Abstract
Keywords: Hong Kong, Yellow Umbrella, videogame, play, politics, copyright, censorship, détournement, “secondary creation”
This paper examines the political game Yellow Umbrella, a free videogame created during the height of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement in October 2014 in response to police aggression against pro-democracy protests. The game has been featured recently in an international exhibition (Game and Politics: 20172020). Created by Awesapp, a Hong Kong-based company, this work invites a critical reflection on the relationship between videogames, play, and “real time” violence. The game puts the player in the role of defensive protestors in the face of oppositional figures such as policemen with pepper spray, politicians, and gangsters. Reversing our expectation of games as playful and political action as non-playful, Yellow Umbrella posits protests as sites of play and videogames as political. The game ultimately instructs the player how the actual demonstrations would eventually conclude: in a peaceful manner without concessions by the central government. The paper also refers to the larger genre of digitalized “derivative works” known as “secondary creation” ( 二次 創 作 ). As Hong Kong’s central government considers legislation to regulate “derivative works,” this paper raises the concern that the creation of such works may be restricted or prohibited in the future.
- James Shea is the author of two books of poetry, The Lost Novel and Star in the Eye, both from Fence Books. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. His translations of Japanese and Chinese poetry have appeared in Circumference, Gin’yu, The Image Hunter (The Chinese University Press), and The Iowa Review. He has taught for the University of Chicago, USA, Columbia College Chicago’s MFA Program in Poetry, and as a poet-in-residence in the Chicago public schools. A former Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong, he is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Full text (PDF) p. 596-600