong’s Thought and Carry on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (高举毛泽东思想伟大红旗把无产阶级文化大革命进行到底) Date: 1967 Extent: 1 colour poster Format: Poster Image ID: F8177 Rights Info: No known restrictions on access Repository: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Canada, M5S 1A5

Dehumanizing evil flared up under Chairman Mao’s extremism of the Cultural Revolution against whoever was stigmatized as the “bad element” or “ox, ghost, snake, spirit” destined for “cow sheds.” Dehumanizing began by demonizing the victims discursively, through words like Mao’s curses in cursive, as it were, hastily scribbled out of tyrannical megalomania and the ensuing mass paranoia. Figure 1 below shows one of the bad elements, “Mao’s Bad” for short, all condemned as non-human ghosts, being paraded in Zhang Yimou’s To Live (1994) based on Yu Hua’s novel. The male lead is the handicapped worker with the red armband, Mao’s hat, and a contorted gait on the right, in effect “escorting” the bad element to the hospital to save his wife under the pretense of punishing the “Stinking Old Ninth,” the colorful label for intellectuals, particularly those with thick glasses.

Figure 1: A counterrevolutionary being paraded in ‘To Live’.

A wooden plaque is strung around the bad element’s neck, who is a professor and a medical doctor. The top line on the placard reads: “Reactionary Academic Authority.” The bottom line identifies him: 王斌 (Wang Bin), his surname and first name tilted at a severe 45-degree angle. Bin means refined and…