This talk explores postwar Hong Kong’s film culture within the global context of the Cold War, British colonial governance, Chinese nationalism, and industrialization. In particular, she examines the localization of screening community during Hong Kong’s 1960s industrial modernization. It explores the intersections among gendered labor, the Chinese patriarchal family, celebrity culture and fandom, through films starring 1960s idol, Connie Chan Po-chu. While fandom and celebrity culture were created by the real demographics of an increasing number of female workers who became Connie’s fans, their viewership became discursive sites that contributed to the constructions of a gendered community both within and outside of traditional Confucian familial hierarchies. By analyzing such films as Her Tender Love (Langru chunri feng, dir. Lui Kei, 1969), Chang’s talk demonstrates how factory girls (both on- and off-screen) embodied the contradictions of urban industrial modernization and how their experiences constructed youth fandom for the creative imagining of freedom and empowerment in the industrializing and modernizing city that was 1960s Hong Kong.

Sponsored by the English Department, Asian and Asian American Studies Department and HISB.

Click here to download a PDF of the poster.

Jing Jing Chang is associate professor of film studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She has written articles on such topics as celebrity culture and Cold War politics in postwar Hong Kong cinema. Her current research explores the sexual politics of Hong Kong cinema since the 1970s.