HKFP reports…
The managing body of the West Kowloon Cultural District cancelled an LGBTQ-themed play on Saturday, hours before tickets went on sale, after complaints alleging the drama “defames Hong Kong.”
The production team of the play We Are Gay, written by award-winning playwright Candace Chong, said in a statement on Saturday that the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) notified them of the cancellation at around 9am that day, roughly two hours before tickets were to go on sale.
…In an emailed reply to HKFP, the WKCDA said on Saturday that it had received “a large number of complaints,” which alleged the play “promotes confrontation and defames Hong Kong.”
“To be prudent, the Authority considers it inappropriate to stage the programme at [the West Kowloon Cultural District]’s venues,” it added.
Separately, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau told HKFP on Saturday that it had been consulted by the WKCDA and that it supported and consented to the venue’s decision.
…State-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po published a commentary article on Saturday, alleging that Chong “stirred political confrontation under the guise of a cultural worker and incited social division.”
The article also criticised the WKCDA for allowing Chong’s play to be staged in the Xiqu Centre.
We Are Gay was first performed as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2022.
What’s going on here? You might think that Wen Wai Po, acting as a watchdog against ‘soft resistance’, drew attention to the drama because it dislikes the playwright, and someone took this as a cue to complain, resulting in the WKCDA and its government Bureau overseers hurriedly disowning the planned performances. But who knows?
The Wen Wei Po commentary is quite something. It mentions that Candace Chong worked with a group connected to the Hong Kong Alliance with Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, reposted a statement by the authors of the lambs and wolves cartoon book, ‘fled’ Hong Kong, having the backing of a ‘red-bearded, green-eyed foreigner’, writing plays aimed at Hongkongers in the UK, and being among the ranks of ‘shameless people who call themselves intellectuals but are actually accomplices of evil’.
“What’s going on here?”
The Party are traumatized by the very idea of pee-pees in boy bum-bums, not unlike most of the western world 50 years ago. It horrifies them almost as much as gray hair.
In addition, they are absolute masters of the Streisand effect.