Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

do not simply reflect colonial power relations but also produce them (Stoler 1995), this paper scrutinizes the
historical and geopolitical conditions of the construction of Finnishness as Western whiteness.
Ka Fai Cheung The creation of liquid-modern erotica: Digital portraitures of “Sze-ying”, outdoor private photo
shooting of amateur teenage models in Hong Kong
This paper focuses on “Sze-ying” or outdoor private photo shooting activity of amateur teenage models, to
explore the production and representation of digitized erotica by Hong Kong local amateur photographers
situating in the fluid second modernity. Photography not only retains past memory but also produces reality,
which becomes a medium for the liquid modern individuals to recreate their imagined sense of erotica
through the manipulation of the camera, the model and the scene. How does the amateurs’ digitized
representation of female body visualize a late modern notion of erotica? This overarching question is
answered by textual analysis of 200 digital portraitures supplied by 20 amateur photographer informants,
supplemented by interview with each of them. It was found that erotica is produced through highly
manipulated mise-en-scene of a doll-like girl in a decontextualized locality, which resembles a total
possession of hypersimulated romantic relation with the ideal girl from the photographers’ gaze.
Thi Huyen Linh Nguyen Contemporary Vietnamese LGBT movies: comedy vs tragedy and the colours of the rainbow
The proposed paper investigates the representations of LGBT characters in two Vietnamese movies, comedy
Let Hoi decide (2014) and drama Rainbow without colours (2015), which both achieved great commercial
success and triggered heated debates among Vietnamese facebook users over LGBT issue during their show
times. Placing LGBT people in society and family background, the case study movies portrayed LGBT people
in opposite and somewhat extreme ways, which make the audience either laugh or cry. By analysing the film
texts, the paper seeks to shed light on the depiction of homosexuality in contemporary Vietnamese movies. I
will also study the public reception of the case study movies by evaluating the social debates through film
reviews and discussions on facebook posts. Given that rainbow colours are symbol of LGBT pride,
Vietnamese movies still have a long way to go before a colourful rainbow can be truly shown to the
audience.
4P
Misogyny and feminist contestations online (Chair, Anthea Taylor)
Elizabeth Groeneveld
Feminisms
FEMEN’s Fame and Feminist Shame: The Online Battle Between White and Intersectional
On September 12, 2015, protest group FEMEN disrupted a conference on Muslim women – la Salon
Musulmane du Val d’Oise (SMVO) – held in Val d’Oise, France. FEMEN is a primarily Europe-based network
of radical feminists who are known for engaging in topless protest. Following the protest, reports of and
commentary on the event circulated online, via news outlets and social media websites. This paper will first
analyze FEMEN’s intervention, using an intersectional feminist lens. I argue that FEMEN’s so-called feminist
politics are part of an increasing conservatism that uses the language of women’s empowerment as a foil for
neo-imperialist, white supremacist, and anti-immigration agendas. The second half of the paper will focus on
social media responses to FEMEN on Twitter. I argue that this commentary is revealing of two things: (1) the
ways in which FEMEN’s fame is reliant upon the Orientalist drama of what Gayatri Spivak (1988) has
famously called “white women saving brown women from brown men”; and (2) a larger battle between
White Feminism and intersectional feminisms that uses social media as its primary venue. FEMEN articulates
three core ideologies: feminism; sextremism; and atheism. I analyze FEMEN’s radical feminist philosophy,
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