Comparative Musical Images of Female Characters in the Chinese Musical Jinsha and the Film Musical La La Land

Abstract

This paper compares the musical images of the heroine Kim of the original Chinese musical "Sands" with Miya, the heroine of the movie musical "City of Love, the aim is to explore the shaping logic of female roles in the translation process of different cultures. Combining the creation background of the two works, the cultural pedigree of the characters, solo tracks "at that time" and "Audition", duet tracks "one day" and "City of Stars", as well as the corresponding stage or audio-visual design, this paper believes that the role-building of musical drama will be deeply influenced by the overall cultural narration. Kim's image was built on the Chinese ethical logic of responsibility, civilization continuation and sacrificial protection, while Mia embodied the modern American logic of personal ambition, self-definition and artistic adventure. These differences are not only reflected in narrative motivation, but also in music form, tonality arrangement, singing techniques, stage presentation, as well as two women's symbolic effects related to love, mission and self-identity. Through comparison, we can find that the performance of theater musicals and film musicals not only presents female images with sound, but also translates more macro cultural values into audible, visible, specific forms that can be interpreted at the level of drama.