“Shades of Life” is a TV drama
which produced and broadcasted by the Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) in
2014 summer programme, “TVB Amazing Summer”. It contains 12 episodes in total
for representing recent social issues which faced by Hong Kong people nowadays.
Different social issues like monster parents, Hong Kong-mainland contradictions,
new immigrants, aging population, etc. were taken as the story themes in each
episode. The protagonist, Ko’s family, acts as connection for the whole
narrative by mentioning their daily living. In the following, I will mainly
focus on the second episode, Bloody Brotherhood (同根生), for discussion since it drew many attentions from public and even
displeased some audiences at that time.
Brief
introduction of the second episode
In the second episode of “Shades
of Life”, it mentions about the daily experiences of a new immigrant, Ah Mei (阿美) who moved from mainland China to Hong Kong. In the beginning, she was
excited to come and live in Hong Kong. However, her fantasy was broken
gradually after she arrived. Owing to the different cultural backgrounds, educational
systems and self family problems, Ah Mei and her daughter could not adjust to
the living in Hong Kong society. They felt hopeless and confused about the reason
why they want to come to Hong Kong at first.
Construction
of identities
The producer tried to mention some
concepts of identities construction among Hongkongers in this TV drama. In the
beginning of story, Ah Mei carried a big portmanteau for taking her personal
belongings from mainland China to Hong Kong. However, some Hongkongers
considered she as the grey goods trader.
Refer to the rude speaking of a
Hongkonger towards Ah Mei, we can also recognize what the encoder want to
point out, some stereotyped ideas of new immigrants among some Hongkongers.
Stereotyped idea of
mainlanders can still be found in this TV drama. However,
encoder may not recognize. It is the image of the newly rich people in
mainland China. It seems that all of them like to shout and do impolite actions
in public place. The producer missed to
present the newly rich people in mainland China who are high educated and
polite.
The story showed in a very simple,
striking, easily-grasped form of representation but are none the less capable
of condensing a great deal of complex information and a host of connotation (Dyers
2000, p.246-247).
Different
meaning structures of encoder and decoder
Philip Elliott mentioned “Audience
is both the ‘source’ and ‘receiver’ of television message.” (Hall 2000, p.53) For
the encoder (TVB), they observe particular social issues and composed the story
in telling audiences in Hong Kong the difficulties of new immigrants. At the
same time, they tried to deliver the message, “we should be welcome and helpful
to new immigrants with toleration because all of us are bloody brotherhood,”
through this TV drama. If this message could be meaningfully decoded, it can
have an ‘effect’ or be put to a ‘use’ (Hall 2000, p.53) for changing the
concepts of Hongkongers. However, the organization of narrative and
representation method led to lack of equivalent idea between two sides. For the
decoder (Hongkongers), they thought the representation is single angled and too
simple. The Communications Authority received over 3000 complaints of the
second episode of “Shades of Life” three days after the broadcasting. Most of the
complainants and Internet users noticed the producer (TVB) only mentioned the
cases of hard-working new immigrants but the influences that they brought. At
the same time, the TV drama constructed a bad image of Hongkongers unfairly
that most of them do have stereotyped image of new immigrants and being rude
and impolite to them. Some Hongkongers worried the distorted social status
which represented in this TV drama may affect the international image of Hong
Kong.
Conclusion
Producers should be careful in mass communications because production constructs
messages. The organization of narrative and format of representation will
directly influence audiences’ perspectives and ideologies. Improper
presentation may lead misunderstanding among audiences. Refer to the case of “Shades
of Life”, encoder should present the content in wider and deeper angle and
prevent over-simplification.
References
Dyers, R. (2000.) The role of stereotypes. In P.
Marris & S. Thornham (eds.). Media
Studies: A Reader. (pp.245-251). Washington Square, N.Y.: New York
University Press.
Hall, S. (2000.) Encoding/Decoding. In P. Marris
& S. Thornham (eds.). Media Studies:
A Reader. (pp.51-61). Washington Square, N.Y.: New York University Press.
Cheng Fei Yu (10488991 / 21423057)
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