Violence, women, blood(line): Hong Kong films of severe mental illness

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hong Kong has commendably progressive mental health care for local people with a severe mental illness. Social stigma towards these people, however, remains unyieldingly intense and widespread. This occurs despite Hong Kong’s well-regarded community psychoeducation regime. This study analyses how popular local films contribute to an apparent paradox, whereby a society with innovative mental health care and community psychoeducation retains conspicuously high levels of stigma towards people with a severe mental illness. The study employs a well-tested narrative-cum-discourse analytic approach to reveal how four contemporary local films construct and make sense of the illness, and why they do so in the ways that they do. The analysis finds that, regardless of a film’s social intent or commercial status, it casts local men with severe mental illness as dangerous and macabrely violent. Women are assigned blame for this. The films further justify the removal of people with the illness from everyday society, in line with longstanding Chinese cultural scripts. As a result, the filmic portrayals discursively align with local newspaper reporting on severe mental illness, disregarding the humane principles espoused and embraced by local mental health care and community psychoeducation.