Media Review: Women Who Flirt 《撒嬌女人最好命》
Pic 1, Source: http://www.etidol.com/upload/event/evt_106.jpg
Women Who Flirt 《撒嬌女人最好命》is a 2015 cross-strait romantic comedy by the Hong Kong writer-director-producer, Pang Ho-cheung 彭浩翔. The story is about a love struggle between two women and a man.
Shanghai Angie (Zhou Xun 周迅) is a Tomboy. She loves Marco (Huang Xiaoming 黃曉明) but they could only be good buddies for years. After Marco has a relationship with a flirty Taiwan girl Hailey (Sui Tang 隋棠), Angie starts to learn traditional femininity and flirting skills from a flirty Shanghai girl group to win back Marco’s love. Later, Angie gets tired and lives in her own way...
Reading Two Types of Hong Kong Women through the Film
Female characters in this film could be read in comtemporary Hong Kong context. First, Angie’s role refers to independent and less feminine women. Angie is the supervisor of Marco in career. But she is depicted as loser in the love competition with male-like look and male-like personalities. Comparing to Taiwan women, Hong Kong women are not usually described as soft feminine (嗲).
Second, Hailey and the Shanghai flirty girl group refer to some negative characters of Hong Kong female. They are commented as “greentea bitch” (綠茶婊) that means two-faced woman. They pretend to be cute, innocent and stupid, who need men to take care of.
Needy Hailey in the arms of Marco
Pic 2, Source: http://www.17movie.com.tw/images/uploads/highlight/x_150102214449_.jpg
While the two-faced women are also good at strategies to win male’s heart and advantages. The table below is written by Hong Kong netizens about the negative points of Hong Kong women. Hailey and the Shanghai flirty girl group match half of the listed points.
Hong Kong Women Negative Characters
Pic 3, Source: http://n2.hk/d/attachments/day_151003/20151003_444a3fe401666a1cb3a1cRFU4uCvdVVG.jpg
Questioning the Definitions of gender roles
Angie asked Marco, “Why loving me would make you feel like guy?” The dialogue reveals the traditional definitions of gender roles that male should be masculine and female should be feminine.
But the love competition between Angie and Hailey questions the requirements to be a love game winner. It is asked that women should be as flirty as Hailey, even it is against Angie’s nature.
The film also points out the female role is partly traditional by being “passively aggressive” in relationships. Females actively practice different strategies to invite males, like posting innocent selfie to social media, asking for being fed by males. The “passively aggressive” idea is also found in 2012 Hong Kong TVB programme, Bride Wannabes 《盛女愛作戰》, for example, females are taught to use texting skills to seduce males.
At the end, traditional masculine male role is questioned too. Subverting the idea “men should be strong”, Marco expresses his weakness to his lover, Angie. The reason why he did not move on with her is out of his low self-esteem.
Revealing Social Order about Gender Role
The film trys to discuss and question the values and probabilities of being flirty with the name of the film: 《撒嬌女人最好命》. Hailey successfully seduces Marco with sexual appealing and flirting, while she is commented as “greentea bitch” (綠茶婊). However, the evaluation about flirting or “greentea bitch” may not necessarily negative that production and reception of media text are individually analyzed and determined (Ma, 1999, p. 5).
Even evaluation is about personal view, the dominant society stereotypes and stigmatizes Hailey and the Shanghai flirty girl group’s characters as negative by Hong Kong netizens supported by pic 3 above. The senses of stereotyping and stigmatizing express values, beliefs and the power relations of a society (Dyers, 2000, p. 246). The contradicting views about flirting and the socially accepted female gender role are still negotiated by the Hong Kong and China societies.
Word: 580
Reference:
Dyers, R. (2000.) The role of stereotypes. In P. Marris & S. Thornham (eds.). Media Studies: A reader. (pp.245-251). Washington Square, N.Y.: New York University Press.
Ma, K. W. (1999). Identity, culture, and the media. In Culture, Politics and Television in Hong Kong. (pp. 1-18). London: Routledge.
Cheung Wing Kiu
(10550347, 21620344)
Dear Wing Kiu, The analysis makes reference to gender stereotype for reviewing the film. This is fine enough. You also use what you learnt before in your writing (such as soft femininity.) There are two points to note though they are not serious errors: 1) When you said "Female characters in this film could be read in contemporary Hong Kong context", what is the reason? Why not China and Taiwan as all the stars are from these two places? 2) The quote "...may not necessarily negative that production and reception of media text are individually analyzed and determined" is problematic as it is decontextualised from the original work. What do you want to say?
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