If you haven't already, you'll want to read up on the controversy over Blizzard's punishment of a Hearthstone Grandmasters competitor from Hong Kong, Blitzchung, after he expressed solidarity with the Hong Kong protests in a post-game interview. The OP has been updated with a summary of developments and links to media coverage for those of you catching up (credit: Lump). It may be the biggest story in the industry this week, but it has moved so rapidly that anyone could be forgiven for feeling a little disoriented and overwhelmed.
But I thought one particular subplot was worth spinning off into its own thread.
Within a day of Blitzchung's ban, Hong Kong protestors and their supporters devised a tactic to reclaim Mei, the Chinese playable character in Overwatch, as a pro-democracy symbol. One of the most prominent examples that has appeared so far is this popular edit of "Rise and Shine" (YouTube link), the official animated short featuring Mei that Blizzard released in 2017 (original).
Here is the thread on /r/HongKong where this idea gained momentum and citizen artists got to work. This one was particularly well received:
A quick, partial interpretation. In the top right, you see the slogan that Blitzchung recited in Mandarin on the stream to incite all this in the first place: 光復香港 時代革命 ("Liberate Hong Kong — revolution of our time"), the most commonly heard slogan of the movement. The bottom right reads: "Five demands, not one less"—referring to the five core demands of the protestors, only one of which has been met, the withdrawal of the China extradition bill that sparked the initial round of protests in June before the situation in the city rapidly escalated due to a concerted campaign of police brutality. The gas mask, of course, alludes to Blitzchung's actions on the stream and the signature gear of the protestors, and has a particular significance in light of the recent declaration of emergency powers to ram through a ban on face masks in public assemblies, which has predictably been employed as a pretext for arbitrary arrests.
Why Mei?
Let's explain, as the logic might be puzzling at first glance.
The main objective of this tactic is to force a confrontation between Blizzard and China. On the mainland, Chinese government censors have a pattern of cracking down quickly on anything that could be read as a subversive symbol—most famously in their years-long ban of Winnie the Pooh in response to popular depictions of AA Milne's iconic bear as resembling Chinese president Xi Jinping. By laying claim to the face of China in Overwatch, the movement seeks to make her image indistinguishable from a subversive communication, daring the Chinese censors to respond, and testing Blizzard's complicity with PRC demands to its breaking point.
Furthermore, it did not go unnoticed among those in the Era thread—this being a forum where people seem to have an alarming level of knowledge about VA performers—that this is doubly subversive because Elise Zhang, the voice of Mei, is known to be a pro-China nationalist who doesn't stray from the party line of downplaying Chinese humanitarian atrocities, and is certainly in no position to complain. (This isn't really a stated objective, so far as I can tell; more of a serendipitous bonus. Zhang is hardly a severe example of this, and certainly isn't alone among China-aligned performers and celebrities in being an apologist for the country: a typical, more notorious case is that of Liu Yifei, the lead in Disney's live-action remake of Mulan, who has vocally expressed her support for police actions in HK from her comfortable position of safety as an American citizen.)
I hope this synopsis is helpful, as we can all expect a torrent of political art featuring Mei in the days to come. Feel free to share your own findings in the thread.
But I thought one particular subplot was worth spinning off into its own thread.
Within a day of Blitzchung's ban, Hong Kong protestors and their supporters devised a tactic to reclaim Mei, the Chinese playable character in Overwatch, as a pro-democracy symbol. One of the most prominent examples that has appeared so far is this popular edit of "Rise and Shine" (YouTube link), the official animated short featuring Mei that Blizzard released in 2017 (original).
Here is the thread on /r/HongKong where this idea gained momentum and citizen artists got to work. This one was particularly well received:
A quick, partial interpretation. In the top right, you see the slogan that Blitzchung recited in Mandarin on the stream to incite all this in the first place: 光復香港 時代革命 ("Liberate Hong Kong — revolution of our time"), the most commonly heard slogan of the movement. The bottom right reads: "Five demands, not one less"—referring to the five core demands of the protestors, only one of which has been met, the withdrawal of the China extradition bill that sparked the initial round of protests in June before the situation in the city rapidly escalated due to a concerted campaign of police brutality. The gas mask, of course, alludes to Blitzchung's actions on the stream and the signature gear of the protestors, and has a particular significance in light of the recent declaration of emergency powers to ram through a ban on face masks in public assemblies, which has predictably been employed as a pretext for arbitrary arrests.
Why Mei?
Let's explain, as the logic might be puzzling at first glance.
The main objective of this tactic is to force a confrontation between Blizzard and China. On the mainland, Chinese government censors have a pattern of cracking down quickly on anything that could be read as a subversive symbol—most famously in their years-long ban of Winnie the Pooh in response to popular depictions of AA Milne's iconic bear as resembling Chinese president Xi Jinping. By laying claim to the face of China in Overwatch, the movement seeks to make her image indistinguishable from a subversive communication, daring the Chinese censors to respond, and testing Blizzard's complicity with PRC demands to its breaking point.
Furthermore, it did not go unnoticed among those in the Era thread—this being a forum where people seem to have an alarming level of knowledge about VA performers—that this is doubly subversive because Elise Zhang, the voice of Mei, is known to be a pro-China nationalist who doesn't stray from the party line of downplaying Chinese humanitarian atrocities, and is certainly in no position to complain. (This isn't really a stated objective, so far as I can tell; more of a serendipitous bonus. Zhang is hardly a severe example of this, and certainly isn't alone among China-aligned performers and celebrities in being an apologist for the country: a typical, more notorious case is that of Liu Yifei, the lead in Disney's live-action remake of Mulan, who has vocally expressed her support for police actions in HK from her comfortable position of safety as an American citizen.)
I hope this synopsis is helpful, as we can all expect a torrent of political art featuring Mei in the days to come. Feel free to share your own findings in the thread.
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