Vivian Qu’s Angels Wear White: Vulnerable Young Girls and Resistance in Contemporary China

Abstract

Focusing on Vivian Qu’s Angels Wear White (2017), this paper uses Judith Butler’s discussion of vulnerability, resistance, and performativity as a theoretical framework to analyse the film’s narrative and directing choices when addressing issues of sexual assault on minors and genders norms in contemporary China. The film’s depiction of social inequalities, economic precariousness, corruption, and the construction and performance of femininity demonstrates the way Chinese women are vulnerable to violence – sexual or not – and to gender norms they are expected to conform to, without falling into the trap of paternalism and victimisation.