Paper: "Under the Male Gaze: Beauty Contests in Hong Kong"

ENANGEL who-is-at cityu.edu.hk
Sun, 08 Sep 1996 17:54:31 +0800

Hi xmca-ers,

I have earlier discussed the beauty contest issue in Hong Kong here and
have received many helpful responses from you. I have now finished a draft
of my initial analysis of beauty contests in Hong Kong, and would like to
share it with you and get your critical feedback and responses if you
are also interested in the topic. It is 29 pages long (double-spaced)
including abstract, footnotes, refs. and appendix. I'm attaching it as a
text file below. (If you're not interested in the topic, just delete it,
and my apologies for crowding your mail box).

Cheers,
Angel
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Under the Male Gaze: Beauty Contests in Hong Kong


(c) Copyright Angel M. Y. Lin 1996

Angel M. Y. Lin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of English, City University of Hong Kong

Tat Chee Ave., Kln., Hong Kong

Phone: (852) 2788-8122

Fax: (852) 2788-8894

E-Mail: ENANGEL who-is-at CITYU.EDU.HK

(A revised version of a paper presented at the International Conference

on Communication and Culture: China Entering the 21st Century with the

World, August 13-16, 1996, Peking University, Beijing, China.)

ABSTRACT

In this paper I attempt at a critical analysis of the subtle

forms of male domination constituted and perpetuated by the

Hong Kong media's practices in, and revolving around, beauty

contests. The analysis also shows how the beauty

contestants' participation in this glamorous public sphere

paradoxically constitutes both a channel for self-assertion

and social mobility and a form of collusion with or

acquiescence to the perpetuation of traditional Chinese

male-defined norms for women and men-women relations. The

different positions available to the spectators, the

contestants, and the researcher are also discussed.

1

...[the processes of male domination in a so-called

primitive society] are the same as in our society, but

a lot more visible. In the former case the dominated

persons, the women, acquire domination through bodily

education. ... We have the equivalent process [of male

domination], but it operates in a much more subtle

manner--through language, through the body, through

attitudes toward things which are below the level of

consciousness. (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 115)

1 Background

Hong Kong is a British colony1 of over six million people.

The majority of the population are Cantonese-speaking

Chinese who are largely immigrants or offspring of

immigrants from the Guangdong Province of China mainly

during the first half of the 20th century. In the 1960s and

1970s, Hong Kong changed from an agrarian fishing port to an

export-oriented, labour-intensive industrial city. Most

working class women were employed in factories in the

manufacturing industry (e.g., textiles, clothing, toys). In

the 1980s and 1990s, with the boom of China trade following

the `open door policy' of China, Hong Kong has gradually

changed from a light-industry based, manufacturing economy

to an economy primarily based on the re-export of products

____________________

1. The colony is to be returned to China on July 1, 1997.

2

processed in China and on business and financial servicing

for China (Ho, 1994). With many manufacturing capitalists

re-locating their factories from Hong Kong to China to

capitalize on the cheap labour there, the manufacturing

employment sector is dwindling and most working class women

take jobs in the low-salary end of the service sector (e.g.,

retail sales assistants, restaurant waitresses2,

receptionists, clerks, telephone operators).

In a sense, the most powerful public spheres in Hong Kong

have been made accessible to women. One can easily quote

the first female Chief Secretary of the government

administration, Mrs Anson Chan, or the outspoken Legislative

Councilor and business executive, Christina Luk as exemplars

of `neuih-keuhng-yahn'3, literally meaning `female-strong-

person' (usually used with some negative connotations,

implying a woman who is politically/economically successful

but perhaps too aggressive or not feminine). It is worth

mentioning that there are many more successful men in these

public arenas, who have, however, never been referred to in

the media as `male-strong-person'.

____________________

2. In recent years, there have been more and more recent

women immigrants from China working in this low-pay

sector.

3. Cantonese names and utterances are transcribed in the

Yale system.

3

The feminists in Hong Kong have been working towards getting

their voices heard. The Centre for Women's Studies at the

University of Hong Kong organizes feminist discussion groups

and seminars. The New Women's Association (San Fuh-Neuih

Hip-Jeuin-Wui) has been active in voicing, and researching

on, women's issues in Hong Kong, e.g., women's opportunities

and problems in political participation (1985), sexism in TV

advertisements (1993). Pressure Groups with a concern for

factory workers' welfare have also been active in advocating

better working conditions and terms for women workers.

It seems that when the issues of injustice concerned are

more visible (e.g., sexual harrassment, unequal pay for the

same job), it is relatively less difficult to rally support

for concern for them. However, when the issues of

domination are not entirely explicit, or constituted in the

form of seemingly innocuous popular entertainment, it is

much more difficult to rally support for the protest against

them. One important example, which also forms the subject

of this paper, is found in the beauty contest practices of

the public media. Although the New Women's Association has

voiced strong protests against beauty contests in Hong Kong

(e.g., in Ming Pao, June 1, 1994), there has been little

effect on the media's practices, nor has there been much

public support for its cause. Beauty contests remain among

the most popular television programmes in Hong Kong (South

4

China Morning Post, February 4, 1996) and are invariably

shown at prime times on weekend evenings. They are packaged

and promoted as a type of family variety show and their

advertising sponsors range from cosmetics, leather

accessories, camera film, travel agencies, air-conditioners,

cars, furniture, to cooking oil, cooking rice, and coughing

syrup.

In this paper I attempt at a critical analysis of the subtle

forms of male domination constituted and perpetuated by the

media's practices in, and revolving around, beauty contests.

The analysis also shows how the beauty contestants'

participation in this glamorous public sphere paradoxically

constitutes both a channel for self-assertion and social

mobility and a form of collusion with or acquiescence to the

perpetuation of traditional Chinese male-defined norms for

women and men-women relations. The different positions

available to the spectators, the contestants, and the

researcher are also discussed.

5

2 The Growing Popular Entertainment Culture and Industry in

Hong Kong

With Hong Kong's booming economy, a vibrant and colorful

Cantonese popular culture and a strong media entertainment

industry have developed among the largely Cantonese-speaking

population. Today, there are two major television

companies, the Television Broadcasting Company (TVB) and the

Asia Television Company (ATV), each operating a Cantonese

channel and an English channel. The majority of Hong Kong

families, especially working class families, who speak

little English, tune in mostly to the Cantonese channels

(Lin, 1996a).

Parallel to the rise of Cantonese television as a major form

of popular entertainment has been the rise of Cantonese

`gong-chaan-pin' (Hong-Kong-made movies). An important

category of Hong-Kong-made movies is `gong-chaan saam-kap-

pin' (Hong-Kong-made Grade III movies). Grade III movies

are movies for adults only, with explicit scenes of nude

women, sex, and/or violence and abusive language.

Since the early 1990s, Hong Kong has also witnessed the

growing popularity of the `info-tainment' type of newspapers

and weekly magazines (Dr. David C. S. Li, personal

communication). Popular `baat-gwaa jaahp-ji' (a popular

Cantonese phrase referring to sensationalized, gossipy

6

magazines) include Next Magazine, Eastweek, and Oriental

Sunday. Popular newspapers include Apple Daily (published

by the same publisher of Next Magazine) and Oriental Daily

(published by the same publisher of Oriental Sunday). These

magazines and newspapers are characterized by a highly

colloquial, Cantonese style of written Chinese and a

blending of entertainment with news, or an

`entertainization' of news or information. They are the

popular reading materials available in most working class

homes (Lin, 1996a).

It is in this context that beauty contests have in recent

years become an increasingly publicized and sensationalized

media and social event in Hong Kong. Each year, two highly

publicized major beauty contests, Miss Hong Kong and Miss

Asia are staged by the two competing television companies

TVB and ATV respectively in May/June and August/September in

the small British colony4. They rival with each other to

make their own beauty contest the more sensational and

entertaining one. Having evolved with this competition in

sensationalism is a set of distinct discourse practices in

the televised and print media. In the televised media,

____________________

4. Apart from the two major beauty contests, there are also

a few other smaller-scale (in terms of the amount of

publicity given to them by the media) beauty contests,

e.g., Miss Air Hostess, Miss International Chinese.

7

beauty contest events can be seen to be organized via

recognizable, specific, recurring discourse and activity

structures. In the print media, beauty contests have served

as anchors on which the info-tainment type of newspapers and

magazines weave pages and pages of sensationalized stories

and pictures of the contestants. Both the televised and the

print media present the contestants in certain ways and from

certain angles that strongly induce, if not impose, the male

spectator's perspective as the natural, taken-for-granted

audience position. To illustrate this, let us look at some

typical examples of how Miss Hong Kong and Miss Asia beauty

contests are `hosted'.

8

3 The Male Gaze Embodied: An All-Male Host Co-hort

A typical organizational feature of both Miss Hong Kong and

Miss Asia beauty contests in recent years is that both are

invariably hosted by an all-male team of `si-yih' (masters

of ceremony). The team usually consists of two or three

middle-aged men who are popular TV/talk show stars already

quite familiar to Hong Kong TV viewers. An example taken

from the 1992 Miss Hong Kong beauty contest will give the

reader a sense of how an all-male host team is indispensable

in structuring and enabling a particular spectator

perspective on the contestants.

3.1 An example: The 1992 Miss Hong Kong beauty contest

The 1992 Miss Hong Kong beauty contest was the 20th

anniversary of the Miss Hong Kong beauty contest. TVB gave

a lot of publicity to it and especially designed a glamorous

slogan for that year's contest: "Faat-fong yaah joi gwong-

mohng, yihn-dim syun-meih mahn-faa" ("Shining through two

decades, kindling the beauty contest culture"). The slogan

seems to conjure up associations of the beauty contest

spirit with the Olimpic Games spirit.

The 1992 Miss Hong Kong beauty contest began with a

glamorous, magnificent Egyptian palace stage set-up. Jang

Ji-Waih, a short, chubby, familiar TV and movie star, who

has a well-established sleazy-guy screen image and has been

9

the principal host in every Miss Hong Kong beauty contest in

recent years, was costumed as the Egyptian Pharaoh and

leisurely seated on the throne. Standing beside him and

conversing with him was another male host, Jehng Daan-Seuih,

a popular radio and TV talk show star, costumed as an

Egyptian palace attendant. Excerpt 1 below was taken from

the beginning of their conversations. They had been talking

about the third host, Philip Chan, who was referred to by

them as `Chahn sihng-seun' (Chief-Secretary Chan):

Excerpt 15

1. Jang: Haih Laa, gong hoi Chahn sihng-seun, aah, yih-chihn

heui hai ngoh-deih go chaan-gwun douh si choi gaa jaa!

<Yeh, talking about Chief-Secretary Chan, oh, he used

to taste food for me in the restaurant!>

2. Jehng: Haih aa! Haih aa!

<Yeh! Yeh!>

3. Jang: Yih-gaa dim wui jouh-jo sihng-seun gum baa-bai ge?

<Now how come he has become Chief-Secretary, with such

a high rank?>

4. Jehng: O! Neih mh-gei-dak aah? Yan-waih heuih tuhng neih

si choi si dak hou, yeuhng yeuhng choi tuhng neih si

saai ne, yihn-ji-houh sin bei neih sihk, neih gok-dak

hou-hou sihk, yyu-sih neih maih sing-jo heuih jouh

sihng-seun lo!

____________________

5. See appendix for notes on transcription.

10

<Oh! You've forgotten? Because he did such a good job

sampling food for you, tasting every dish for you

before you ate, and you found the food so delicious, so

you have promoted him to Chief-Secretary!>

5. Jang: Haih aa haih aa haih aa! Jeui-gahn heui gaau-gan

mat-yeh?

<Oh yeh yeh yeh! What's he up to these days?

6. Jehng: Oh! Heuih gaau-gan go houh wuhn-yi aa! Heih syun

sahp-yih sahn-sing neui aa!

<Oh! He's organizing a fun game! He's selecting twelve

sacred girls!>

7. Jang: Syun sing-neui? Hei-hei! {chuckling sleazily}

<Selecting sacred girls? Hei-hei!>

8. Jehng: Haih aa!

<Yeh!>

9. Jang: BAIH! Yih-chihn heuih bong ngoh si sung go wo!

{in a worried tone}

<OH DEAR! In the past he tasted food for me!>

10. Jehng: Haih aa! GO-GO si wahn gaa!

<Yeh! EACH ONE he tasted first!>

11. Jang: Ngoh sihk di yeh heuih bong ngoh sihk sin go wo,=

<Those things I ate he tasted first,>

12. =Jehng: Mh! Mouh-cho aa!

<Mh! That's right!>

13. Jang: Gum yih gaa bong ngoh syun sing-neui maih... ai-

yaah, mh-hou laa, faai-di giu saai di sing-neui cheuit-

laih bei ngoh tai-haah sin! {in an anxious tone}

11

<But now he's selecting sacred girls for me... oh dear,

oh no, go hurry go call all the sacred girls out for me

to see first!>

14. Jehng: Oh, Wohng-Seuhng cheng fong-sam, di sing-neui

yih-ging yyuh-beih saai hai-douh gaa laa!

<Oh, Your Majasty need not worry, all the sacred girls

have been prepared6 here already!>

15. Jang: Haih me?

<Really?>

16. Jehng: Juhng-yiu heun neih hin bou tim aa!

<Not only that, they're offering treasures to you!>

17. Jang: Aa? Hin-bou? Hei-hei! {chuckling sleazily}

<Yes? Offering treasures? Hei-hei!>

18. Jehng: Ngoh-deih yauh cheng heuih-deih cheuit-leih sin

laa houh-mh-houh aa?

<Shall we invite them out first?>

19. Jang: Gum tai-haah hin me-eh bou bei ngoh laa, faai-di

faai-di!

<Okay, see what treasures they're offering to me, quick

quick!>

____________________

6. The Cantonese utterance "yih-ging yyuh-beih saai hai-douh

gaa laa!" is equivocal; it is capable of either the

active human or passive object interpretation, i.e.,

can be interpreted as either "have prepared themselves

here" or "have been prepared (as dishes by the cook)

here".

12

20. Jehng: Yauh cheng.. sahp-yih sing-neui!

<Would the twelve sacred girls come out to the stage!>

{The background Egyptian Music started; three contestants in

Egyptian costumes, each sitting on a bed-like carrier

which was carried by 4 men in Egyptian soldier

costumes, were carried out from the back stage to the

left side of the front stage and placed in a line

there. Then the music stopped. The first contestant

stepped down from the first carrier, took her

translucent silky scarf up to cover half of her face,

smiling, walking towards the stage centre where the

Pharaoh-host was seated. As the contestant was walking

towards the Pharaoh, she maintained her front largely

facing the audience. While she was walking, Jehng said

the following:}

21. Jehng: Yat-houh, Jeung Yuhk-Waah siu-je, fong-lihng yih-

sahp-yih seui.

<Number One, Miss Jeung Yuhk-Waah, her age is twenty-

two.>

{The contestant stopped in front of the standing microphone

which was placed slightly to the right and a few steps

in front of the throne. The Pharaoh-host leaned on the

left side of his throne to get a better view of the

contestant, who was basically facing the audience, but

with her left side slightly slanting towards the

13

direction of the Pharaoh. In this way, all of them

were frontal to the audience7.}

22. Jang: Aa! Jan-haih leng neui aa-haa!

<Aa! Indeed a beautiful girl!>

{The contestant then spoke into the standing microphone and

started by greeting the Pharaoh-host, usually by

saying, "Wohng-Seuhng, neih-hou" (meaning "Your

Majesty, how do you do"). Then an Egyptian soldier

carried some odd object (e.g., a green hat8) on a tray

to the front stage and stood slightly to the left and

behind the contestant. The Pharaoh asked what treasure

she had to offer. Then the contestant said something

auspicious about the object to the Pharaoh-host. The

Pharaoh-host teased her a bit, usually challenging the

____________________

7. "The audience" refers to both the audience in front of

the stage and in front of the television screen. The

live audience was most of the time not shown on the

screen. They were included by the camera occasionally,

e.g., when the contestants were being carried out from

the back stage.

8. "The green hat" is a familiar Chinese symbol for "horns"

in the Western sense. For example, when a wife is said

to give a green hat to her husband to wear, it meant

that she had an affair with somebody else and had

cheated on her husband.

14

logic of her words, but Jehng, the second male host

usually rounded up the conversation by answering some

of the harsh questions for her, and then thanking her

and hurrying her to recede to the backstage. Then the

second contestant stepped down from her carrier and

walked to the microphone and carried out another

similar conversation with the two male hosts. After

the first three have finished, the music started again,

and another three contestants were carried to the side

stage, and there was the same sequence of events until

all twelve contestants had made their appearance. Then

one more woman with her face all covered under a scarf

was being carried to the front stage. The Pharaoh

queried whether there was one more sacred girl, but

then he immediately remarked that he recognized the

`cylindrical body shape of this woman'. The woman (a

short, slightly chubby, comedy TV star) stepped down

from the carrier and scolded the Pharaoh for selecting

sacred girls behind her--the Queen. There was

immediate laughter from the live audience.}

In this dramatic way, the twelve contestants were introduced

one by one to the Pharaoh-host. By staying frontal to the

audience whether when walking or when conversing with the

hosts, the contestants were at the same time presented to

the TV audience and were for their clear and unobstructed

15

gaze (Berger, 1972). The audience's possible perspectives

on, and interpretive frames of, the contestants are from the

outset under the pre-structuring constraints of the visual

text that they are presented with. The physical, social,

and discourse organization of the beauty contest event,

which is broadcast live to millions of households in Hong

Kong, strongly induces, if not imposes, particular spectator

perspectives on, and interpretive frames of, the

contestants. In the following sections, I shall analyze the

kind of spectator perspective and interpretive frame enabled

by the organization of the visual text (van Zoonen, 1994) as

evidenced in the above example.

3.1.1 The footing9: selecting mistresses for and by the

emperor

The glamorous, magnificent Egyptian palace stage setup (with

a real-life size golden Sphinx in the background) and the

eye-dazzling golden Egyptian costumes of the hosts, the

contestants, and the soldiers all helped to create a

luxurious, royal, magnificent setting that resembles the

Chinese popular image of the golden palace of ancient

Chinese emperors. The earliest form of official beauty

____________________

9. The terms `footing' or `frame' are used by Goffman (1974,

1981) to refer to the situated people's current

definition, interpretation, or understanding, of the

situation, of what is taking place.

16

contests in China took place in the emperor's palace, under

the emperor's gaze. According to Jin-Shu (the History of

the Jin Dynasty, 265-420 A.D.), young beautiful virgins were

selected from all over the country into the palace to await

further selection by the emperor. The selected women were

further ranked into different grades of concubines or maids

to serve the emperor in his palace (Wong, 1994).

The glamorous scenario recreated on the stage for the 1992

Miss Hong Kong beauty contest, albeit an Egyptian one, was

one easily recognizable to the Chinese audience as

resembling the ancient Chinese emperor's golden palace. In

addition, the Pharaoh-host was consistently addressed to as

"Wohng-Sheuhng", which is the Chinese way of addressing the

emperor. The choice of this familiar Chinese address form

for the Egyptian Pharaoh, instead of the proper translation

of the title of Pharaoh, further enables the Chinese

audience to associate or identify the Pharaoh-host with the

traditional Chinese emperor.

The modern day Miss Hong Kong beauty contest was thus neatly

superimposed onto the ancient Chinese practice of selecting

second/third/forth/... concubines for and by the Chinese

emperor. Contextualized in this manner, the beauty contest

can look entirely unproblematic, legitimate, or simply

natural to the Chinese audience. The superimposing of the

modern day beauty contest footing (Goffman, 1974, 1981) and

17

a historical palace footing cast the contestants of the

1990s in the traditional Chinese role of concubine

candidates for the Pharaoh-host, who was himself the product

of the superimposing of an ancient absolute power figure

with a present-day sleazy guy image.

3.1.2 The objects of interest: the contestants as fresh

dishes

The conversations between the Pharaoh-host and the court-

attendant-host about the previous role of `Chief Secretary

Chan' as the emperor's food-taster and his present role in

selecting sacred girls (see Turns 1-14 in Excerpt 1 above)

again superimposed the footing of sampling food and the

footing of selecting sacred girls. The conversations

cleverly interwove the images of dishes and sacred girls,

and superimposed the act of tasting/sampling food onto that

of selecting women for the emperor. Anyone with some

sociolinguistic competence in the Cantonese language will

not fail to `hear' between the lines of the conversations.

In particular, the emphasis on who being the first one to

taste the food of the Pharaoh (see turns 9-12) strongly

suggests the corresponding traditional Chinese men's

emphasis on being the first one to take away the virginity

of a woman. This male-centric norm is crystallized in the

familiar Chinese saying, `yam tauh daahm tong', literally

meaning `to have the first mouthful of soup', referring to a

man's act of taking the virginity of a woman. In turn 10,

18

the court-attendant used and accentuated the classifier `GO-

GO', which can be a classifier for both women and dishes.

He could have used other unequivocally inanimate classifiers

(e.g., `dihp-dihp'). His use of the equivocal classifier

`go-go', however, induced the audience to interpret dishes

as a metaphor for women. The preference for this

interpretation was further hinted at in turn 13 in which the

Pharaoh-host expressed worries over leaving the sacred girls

in the hands of his former food-taster, and hurried the

court-attendant to get the sacred girls out for him to see

first.

3.1.3 The fun: teasing the contestants

To see what was offered as fun to the audience, let us look

at one typical conversation between a contestant and the

male hosts during the introduction phase described above:

Excerpt 2

{The contestant was walking towards the microphone as Jehng

said:}

1. Jehng: Gau-houh, waa, ne go hou-sihk aa, Jyu Huhng siu-

je!=

<Number Nine, waa, this one is delicious, Miss Jyu

Huhng10>

____________________

10. The name of the contestant, Jyu Huhng, happens to have

the same sounds as the Cantonese word, `jyu-huhng',

19

2. =Jang: Waa, jyu-huhng?=

<Waa, pig's blood?>

3. =Jehng: Haahk, fong-lihng yih-sahp-saam seui.

<Yeh, her age is twenty-three.>

{The contestant stopped in front of the standing microphone

and spoke into the mike, greeting the Pharaoh-host:}

4. Jyu: Wohng-Sheuhng, neih hou.

<Your Majasty, how do you do.>

5. Jang: Neih hou, neih hou. Yih-sahp-saam seui ge jyu-

huhng ngoh meih sihk-gwo ha-ha.

<How do you do, how do you do. Twenty-three-year-old

pig's blood I haven't eaten before.>

6. Jehng: Haih, neih seung sung mat-yeh bei Wohng-Sheuhng

aa?

<Well, what do you want to offer to the Emperor?>

{an Egyptian soldier carried a pair of straw sandals on a

tray to the front stage}

7. Jyu: Chou-haaih.

<Straw sandals.>

8. Jang: Ai-yaa?!

<What?!>

____________________________________________________________

meaning `pig's blood', which is a kind of Cantonese

food.

20

9. Jehng: Yiu neih jeuhk-chou11 woh!

<Wants you to flee!>

10. Jang: Wohng-Sheuhng, yih-gaa tin-haah taai-pihng, dim-

gaai yiu jeuk chou-haaih aa?=

<The Emperor, now the country is peaceful, why need to

wear straw sandals?>

11. =Jehng: Haih aak!

<Right!>

12. Jyu: Wohng-Sheuhng neigh mh-hou nau laa=

<Your Majasty please don't be angry>

13. =Jang: Ngoh mouh nau aak.

<I am not angry.>

14. Jyu: Ngoh yi-si ne haih juk neih `chou'-jo wohng-hauh

ji-hauh, fu-chai ho-yih guhng-`haaih'-baahk-sau aa maa.

<What I meant was to wish that after you have `married'

your queen you two will `live happily' ever after.>

15. Jang: Juhng minh-keuhng, chou-haaih, baai-jo go `chou'

jih ji-hauh jauh `cho'-jo wohng-hauh ji-hauh ho-yih

guhng-`haaih'-baahk-sau, jeung go `haaih' jih baai hai

hauh-mihn=

<That makes even less sense: `cho-haaih', you first

placed the word `cho', that is `having married the

____________________

11. `Cheuhk-chou' is a Cantonese slang word meaning `to

flee', usually used to describe criminals fleeing the

police.

21

queen, then living happily ever after', then placed the

word `haaih' at the back>12

16. =Jehng: Haih cheuhng-cheuhng-gau-gau aa maa.

<Yes, that means ever-lasting.>

17. Jang: Gum cheuhng! Waa, gum neih mh-baai maaih tiuh

sing?! {in an ironic tone}

<That long! Hey, why didn't you also place a piece of

string?!>

18. Jehng: Yauh yauh yauh, Wohng-Sheuhng nau laak.

<Yes, yes, yes, the Emperor is angry now.> {the last

utterance seemed to be directed to the contestant}

19. Jang: Yauh sing ge chou-haaih gum maih-=

<sandals with a string, they become- >

20. =Jehng: Jau jau jau.

<Go go go.> {gesturing the contestant to recede to

the backstage}

21. Jyu: Do-jeh. {The contestant walked to the backstage}

<Thank you.>

22. Jehng: Ngoh-deih yauh-cheng sahp-yat houh ....

<We'd like to invite Number Eleven ....>

____________________

12. The Cantonese word for straw sandals is `cho-haaih'.

The first syllable `cho' has the same sound as another

Cantonese word meaning `to marry'. The second

syllable, `haaih' has the same sound as another

Cantonese word meaning `to live harmoniously or happily

together'.

22

The contestant-as-delicious-food image was again projected

in turns 1-5 by the two male hosts. They took advantage of

the contestant's name (`Jyu Huhng', having the same sound as

the Cantonese word for `pig's blood'), describing the

contestant as `delicious' (turn 1) `23-year-old pig's blood'

that the Pharaoh-host `had not eaten before' (turn 5). The

contestant all the time remained smiling and appeasing. In

this conversation of 22 speaking turns, the contestant had

only five speaking turns. The first (turn 4) and last (turn

21) were used to greet and to thank the host(s). The other

three turns were used to introduce the present to the

emperor (turn 7), to appease the emperor (turn 12), and to

explain the auspicious meaning of the present (turn 14).

The structure of the conversations between the other

contestants and the two male hosts resembles the one

exemplified in Except 2. The contestant was given speaking

slots only to greet the emperor, to introduce and explain

the meaning of the present and to say thank you and then she

was to recede to the backstage to make space for the next

contestant to enter into another similar conversation with

the male hosts. The Pharaoh- or emperor-host invariably

found fault with the logic of the contestant's explanation

of the auspicious meaning of the present, which was

invariably an odd object as a present (e.g., a green hat, a

pair of straw sandals, a white candle, etc.).

23

It can be seen that this treasure-offering introductory

phase of the beauty contest has a peculiar social and

discourse organization. The contestant was put into a

difficult position where she was required to give a

`sensible' account (see the Pharaoh-host's criticism of the

contestant's account in turn 15) for something insensible

(the odd-object-as-a-present). There is a built-in

structure in the activity that makes the contestant easily

open to the emperor-host's criticism regarding the

sensibleness of her account. The court-attendant-host

invariably rounded off the emperor-host's criticism and

brought the conversation to an end to move onto another

conversation with the next contestant. All the time, the

contestants remained smiling and appeasing and after all

this teasing by the emperor-host (e.g., turns 15, 17 in

Excerpt 2) and patronizing by the attendant-host (e.g., turn

18, 20 in Excerpt 2), they invariably said thank you (to the

hosts and/or to the audience?) and receded.

The physical, social, and discourse organization of this

introductory phase enables a particular spectator

perspective on the contestants. The contestants were cast

in the role of appeasing subordinates to the male hosts.

They were subject to their teasing, criticizing, and

patronizing, but they were still responding to them with

smiles and obeying their orders (e.g., turns 20-21 in

24

Excerpt 2). The particular spectator perspective that is

enabled by the visual text structured in this manner fits

neatly with the traditional Chinese normative framework

underlying social expectations about the appropriate ways in

which women should behave in relation to their male

masters/superiors.

The limited space of this paper does not permit further

documentation and analysis of more examples from the 1992

Miss Hong Kong contest and from other Miss Hong Kong and

Miss Asia beauty contests in recent years. Suffice to say,

the visual texts offered to the TV audience by these beauty

contest events seem to be variations on similar themes.

They are organized in ways that both enable and induce

particular kinds of male spectator gaze on the contestants.

In this process, the role and the discourse work of the all-

male host team are indispensable.

4 The Contestant Position: Accessing the Glamorous Public

Sphere with Personal Courage and Psychological Strength

In the above section, we have seen that the contestants

apparently willingly participated in a TV show in which they

were assigned a subordinate, appeasing, submissive, and sex-

servant/object role in relation to the male hosts (e.g., the

contestants were cast in the role of candidate

mistresses/food for the emperor). One might ask the

25

questions who would want to participate, and why they would

want to participate in beauty contests.

In TVB's publicity for the 1996 Miss Hong Kong beauty

contest, the slogan, `Sing-gwong chaan-naahn daaih-douh,

Gong-Je yahn-lihng hei-bouh' (`To the starry glamorous way,

Miss Hong Kong leads the way') was used. The glamorous

public sphere that the beauty contest is projected by TVB to

present is vividly summed up in this slogan. The beauty

contest provides an entry point for an anonymous woman to

get famous overnight, to access the glamorous world of the

stars (movie/TV stars), and to become a star herself.

In fact, many of the winners of the contests have become

TV/movie stars. A few have become very famous actresses,

winning local and overseas acting awards. Some, however,

have become Grade III (adult sex) movie stars. A few have

been married into the households of wealthy businessmen and

have left the entertainment circle. A few have become

singers or TV hosts, and a few have started their own

businesses.

In the words of a contestant for this year's (1996) Miss

Asia beauty contest cited in Next Magazine (August 30, 1996,

p. 42):

26

"Keih-saht chaam-gaa syun-meih, yat haih seun cheut-

meng, yat haih seun yahp yyuh-lohk-hyun ...."

<"In fact, one participates in a beauty contest to

become famous or to get into the entertainment

circle13....">

The beauty contest does seem to provide women with a channel

to achieve social and material success. It seems to be the

only alternative path for social mobility apart from the one

provided by the school system (e.g., through getting higher

and professional education). However, unlike the education

path, where the capital required is middle-class linguistic,

cultural, and academic resources (Bourdieu & Passeron,

1977), and where working class school children in Hong Kong

typically lack the linguistic and cultural capital to

succeed (Lin, 1996a, 1996b), in the path offered by the

beauty contest, the capital is the woman's body and her

ability to handle whatever embarrassing, degrading roles

that are assigned to her by the beauty contest organizer, as

well as her ability to deal with the media and to attract

media attention. One could perhaps argue that at least it

____________________

13. The Cantonese word `yyuh-lohk-hyun' literally means `the

entertainment circle'. The corresponding word in

English would be `the show business', but the Cantonese

word seems to have a lower status than what the word

`show business' would imply.

27

is a path that is more equalitarian than the present school

system because presumably there should be a similar

distribution of different body types among working class and

middle class women. The distribution of body shapes among

the population is presumably `class-blind'. It is also a

short-cut to success for new immigrant women from Mainland

China. Apart from the body-capital, the beauty contest

seems to be a test of personal courage, psychological

strength, and social tactfulness. In the words of the

legendary 47-year-old Gung Syut-Faa (real name: Jiang Guoyu;

Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, September 4, 1995), a

mainland Chinese immigrant who participated in the 1995 Miss

Asia beauty contest and won the title of `Winner of the Most

Media Attention' (a prize based on the votes of

entertainment media reporters), what she thought she relied

on to succeed in the beauty contest were:

"....yuhng-hei woh tin-san laih-jat, waahn-yauh ngoh

dik faan-buhn sam-leih...."

<"....my courage and my inborn beauty, as well as my

rebellious psychological complex....">

(Cited in The International Chinese Newsweekly, August

18, 1996, p. 64.)


It seems that the contestants are not simply passive puppets

in the hands of the media. They `bite the bullet' to

achieve their target: to get famous, to access the glamorous

28

public sphere, and to be a winner in it. There seems to be

a strong sense of self-assertion despite the appeasing,

smiling, submissive roles cast for them by the hosting

television companies. It seems that they know what they are

in for, and they are willing to pay the price for it.

5 Still Under the Male Gaze

There is, however, a danger in romanticizing the beauty

contest as an `equalitarian' path to success based on a

woman's personal psychological strength and inborn and

disciplined beauty (e.g., through dieting and exercising to

keep one's measurements). While one might celebrate the

sense of self-assertion, self-determination, and self-

discipline (which are ironically still values of the male

world [Bordo, 1993]) that the contestants have when they

play this glamorous game, one must not forget that it is

still the male spectator's needs and expectations (as

perceived and projected by the media) that get translated

into the rules of the game. The contestants can assert

themselves by choosing to play the game. They can try to

gain social and material success by playing within, or even

exploiting, the rules of the game, but they can never change

the rules of the game. From the case described below of 46-

year-old Lauh Yyuht-Hou in this year's (1996) Miss Asia

beauty contest, we shall see that it is, after all, the male

spectator's needs and norms (as perceived by the media) that

29

govern the rules of the game and the chance of success of a

contestant no matter how hard she tries or how much

sacrifice she makes.

5.1 Collaboration, collusion, and co-exploitation? The media

and the contestants

The success of Gung Syut-Faa in the 1995 Miss Asia beauty

contest depends on her ability to attract media attention

with her legendary background (e.g., having lived in Paris,

having been a red guard during the Cultural Revolution in

China) as well as her elegant classical Chinese beauty

image. The media's attention enabled her to make her

frontal appearance in the public sphere frequently (her

full-size pictures on popular magazine covers and

newspapers). Her high-class ancient classical Chinese

beauty image gradually won her public acceptance and

popularity. This seems to be a happy story of the

collaboration or co-exploitation between the media and the

contestant. The media depends on weaving sensational

stories around her (e.g., her background, her history, etc.)

to attract audience. She depends on the media to access the

public sphere to project her classical Chinese beauty image.

In this case it seems that both sides gain from exploiting

each other.

30

During this year's (1996) Miss Asia beauty contest, an

emulating contestant, 46-year-old Hong Kong local woman Lauh

Yyuht-Hou, also enters herself into this media game.

However, so far only the media side seems to have gained.

On the day of the semi-final contest (August 31, 1996), her

nude-breast pictures appeared on the front page of a popular

newspaper in Hong Kong. She was immediately ousted by the

contest organizer, ATV. The comments given by Ms Yihp Gaa-

Bou, Assistant Production Management Manager of ATV, were,

"Yyuh-gwo chap seung yauh meih-gam, daaih-wui dou wui

haau-leuih gai-juhk bei heuih chaam-choi, daahn di

seung taai louh-gwat laa! Yihm-chuhng ying-heung Aa-Je

yihng-jeuhng, so-yih daaih-wui kyut-dihng cheui-siu

heuih ge chaam-choi ji-gaak."

<"If the pictures can inspire a sense of beauty, the

contest organizing committee would still consider

allowing her to continue to participate in the contest,

but those pictures are too explicit! They seriously

affect the image of Miss Asia, therefore, the contest

organizing committee decided to cancel her eligibility

to participate in the contest.">

(Cited in Apple Daily, September 1, 1996, p. C1)

In the subsequent popular print media (the popular Next

Magazine), where she posed similar nude-breast pictures, she

was portrayed as "cheap", "ugly", "hungry for money",

31

"willingly to do anything for money", in short, as low-

class. The print media went into graphic details to comment

on her "not having even shaved her arm-pit hairs" in her

pictures, and her having a birth-giving scar on her tummy,

etc.. She was cited as expressing the wish to star in Grade

III movies, as considering herself good for roles of triad

society women-leaders, as willing to do anything that can

enable her to buy a house and a car in the shortest period

of time, and as wanting to ask the concerned three

newspapers for indemnities for showing and re-showing her

nude pictures. All through the reporting, the magazine

writer maintained an ironic, despising tone. The writer

reported having asked the famous Hong Kong Grade III movie

maker, Wohng Jing, whether he would invite Lauh to star in

his movies, and then cited Wohng's despising answer, "Saam-

kap-pin mh-haih waah heuih seung paak jauh yauh dak paak!"

("Grade III movies are not there for her to do just because

she wants to do them!") (Next Magazine, September 6, 1996,

pp. 12-16).

It seems that Lauh cannot change the rules of the game. She

falls short of meeting the male spectator's needs and norms

(as perceived by the media). Unlike Gung, her image is

perceived as `too cheap', as not capable of `inspiring a

sense of beauty', nor does she have an exotic, legendary

origin or history as a `selling point' for the media. The

only selling point the media can see in her is perhaps her

32

desperate aggressiveness, her stark openness about her goals

as well as her willingness to pose nude to attract media

attention. Would she be able to achieve social and material

success later on? Would she, in time, be accepted by the

media and the public? So far, it seems that she lacks the

body and image capital (which Gung has) to play well in this

game, the rules of which are still largely defined by the

needs and norms of the male spectator gaze (as perceived and

projected by the media).

33

6 Who's the Winner? Who's the Loser? Who Cares? What's

the Public's Position? What's the Researcher's

Position?

"The beauty contest is not a game", said the Variety Show

Programme Production Manager of ATV. "It is a legal

contract with legal binding power", "We have spent so much

money on the contestants; whoever wants to drop out will

have to pay us indemnities." (Cited in Next Magazine, August

30, 1996, p. 43; original in Cantonese).

But yes, it is a game, a commercial game in which the media

side always wins. Whether or not the contestants can win

depends on the extent to which they can meet the

requirements of the male spectator gaze (as perceived and

projected by the media).

What about the audience or the public? It seems that we are

all implicated in this game. The audience/public represents

a market that the media are trying to produce sensational,

exciting shows and stories to entice. In the process of

their production, they provide an opportunity for anonymous

women to access the glamorous public sphere. The

contestants gain social and material success if they can

fulfil the media's production needs. The production needs

are in turn driven by (perceived) market needs.

34

What are the market needs? Do we enjoy the beauty contest

shows? Do we enjoy the sensational media stories

surrounding the contests and contestants? Who are "we"?

Who is the "faceless audience"?

The rating figures of beauty contests and the sales figures

of these magazines/newspapers seem to prove that they do

have a sizable audience. The feminist researcher's voice is

a lonely one. However, what is more ironic is that the

feminist researcher represents a middle-class woman looking

at how non-middle-class women access social and material

benefits, which the middle-class woman already enjoys. If

we do not work towards changing the society in the direction

of providing better and more equalitarian socio-economic

upward opportunities for women of all classes, can feminist

researchers answer the criticism of being just another

benefitor of the game: getting research publications out of

the material of the beauty contest game? I have struggled

and am still struggling with these questions. It seems that

a feminist-reseacher must also be a feminist-activist. This

is the only way to justify our research.

REFERENCES

35

Age and moxie make ex-red guard a winner in popularity

sweepstakes. (1995, September 4). Asian Wall Street

Journal Weekly.

[Attack on ATV: Miss Asia Contestant No. 8 quitted] (in

Chinese). (1996, August 30). Next Magazine, 42-45.

[Beauty contests instantiate partriarchy] (in Chinese).

(1994, June 1). Ming Pao.

Beauty pageant tops ratings. (1996, February 4). South China

Morning Post, p. 3.

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of seeing. London: British

Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books.

Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, western

culture, and the body. Berkeley: University of

California Press.

Bourdieu, P., & Eagleton, T. (1992). Doxa and common life.

New Left Review, 191, 111-121.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J-C. (1977). Reproduction in

education, society and culture. London: Sage.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.

Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University

of Pennsylvania Press.

[Gung Syut-Faa's love and hate for Hong Kong] (in Chinese).

(1996, August 18). Yazhou Zhoukan: The International

Chinese Newsweekly, 64-66.

Ho, H. C. Y. (1994). The state of the economy. In P. K. Choi

& L. S. Ho (Eds.), The other Hong Kong report: 1993

(pp. 75-94). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

36

[Lauh Yyuht-Hou will do anything for money] (in Chinese).

(1996, September 6). Next Magazine, 12-16.

Lin, A. M. Y. (1996a). Doing-English-lessons in secondary

schools in Hong Kong: A sociocultural and discourse

analytic study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,

University of Toronto, Canada.

Lin, A. M. Y. (1996b). Bilingualism or linguistic

segregation? Symbolic domination, resistance and code

switching in Hong Kong schools. Linguistics and

Education, 8, 49-84.

New Women's Association (1985). [Survey report on Hong Kong

women's participation in public affairs] (in Chinese).

Hong Kong: New Women's Association.

New Women's Association (1993). [Survey report on sexism in

television commercials] (in Chinese). Hong Kong: New

Women's Association.

[Scandal for Miss Asia] (in Chinese) (1996, September 1).

Apple Daily, p. C1.

van Zoonen, L. (1994). Feminist media studies. London: Sage.

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Chinese). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishers.

APPENDIX: NOTES ON TRANSCRIPTION

(1) Cantonese is transcribed in the Yale system. English

translations of Cantonese utterances are bolded and

37

placed in pointed brackets < > beneath the Cantonese

utterances.

(2) The numeral preceding each turn is the speaking turn

number.

(3) Pauses and gaps: A short pause is indicated by ".."

and a longer one by "...".

(4) "...." appears at boundaries of the excerpt, indicating

the untranscribed utterances.

(5) The latching of a second speaking turn to a preceding

one is indicated by an equal sign "=", e.g.:

Jang: Ngoh sihk di yeh heuih bong ngoh sihk sin go wo,=

<Those things I ate he tasted first,>

=Jehng: Mh! Mouh-cho aa!

<Mh! That's right!>

(6) Contextual information: Significant contextual

information is given in curly brackets, e.g.:

Jang: Syun sing-neui? Hei-hei! {chuckling sleazily}

<Selecting sacred girls? Hei-hei!>

(7) Accentuation: Accentuated syllables are marked by

capitalization, e.g.:

Jehng: Haih aa! GO-GO si wahn gaa!

<Yeh! EACH ONE he tasted first!>

38