Man from Atlantis in China: An American TV Drama’s Migration in the Early 1980s

• In Event: More than a Mouthpiece: Media Culture in Cold War China

Abstract

In the early 1980s, an America-made science fiction TV series Man from Atlantis, translated as Daxiyang di lai de ren (Man from the Bottom of the Atlantic Ocean), was introduced to China’s newly emerging television audience. As the first American cultural product that was disseminated to a mass audience in the post-Mao era, Man from Atlantis immediately gained nation-wide popularity in urban China, became a household name, gathered a cult following, and contributed to a generation of TV viewers’ fascination with imported television dramas in the post-Mao years. Concurrently with a successful TV run, the show was also adapted into other media. A popular linked-picture book (lianhuanhua) under the same title decomposed the original narrative and resituated it in a highly politicized context, reminiscent of Cold War rhetoric and Mao-era ethos. Through examining the reception and adaptation of Man from Atlantis, I argue that the TV drama and its transmedia relocation pinpoints a productive space between persisting revolutionary discourses and global circulation of popular cultures, signaling a key moment in mass media’s generational shift.

Author

• Yinyin Xue, University of Wisconsin-Madison