Tibetan Images In The Comparative Perspective

Tibet always inspires the human desires and imaginations with its unique geographical environment, exotic culture and humanistic characteristic. Since ancient times, more and more people pay close attention to Tibet, they have been building a mysterious, exotic and sacred image which is out of geographical space in different medium, channels and methods and this behavior induces the imaginations of "the other". Nowadays, more and more people join the ranks about building the Tibetan images, including many documentary directors. But what is astonished is that there are also many west documentary directors in that ranks. Afterwards, compared to the documentaries about Tibet directed by Chinese directors, the documentaries about Tibet directed by western directors have profound influences around the world. In view of the present situation, our country cannot control the dominance of utterance which has brought disadvantageous influences on the communication of our nation image.Through comparing Chinese and western documentaries about Tibet, we can understand how to build Tibetan images with different cultural views about Chinese and western. And then by using comparative analysis and individual cases analysis, we can investigate the history of documentaries about Tibet and know more about Tibetan images in different historical periods. Afterwards, we can analyze the different performances in making documentaries and the differences of the connotative meanings about Chinese and western cultures on this basis.There are numerous documentaries about Tibet created by our directors. With the development of the process of social history, the characteristics of documentaries about Tibet and Tibetan images are various in different historical times. Our directors have been creating documentaries as the main content under the framework of national discourse instead of putting Tibetan subjects into the category of marginal subjects all the time. Especially after from the New Documentary Revolution, our documentary directors have broken loose from tradition and paid more attention to the common people and their lives. This transformation leads to humanistic care with our documentaries and makes audiences see a more kindly and real Tibetan image. And then this latest documentaries have caught more attention from worldwide.Westerners have been especially keeping their constant care for Tibet all the time, including the documentary directors. Through analyzing the documentaries about Tibet directed by western directors, we can see a more mysterious and imaginative Tibetan image. Under their western values and cognitive frames, they have been building a virtual Tibetan image which is divorced from history and reality. Afterwards, our further research shows that the phenomenon related to western upsurge of Shangri-la mythology. The imagination and prejudice about Tibet from western society have been passing through a longtime procedure of evolution and many factors has contributed to it, such as cultural environment, political reasons, nationality and state.Through comparing Tibetan images built by documentaries about Chinese and western, we can understand that all the documentaries have their special "voices" and all the directors have been affected by their cultural environments and values inevitably in practice. On the one hand, our documentary directors with national identity have been putting Tibetan images into the thought of great unification all the time, regardless of the single images under the mainstream ideology control from early stage or the pluralistic images under a freedom surroundings slightly afterwards. On the other hand, as a power discourse, Tibetan image built by western directors has taken part in the western cultural hegemony. And then this behavior provides western society with channels to output their ideologies worldwide and makes our leading discourse right about Tibet out our control.Under the global context, how to shape and spread the image of our country and nation is a significant problem and documentary directors have the high sense of mission and responsibility rather than any other people. Through analyzing the latest documentaries about Tibet, we can see that nowadays Tibet has presented a picture of blending of the traditional culture and the modern civilization during the modernization. Every Tibetan with their ancient wisdom has kept balance between the religious beliefs and the real lives. How to dispel the stereotype impression with alienation and spiritualization about Tibet is significant obviously. Last but not the least, nowadays, how to spread a real and wonderful Tibetan image is our current important task.