Changing representations of contemporary Mainland women in Hong Kong cinema : 1979-2009

Abstract

This thesis studies the representation of mainland women in the last thirty years of Hong Kong cinema. Since 1980s, a number of Hong Kong films started to feature mainlanders, as the 1997 issue forced Hong Kong people to rethink their relationship with mainland China. Among these films, mainland women function quite differently to mainland men and in particular act as the "Other" in Hong Kong. As few researches notice this marginal group, I argue that they actually play a significant role and reflect how Hong Kong defines itself and mainland China when facing the power of the latter. Along with the development of both mainland and Hong Kong societies and the change of their power balance, the representations of mainland women vary. This thesis takes the representation of mainland women as the object of study, examining how it changes cinematically under different historical circumstance. Through gender study, culture study and cinematic language analysis, this thesis will investigate the cultural and gender politics behind the image of mainland women, fill the gap in the academic study and break a new path in the interpretation Hong Kong cinema.