Myth and Masculinity
Myth and Masculinity
This chapter examines the rise of the yanggang (“stanch masculinity”) martial arts films from the late 1960s on, focusing in particular on the recurrent motif of male bonding—not only the horizontal bonding between sworn brothers but also the vertical one between masters and disciples. In imagining and valorizing an exclusively male realm seemingly able to transcend both women and other antagonistic forces in society, this fixation on male homosocial relationships constituted in many ways an attempt to cope with the increasing threats to hegemonic masculinity posed by the rise of female social power and by the growth of a ruthless capitalist order in a rapidly modernizing Hong Kong. These threats, however, were never completely contained, and this explains why the prevailing male order needed to keep reinventing itself, through cinema and other means, to maintain and reaffirm its semblance of control.
Keywords: yanggang (staunch masculinity), male bonding, brotherhood, master-disciple relationship
Hong Kong Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
