#MeToo in Chinese Dramas vs #MeToo in Reality
Content warning: Discussion on sexual assault
I am endlessly interested in all the ways modern Chinese dramas reflect or don’t reflect real life in China, but especially when it touches on topics that are hugely problematic and devastating in the real world, like sexual harassment and sexual assault.
On screen, these types of situations come up time and again, usually with no legal or other punitive consequences for the perpetrator (unless you count a punch in the face), and usually presented in a fairly superficial manner or in a semi-vaccuum.
It’s a scene that’s played out in numerous dramas: a young female employee is at a business dinner or corporate karaoke outing. There is a lot of drinking and the client gets uncomfortably handsy. If the boss is not the male love interest, then there is a good chance he (it’s invariably a he) is looking on encouragingly at the client or threateningly at the employee to ensure her “cooperation”. Other times, the woman is out alone and being followed or harassed by a drunken stranger. In every case, she is either protected by the male protagonist if he is present, or he will swoop in to the rescue just as things begin to escalate. The villain disappears, almost never to be heard from again.
It goes without saying, this is clearly not a problem exclusive to China. Women all over the world grapple with misogyny, sexism, harassement and abuse. But given how sensitive and arbitrary censorship triggers can be in China, I’m glad these violations against women are being addressed and depicted at all, both raising awareness and reflecting the fact that it is a very real and serious problem. At the same time, I fully recognize that I’m setting the expectations bar pretty low.
Late last year, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai dropped a bombshell #MeToo post on her verified Weibo account accusing a prominent retired party leader of sexual assault. The post barely lasted half an hour before it disappeared. For a while, it was like a wild game of whack-a-mole between creative internet users finding coded forms of expression to discuss the issue and censors blocking their efforts almost as fast they appeared. Eric Liu, a former content censor at Weibo told Vice the level of censorship was unprecedented. Hundreds of keywords were banned, the New York Times reported, quoting a researcher from University of California’s Berkeley.
Meanwhile, Peng Shuai disappeared from public view, sparking concerns over her whereabouts. The international attention, amplified by celebrity tennis stars like Serena Williams and the Women’s Tennis Association, may have shielded her from whatever consequences she might have faced as a result of her accusations. While Peng Shuai now completely denies making those allegations and says she is safe, inside China’s Great Firewall, it is as though the entire incident never happened. This New York Times piece digs into how the entire thing unfolded and what happened next.
Like many other #MeToo cases in China (and around the world), it has spurred discussions around the commodification of women, misogyny and sexism in the workplace, what “assault” means, and changing social attitudes about so-called “imperfect” victims. But like previous attempts at discussing #MeToo in China, conversation can be stifled or quashed altogether. Censorship and government control over independent activism is the tightest it’s been in three decades, according to Human Rights Watch in 2020.
Meanwhile, state media outlets like The Global Times have described #MeToo as the “West’s undisguised intention … to create antagonism in China” adding that police found “no evidence” in these cases -- conveniently ignoring details that clearly suggested otherwise. Kris Wu may be the one exception — the Chinese Canadian singer and actor was arrested in 2021 following allegations of rape and sexual assault. It is hard not to wonder how much geopolitical tensions with Canada at the time (related to Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou, Michael Spavor, and Michael Kovrig) also factored into making his arrest easier.
Women continue to face discrimination in China, encountering quotas and other restrictions, even as they try to break barriers in spaces traditionally dominated by men. Gender bias is an ongoing problem, despite the notion that women hold up “half the sky” as Mao once famously proclaimed. High profile #MeToo cases have been dismissed, essentially ending in favour of the accused -- and that’s if they even make it that far. One Alibaba employee yelled out her claims in the middle of the company’s cafeteria and was harassed and eventually fired. Some have been countersued by their powerful accusers, while feminist groups online have been shut down and activists arrested.
Unlike our heroines on screen, real world heroines face a very different reality.
Additional material: NuVoices did a great podcast several years ago on the then-nascent #MeToo movement in China, it’s impact across multiple sectors and industries, Chinese laws around the issue, and more broadly, women’s experiences and attitudes around sex and assault within this context. You can listen to it here or wherever you listen to podcasts.