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Article

Abstract

[First paragraph]

Teen film as a genre is never a spotlight in the Hong Kong cinema, nor does it receive any extended critical attention in film analysis and financial investment. In light of this failure to acknowledge the full significance of the imaginary of young people on screen, it is important to ask how the imaginary of young people is used to communicate ideas about the relationships between mass culture and the everyday life of young people. Most of the gender and cultural studies in Hong Kong have examined the role of social institutions, such as the labour market, education, the State, Law, and family. Only a few articles have been found to examine the role of mass culture in this process (see, for examples Cheung, 1997; Chan and Wong, 2004). In the study of Fung and Ma (2000), they argue that "the media portrayal toward gender in Hong Kong still presents evidence of the powerful social pressure to mold both females and males to some standardized sex role" (p. 78). Although the influence of mass culture is mentioned, these studies are not about sexuality or romance of teenage girls in contemporary Hong Kong. It is precisely this concern that shapes the necessity to produce a new discourse for the study of the images of girls in the romance genre on screen. Focusing on The Truth about Jane and Sam and My Wife is 18, I examine how the responses and reactions of girls do not conform to social expectations, forcing us to explore how this might raise significant questions about the power dynamics between body and age in shaping the imaginary of girls on screen.

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