Red Azalea, the heroine of Jiang Ching’s film, represents both the struggle for identity and its erasure during the Cultural Revolution. According to the Supervisor, Red Azalea serves as an exemplar for the revolution itself, functioning as a heroine who will connect with every peasant, worker, and soldier to the cause. For Red Azalea to have this profound a reach, her own identity must be universal and easily understood, and the changes that Jiang Ching and the Supervisor require in the script and subsequent reshooting of the film dilute Red Azalea’s personal identity, making her character a vehicle for Chairman Mao’s cult of personality. Red Azalea conveys the importance of acting and performance to the Cultural Revolution, for not only does the film extol the value of workers to the revolution, but it also highlights the Party’s tendency to assign roles to people, making some actors, some workers, and some peasants.

Big Beard, a hen that the young Anchee tries to kill, symbolizes the pursuit of freedom during the Cultural Revolution, embodying the desire to flee oppression and live beyond the confines of cages. Her gruesome death brings Anchee’s family no pleasure or food, as Big Beard illustrates the uselessness of Mao’s revolutionary violence.