Shifts in Hong Kong mainstream cultural representations of masculinity post 2008

Abstract

Before the Asian economic crisis of 1997, the inferiority complex of the colonized Hong Kong male imagined a reversible power relation and found relief through a blown-up sense of economic superiority. This mainstream myth expressed in terms of capitalism and sexism boasted of out-doing the Western and Chinese colonizers in the capitalist game. Since the return to Chinese sovereignty, repeated financial crises, intensified neoliberalization of governance and the resulting increased monopolization of wealth and power, mainstream Hong Kong cultural myths and values have been shaken to the core. Political and socio-economic reforms also repeatedly failed in the hands of Hong Kong’s default operational logic, and structural injustices remain unresolved. Popular Hong Kong films released in 2010 seem to converge in collective soul searching through shifts in the representations of mainstream masculinity and local identity politics. The gender and cultural sensitivity of the generation coming of age in this millennium are represented as different. Cocky boastfulness gives way to the recognition of internal inadequacies and injustices and the respect for hard-earned wisdom and mastery. This is also reflected in the overturning of film genres representative of the heyday of Hong Kong. "Once a Gangster" is an anti-gangster gangster film. "La Comédie Humaine" is an anti-heoric killer film. "Gallants" is a tribute to unsung kungfu masters past their prime and "Break Up Club" is about a very different kind of mainstream boyfriend. What can these shifts in representations of masculinity tell us about Hong Kong’s new sense of itself in the world?