Queering the ‘good life’ in Hong Kong : negotiations of gender, normativity and happiness in Ellen Joyce Loo’s un/happy archives

Abstract

Ellen Joyce Loo 盧凱彤 (1986-2018) was a Hong Kong singer-songwriter as well as the first female artist that declared her homosexual marriage in the Cantopop music scene. This paper approaches the lyrics and music videos of Loo as un/happy archives by considering the mediation between text, context and affect. Integrating approaches from queer theories and affect studies, this paper examines the dialogical potentiality and contours of Loo’s un/happy archives in negotiating with the normative tyranny of ‘good life’ in Hong Kong. Situating Loo’s un/happy archives against the socio-cultural contexts of the patriarchal Cantopop industry and LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong, this paper argues that her un/happy archives, in the interplay of visual and lyrical narratives, map a queering affective time-space that deconstructs and transgresses the normative binaries in creating alternative, situated imaginations of ‘happy woman’ and ‘happy family’. Through unthinking and rethinking the normative happiness of ‘good life’ in relation to Loo’s un/happy archives, this paper aspires to liberate alterity and diversity in imagining ways of life in Hong Kong.