Examine Hong Kong’s Phallocentric Film Genres Negotiated the Role of Female Characters

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-344-3_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Film; plot analysis; female characters; male characters; film genres

Abstract

In the Chinese culture, which has long been dominated by Confucianism (a philosophical system that emphasises social harmony and hierarchical order), women have long faced oppression by men. Since society is rapidly evolving, more women strive for independence and autonomy, hoping to escape male domination. In this regard, feminism gradually developed (Rowbotham, 2013). Previously, films from Hong Kong were male-centred and contained themes related to police work versus criminal activity, where the females tended to be romantic companions with a passive role or marginalisation. However, with the evolution of society and the upgrade of women’s status, women began to make female-inspired movies from their perspectives, showing how they looked at things. Notably, after the twentieth century, when global society fell into instability and change, feminism gained vast influence, producing countless cultural products like films on feminists. In this essay, I will analyse how female characters are portrayed in Hong Kong’s phallocentric film genre. Firstly, I will analyse the theory of the male gaze to analyse the traditional portrayal of female characters in male films using typical Hong Kong police films. Then, I will analyse the characteristics of female characters in the works of male directors and female characters in the works of female directors, respectively. Finally, I will compare the images of female characters from different gendered directors’ perspectives to study the influence of gender perspectives on the portrayal of female characters in Hong Kong films.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuyao Wu
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/12/31
TI  - Examine Hong Kong’s Phallocentric Film Genres Negotiated the Role of Female Characters
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Humanities, Arts, Education and Social Development (HAESD 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 57
EP  - 63
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-344-3_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-344-3_7
ID  - Wu2024
ER  -