Visual Culture Level 2 Essay (2012)

Visual Culture Level 2 Essay

Name: Hiu Tung Karen Law Student ID: 11041177 Tutor: Sarah Jenkins Programme: Media Practice Level 2

What do Hong Kong women filmmakers think of their roles in the industry?

As far as I know, filmmaking continues to be the most gender inequitable career in the arts. In this essay, I want to explore how far ‘new feminism’ helps women to be directors or other important roles in the film industry and the circumstances of women in the industry. This essay focuses on women directors in Hong Kong cinema.

What is new feminism?

Tseelon E. (1995) said that women should attack any cultural, social or sexual behaviour that they disliked. She quoted MacCannells (1987) saying, ‘Beauty is only male insecurity displaced’. This argument suggests femininity is a particular representation of the woman, which is not essential, but is a constructed identity.

Walter N. (1999) wrote in the book about new feminism.

Feminism has recently been associated more with a movement to change women’s attitudes and society’s culture than with these material inequalities. (p. 3)… Feminism is a social movement, like environmental or civil rights movements, that relies on a spreading consensus among diverse people. (p. 5)

Imbalance of gender in film industry Ford (2012) states that ‘only 5 percent of directors were women. That is a decrease of 2 percentage points from 2010 and approximately half the percentage of women directors working in 1998’. An article in Indiewire written

by Melissa Silverstein (January 2012) reveals that ‘38% of films employed 0 or 1 woman in the roles considered, 23% employed 2 women, 30% employed 3 to 5

women, and 7% employed 6 to 9 women’. Another article in Indiewire written by Melissa Silverstein (December 2011) shows the statistics produced by Writers Guild West. In 2009, men got 22.4% more for the median annual pay in film then that for women. In TV men made 9.53% more then women. Also the statistics produced by Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film at San Diego State University show that women hold 16 percent of powerful behind-­‐the-­‐scenes jobs, which include writing, directing and editing.

From the above statistics, it can be seen that there is only a little involvement of women directors in the industry. Why are there only a few women directors?

Kung Fu Panda 2 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2012 that when she spoke at schools, some female students told her they never envisioned themselves being directors, since they have never seen women do it.

General situation and women workers in Hong Kong cinema Chan (2005) reveals some facts about Hong Kong cinema. She said ‘popular productions in Hong Kong’s film industry offer little bargaining power to female workers.’ Moreover, there is a phenomenon that Hong Kong audiences do not care about deeper issues happening in society. It is because Hong Kong people are more willing to watch thrillers, comedies and romantic movies that are made to world-­‐class standards. Even fewer filmmakers are willing to discuss gender politics.

Like Hollywood, Hong Kong cinema is genre-­‐based industry, commercial films are always more popular than independent films. That really affects the production of independent filmmaking. It is a fact that not many directors can buck the system and expect to do well at the box office. Wood (1990) proves this situation. It is because the projects that women directors have been able to set up are low-­‐budget affairs on unassuming subjects, usually without major stars.

There is a contradiction that men directors would like to work with celebrities as actors. Hong Kong famous male director Johnnie To Kei-­‐fung said in the article Hong Kong cinema since 1997: troughs and peaks, 2009:12.

The presence of bankable stars has often allowed his more experimental urges to still produce box-­‐office success as audiences are willing to tolerate their favourite performers in almost any context. For example, To has established a strong and continuing working relationship with Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau. The bankability of Lau, due to his large and faithful fan base, allowed the director to make films with him that attempt to stretch his audience, make them think, as well as challenging their perception of Lau’s star persona.

Chan (2005) took Amy Chin, who is a female producer/scriptwriter in Hong Kong, as an example. Chin entered the industry as a production assistant more than twenty years ago during the rise of action films. She was disappointed that so few opportunities were open to women to participate in creative work.

In recent years, women in Hong Kong have gained economic power and they no longer rely on men. And the concomitant improvement in their status allows them to enjoy gender dignity. As women have become more independent, they are more willing to express their own viewpoints. Making films becomes one of the media that can be used to express women’s feelings. I think that is one of the reasons why there are more women directors starting to make films in recent years.

What abilities must a director demonstrate? Michael Rock wrote in his online article (1996) that American critic Andrew Sarris stated three criteria directors must achieve. These criteria give an idea of what auteur theory is.

Sarris proposed that directors must demonstrate technical expertise, have a stylistic signature that is visible over the course of several films and, through his or her choice of projects and cinematic treatment, show a consistency of vision and interior meaning.

The auteur theory contradicts the traditional exhibitionist role of women described by Laura Mulvey (1975), that in the sexually imbalanced world, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.

Mulvey said, ‘women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to

connote to-­‐be-­‐looked-­‐at-­‐ness’. What I think from Mulvey’s description of traditional representation of women is they cannot be as strong as men. They cannot express their thoughts actively and thoroughly.

But directing is always a tough job, as director is the master of the whole filmmaking process and he/she is the boss when the whole production team goes on shoot. Thus, a director must be tough, strong and maybe masculine, so he/she can build up the prestige and pubic reliance to control all the things happening on set.

I observe that quite a lot of women directors try to build up a ‘masculine’ image on public occasions or on the cover pages of magazines and online articles, like Jennifer Yuh on magazine cover The Hollywood Reporter.

Angelina Jolie (Left) and Kung Fu Panda 2 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Right) on the magazine cover of The Hollywood Reporter, 16 December 2011

I notice that women directors quite like to wear suits in formal occasions like award ceremonies. And they do not act like celebrities, like directors Heiward Mak and Ann Hui.

Left: Director Heiward Mak at the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2010 Right: Director Ann Hui received the HKU 100 Mooncake from Professor Kam Louie, Dean of Arts

When they are on shoot, like Ivy Ho and Carol Lai, they like unisex clothing rather than feminine clothes. I believe this kind of ‘unfeminine’ dressing helps women directors build up a ‘tough’ image.

Director Carol Lai during the shooting of Floating Landscape

Director of Crossing Hennessy – Ivy Ho

The style of how women work is another reason of why there are not many women working in the film industry. Chan (2005) shared her experience in her article about the time she worked on a script of a film.

I have been warned never to write a script abstract clearly or in too much detail because the bosses would never buy it. Though the ‘talking script’ prevails for popular productions, women in general tend to avoid profanity and racy language and thus are at a disadvantage when they have to make their talk-­‐show performance appealing. As a result, the ‘talking script’ has been practiced within a male-­‐dominated industry, and this has enhanced the traditional closeness among producer, director, scriptwriter and editor.

While women scriptwriters like Chan may write abstract scripts, Chan knows many men may not really like this. She said, ‘one director admitted he was addicted to rushed filmmaking, and he disliked the careful and slow pre-­‐ production work that, he claimed, would drain his creativity’.

Gradually this kind of rushed filmmaking becomes a cooperative work ethic in the film industry. Chan concludes that this method is used to tackle the urgent demands of the market have led to failures in building up an infrastructure of professionalism in Hong Kong cinema, and this is not because of shortsightedness. All the facts discussed above give an idea of why women directors are more likely to be independent directors and not commercial directors.

Wood (1990) said that women could currently get more recognition for their work as directors in film. But we can see from statistics mentioned at the beginning of the essay on employment that the percentage of women workers is still much less than that of men workers.

Chan is a Hong Kong scriptwriter. Even though she is not a director, she also has to downplay her femininity when discussing stories and plots with filmmakers so as to adapt to the traditional practice of ‘talking script’. She mentioned one director said his creativity would be disturbed if he were to discuss story plots with women, because he would constantly be worried about using vulgar

language.

Here are some Hong Kong women directors, Aubrey Lam and Barbara Wong talking about their role in their interviews:

Director Aubrey Lam ‘I think it’s an advantage because it’s rare. When people think “oh, female directors, we have less than 5”, you get all the attention and the people are more lenient to us women. Well, it can be a sad thing, but I don’t care. You have got advantage because people think you are weak so they don’t push us too much (laughter). Ah, it’s quite funny…’ (Aubrey Lam in Francois 2003)

Director Barbara Wong ‘(…) There are two factors that you have to consider as a woman director: first you need a very clear idea of how you want to shoot the scene when you step onto the set. If you hesitate for a second, the crew goes, “I told you! She’s just a woman! She can’t think it through!” the other thing is that a woman can’t cry on set. If you cry, the crew says, “I told you women are incompetent!

Just go home and make dinner. You can’t deal with pressure!”’ (Barbara Wong in Lee 2008)

Ann Hui began feature filmmaking in 1979, the Hong Kong film industry was a male-­‐dominated enterprise. This remains the case today.

Director Ann Hui

Erens (2000) talks about Hui’s directing style, which is quite different from Hollywood filmmaking tradition. Hui likes using flashbacks and voiceover to tell a story. Besides, Hui tends to blur the boundaries and turning political overtones into personal statements. Audiences must be attentive to details, willing to make their own connections, or willing to remain confused. According to what Erens describes, ‘The Secrets (1979) blends a modern story involving love, jealousy, unwed pregnancy, and contemporary, forensic medicine with an ancient tale of ghosts, superstition, and Chinese ritual’. This approach is further complicated and different from the traditions in Hong Kong commercial filmmaking. This kind of directing style is more likely to be that of independent directors.

Ann Hui’s point of view of being ‘unfeminine’ is her advantage in the industry does not just appear in Erens’s article (2000), but also in Chan’s article (2005). ‘A woman who can free herself from typical feminine characteristics can also free her male co-­‐workers from giving her extra consideration by making them see her as an androgynous colleague.’ This helps Hui to build up prestige as a director on set.

Women directors do not seem like to make feminist films. Erens talks about Hui’s film in his article. Hui actually likes to make films that are about unconcerned or rare issues in society. At the beginning of Hui’s career, she had focused on the lives of characters who exiles in a foreign land. Like the films Boy From Vietnam (1978), The Story of Woo Viet (1981) and Boat People (1982) are Hui’s ‘Vietnamese trilogy’. They are the stories of Vietnamese refugees. Hui’s style used to be more focused on cinematic language and fragmented narrative structures. But Boat People is the film that Hui tried to shift away from experimentation to a straightforward narrative form, which is closer to mainstream work. So Hui tries not to be excluded from much mainstream work because she is a ‘female director’. Even Hui said in Perks’s article (2009), that she would want to be known as a ‘director’, not a ‘woman director’, since being a ‘director’ allows her to work along with boys, especially when she has to direct action films. The unfeminine character of Hui allows her to be fully capable of

directing action sequences.

Peter Nellhaus, a New York-­‐based film writer and Asian cinema buff said in AWFJ in 2009, ‘I think Hong Kong has a better track record in terms of proportion of women that are active as writers and directors, as well as in recognizing their work with awards.’ But still, the film industry remains male-­‐dominant. This phenomenon appears not just in Hong Kong cinema, but also in many cinemas around the world.

Does new feminism help? New feminism may help women to be directors in the film industry, but what women directors try to be are fully capable of working with men, create their own directing styles and making their own feature films, but not expressing feminist ideology in films.

Bibliography:

Books: Chan Yeeshan (2005) Bringing Breasts into the Mainstream. In: Edited by Pang, Laikwan and Wong, Day (2005) Masculinities and Hong Kong cinema. Hong Kong University Press, pp.177-­‐197

Erens, Patricia (2000) The Film Work of Ann Hui. In: Edited by Fu, Poskek and Dresser, David (2000) The cinema of Hong Kong: history, arts, identity. Cambridge University Press, pp.176-­‐195

Mulvey, Laura (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.In: Mulvey, Laura (2009) Visual and Other Pleasures. Palgrave Macmillan, pp.14-­‐27

Tseelon, E. (1995) Masking the Self: The Lady is a Fake. In: Tseelon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: the presentation of woman in everyday life. London Sage, pp.33-­‐41

Thornham, S. (2007) After 1990: Post-­‐Feminism and Its Others. In: Thornham, S. (2007) Women, Feminism and Media. Edinburgh UP, Edinburgh, pp.15-­‐20

Walter, N. (1999) What is the new feminism? In: Walter, N. (1999) The New Feminism. London Virago, pp.1-­‐9

Wong, Day (2005) Women’s Reception of Mainstream Hong Kong cinema. In: Edited by Pang, Laikwan and Wong, Day (2005) Masculinities and Hong Kong cinema. Hong Kong University Press, pp.239-­‐261

Wood, Robin (1990) Images and Women. In: Erens, Patricia (1990) Issues in feminist film criticism. Indiana University Press, pp.341-­‐344

Journals: Perks, S. (2009) Visible secrets: Hong Kong’s women film-­‐makers. Film International (16516826), 7 (4), pp.4 8-­‐56, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, [Accessed 15 March 2012]

Willis, A. (2009) Hong Kong cinema since 1997: troughs and peaks. Film International (16516826), 7 (4), pp. 6-­‐17, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, [Accessed 15 March 2012]

Online articles: Ford, Rebecca (2012) Fewer Female Directors Worked on Top Films in 2011. The Hollywood Reporter, January, available at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/women-­‐directors-­‐film-­‐study-­‐ 284321 [Accessed 15 March 2012]

Francois (2003) Interview Aubrey Lam. Chinemasie, October, available at: http://www.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/dossier/54/ [Accessed 17 March 2012]

Granger, Susan (2009) AWFJ Women On Film – Hong Kong Film Industry: Focus on Women – Katey Rich reports. AWFJ Women On Film, available at: http://awfj.org/2009/03/30/2953/ [Accessed 18 March 2012]

Lee, Edmund (2008) Wong Chun-­‐chun: The accidental feminist. Timeout: Hong Kong, available at: http://www.timeout.com.hk/film/features/11675/wong-­‐ chun-­‐chun-­‐the-­‐accidental-­‐feminist.html [Accessed 17 March 2012]

Rock, Michael (1996) What does it really mean to call for a graphic designer to be an author? Eye 20 Spring, available at: http://eye-­‐ magazine.co.uk/feature.php?id=30&fid=258 [Accessed 17 March 2012]

Silverstein, Melissa (2011) Hollywood Reporter Acknowledges That The Industry is Sexist. Indiewire, December, available at: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/hollywood-­‐reporter-­‐ acknowledges-­‐that-­‐the-­‐industry-­‐is-­‐sexist [Accessed 17 March 2012]

Silverstein, Melissa (2012) What Bigelow Effect? Number of Women Directors in Hollywood Falls to 5 Percent. Indiewire, January, available at: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/what-­‐bigelow-­‐effect-­‐number-­‐ of-­‐women-­‐directors-­‐in-­‐hollywood-­‐falls-­‐to-­‐5-­‐percent [Accessed on 15 March 2012]

Illustrations: Unknown photographer (unknown year) Interview Carol Lai [photograph]. In: Ciemasie[online]. Available from: http://www.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/dossier/49/

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Hong Kong female directors speak out [photograph]. In: CNNGo[online]. Available from: http://www.cnngo.com/hong-­‐ kong/none/chat-­‐hong-­‐kongs-­‐female-­‐directors-­‐661577

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Hong Kong Film Development Council [photograph]. In: Hong Kong Film Development Council [online]. Available from: http://www.fdc.gov.hk/NewAction/director/en/index.html

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Dreamers – No “Truth or Dare” interview with Barbara Wong Chun-­‐chun In: Youth.com.hk [online]. Available from: http://www.youth.gov.hk/en/culturehub/moving_images/movie/dreamers/bar barawong.htm

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Hollywood Reporter December 16, 2011 In: The Hollywood Reporter [online]. Available from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/magazine/december-­‐16-­‐2011

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Pung-­‐leung Kwun talks about Ann Hui (2) In: CEDB [online]. Available from: http://www.iatopia.com/CEDB/magsearch.jsp?artid=15201

Unknown photographer (unknown year) Ann Hui in Hong Kong Cinema in the Context of Globalization In: Hong Kong University [online]. Available from: http://arts.hku.hk/UAS/album/20090930_ann/

Websites: Ann Hui (2012) Wikipedia [online]. 11 February. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hui [Accessed 31 March 2012]