Embedding the Stereotyping Notion: "Public Housing, Home Ownership Scheme Flat, Private Housing"

Perhaps the most current yet very well liked video on YouTube, named “Public Housing, Home Ownership Scheme Flat and Private Housing” （公屋·居屋·私樓）is the video that has been vastly circulated and discussed among the netizens and peers around (Chau 2014). Uploaded for only over a week, the viewership hits over 600,000 viewers on the video site.

Originally adapted from a self-published, the short “trendy” story writing, with its name literally translated as “Girlfriend brings you home for a dinner” （女朋友帶你返屋企食飯）, was written by an anonymous member from a renowned and local discussion forum – HKGolden.  The rationale behind the selection of this short film is that the overwhelming reaction from the mass audience, of which the majority of viewers generally concur with the social stereotype which their responses are reflected at the comment section. Social stereotype is deliberately and implicitly, if not explicitly, translated into such short film. Succinctly speaking, this film attempts to project the social phenomenon in which it is intriguing to briefly investigate.

The film divides the story into three scenarios – that is, public housing, the “Home Ownership Scheme” and private housing of the housing type that the young bloke resides. With all scenarios shooting him as a fresh university graduate, each one depicts him heading to his girlfriend’s home for a dinner, and for the most eye-catching scene – by meeting the parents. Public housing, out of all scenarios, receives the most unwelcome sign from his girlfriend’s mom; the young bloke receives a friendlier welcoming as the scenario progresses with another housing types. Initially, the spotlight sheds on girlfriend’s mom. She is delineated as a woman acting in a very familial-utilitarian manner, with the very discernible objective – hoping her daughter to seek for a partner with an affluent background.

At this point, the original author of the story attempts to recount the stereotype and stigmatisation, that by living in a government-owned flat is something can be socially diminishing, and can be poured scorn on which it is generally embedded as part of our mainstream social values – succinctly speaking, it is a boundary drawing. Little do we know about the girlfriend’s family background, though, the mom’s reaction shows that she projects her own sense of the world and her position upon the bloke. Stereotype is commonplace among human being after all. It is the attitude of expression of our values and beliefs, and it can be an important piece of information regarding another social group and stratum (Dyer 2000). The stereotyping manifestation, as expressed by the mom, invoke a sense of agreement, accompanied with concomitant and negative evaluations, posits that the failure to the group of people residing in government-owned flats.

The production of this short film resorts to the social disadvantages of people in the society. It attempts to bring out the construction of social relations in a dominant & subordinate configuration and an ideological process that suppresses other identities.

Chau, R 2014, ‘Public Housing. Home Ownership Scheme, Private Housing’ (video file). Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSy5VsWjFkA>. [7 April 2014].

Dyer, R 2000, ‘The Role of Stereotypes’ in Media Studies: A Reader, eds P Marris & S Thornham, New York University Press, Washington Square, pp. 245-251.

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Lam, Tsz Chun (10553776 / 21238613)