7 - Oppositional Optics: The View from Hong Kong

Summary

Abstract: Taking up their cameras, Hong Kong women engage with the gender dynamics of Hong Kong’s political landscape from a largely oppositional position critical of the government. Their oppositional gaze serves as a force of resistance in Hong Kong films related to the 2014 Umbrella and 2019 Anti-ELAB movements. Female filmmakers such as Nate Chan, Liu To, Nora Lam, Kanas Liu, Anson Mak, and Sue Williams draw on techniques associated with participatory journalism, documentary filmmaking, experimental media, and agit-prop production to engage with Hong Kong’s turbulent politics. They make use of cellphones, light-weight cameras and sound recording devices, first-person perspectives, observational as well as interview formats, and sophisticated montage techniques to provide a compelling vision of the city’s protest culture.

Keywords: Umbrella Movement; Anti-ELAB Movement; #ProtestToo; sexual decoy; tear gas

In Hong Kong, #MeToo appeared three years after the 2014 Umbrella Movement (a.k.a. Occupy Central with Peace and Love). Feminist participation in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and activism in 2019 through #ProtestToo point to the overlapping concerns of democratic participation and freedom from sexual harassment. #MeToo goes beyond the domestic confines of the family as well as the gendered power hierarchies of the classroom, the film set, the factory, office, or storefront to address the deadening impact sexual violence has on women’s participation in the political sphere. Threats of sexual harassment impinge on women’s rights to free speech, association, and public assembly. In each political movement, #MeToo provides a global label for concerns about sexual harassment and all forms of gender-based violence, which complement demands for democracy.

In the case of Hong Kong, #MeToo appears on the political timeline between the Umbrella Movement in support of universal suffrage in 2014 and the Anti-ELAB protests against a proposed extradition bill in 2019. As shown in the previous chapter through Zeng Jinyan’s participation in the Umbrella Movement, some connections exist between feminists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong activists involved in the 2014 and 2019 demonstrations.