Unveiling Chinese concerns on Women’s rights: Social media responses to BLACKPINK Lisa’s Crazy Horse Paris performance

BLACKPINK Lisa, once the most-followed overseas female celebrity on Weibo (often referred to as the Chinese Twitter), sparked widespread debate in China after announcing her performance at Crazy Horse Paris in September 2023. This study investigates Chinese social media responses to the event, focusing on women’s rights and gender discourse. The research collected one-month Weibo clout data from before Lisa’s announcement to after the official performances to quantify public engagement on the issue; and then conducted a sentiment analysis on over 5600 posts tagged #Lisa, collected one week after the announcement. The results illustrate fluctuating perceptions, with negative sentiments tied to concerns about women’s rights and freedom, and a slightly smaller subset of supportive voices emphasizing artistic choice and freedom as well. To further explore this antinomy, 24 commenting videos from Bilibili (the so-called Chinese YouTube) were analyzed, uncovering themes associated with the objectification of women, art’s societal function, and celebrity responsibilities. Through the mixed-method approach, the findings reveal how Chinese public interprets women’s rights and freedom and celebrity’s social responsibility within local socio-political contexts, reflecting core societal anxieties about gender equity. The culturally specific understandings are shaped by national history, media control, and collective consciousness, indicating the necessity of understanding feminism through culturally informed lenses, which would enrich the broader dialogue on global feminism.