A Hybrid Quantitative-Qualitative Approach to Deciphering Male Hupu Users' Comments on Her Story

This study investigates the reception of the Chinese feminist film Her Story among male users on Hupu, a male-dominated online community, to uncover underlying gender dynamics in contemporary China. Adopting a hybrid quantitative-qualitative approach, the research combines Python-generated high-frequency wordlist analysis with critical discourse analysis (CDA) to scrutinize 443 anonymized comments. The findings reveal two primary discursive purposes: blaming the film for fueling gender antagonism and guarding patriarchy against the rise of female subjectivity in China. The analysis demonstrates how the posters employed nomination, predication, and argumentation strategies to delegitimize the film's feminist theme and present it as a threat to traditional gender hierarchies. The study contributes to understanding the intersection of gender, media reception, and online discourse in China, offering insights into the tensions between emerging feminism and entrenched patriarchal ideologies.