CPCH Webinar Series
Date: 28 March 2019 (Thursday)
Time: 10:30 - 12:00
Title: Book Talk: Chinese Stardom in Participatory Cyberculture
Speakers: Dr. Dorothy Lau (HKBU)
Venue: B2-LP-20, Tai Po Campus
Abstract:
The advent of web technology and participatory culture drastically change how celebrities are represented, interpreted, and consumed. Ordinary audiences easily search, poach, edit, post and share filmic and publicity materials about famed figures, realizing a new mode of celebrity-fan dynamics. This presentation investigates the celebrity image of Chinese actress, Zhang Ziyi, on YouTube, of which users negotiate her debatable persona, as situated in the politics of cultural nationalism, by sharing and commenting on Zhang’s notoriety on the Web. Zhang’s international fame began with her performance in the martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). As she grew internationally notable, her English-speaking flair becomes a point of tabloid and fan attention. Moreover, her public personality is dogged by a series of quasi-sex scandals that chiefly draws negative domestic responses. The viewers’ sentiments garner a force in cyberspace, expressing a kind of collective resentment of the icon’s nationalistic status. Taken together, the YouTube videos entail complexity of the celebrity presence in ethnic, national and linguistic terms in the global visual circuit that can illuminate the possibilities of celebrity-making scene in the latest times.
網絡科技及參與式文化的來臨大大地改變了名人如何被再現，詮釋及消費。普通觀眾可以輕易地搜尋、挪用、編輯、張貼及分享名人的電影及宣傳材料，體現了名人與粉絲間新的互動。這堂課探討中國女演員章子怡在YouTube的名人形象，用家如何透過意見書寫及分享視頻，把她放置在文化國族主義中，談判其具爭議的人物性格。 2000 年章子怡以武術電影《卧虎藏龍》在國際上嶄露頭角，隨著她的國際聲譽日漸增加，傳媒和公眾對她的英語能力愈加留意。此外，她也不時被醜聞纏身，在國內惹來負面反應。觀眾的情緒在網絡世界形成一股力量，對章子怡的國族地位表達了一種集體的怨恨。這種種現象意味著，名人在全球視覺路徑上於族裔、國族及語言方面複雜性，也闡明了新時代裡名人建構的可能性。
Speaker:
Dorothy Wai Sim Lau is an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include stardom, fandom, Asian cinema, transnational cinema, and digital culture. Her publications appear in journals such as positions: asia critique, Continuum, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Journal of Asian Cinema, and a number of edited volumes. She is also the author of Chinese Stardom in Participatory Cyberculture (2018). She is currently writing her next monograph, Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Network: Voice, Ethnicity, Power (working title) (Palgrave Macmillan, under contract).
劉慧嬋博士，香港浸會大學電影學院助理教授。研究範圍包括明星研究、粉絲文化、亞洲電影、跨國電影及數碼文化。其著作出現於多本學術期刊及編輯作品中。她的第一本英文專書為Chinese Stardom in Participatory Cyberculture (2018)。她現正書寫第二部著作Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Network: Voice, Ethnicity, Power (暫名) (Palgrave Macmillan)。
