Don’t expect to see anything bizarre or outlandish in the Weirdo Series (怪咖系列) — at least not yet.
The definition of a “weirdo” differs greatly in Western and Taiwanese culture. Under the local context, anyone who is different and doesn’t follow society’s prescribed values and life path qualifies as one.
Thus, this 18-part mini-documentary series produced by veteran documentary filmmaker Yang Li-chou (楊力州) is more of a celebration of ordinary Taiwanese who go against the grain and have the courage to live the way they want to.
Photo courtesy of Garageplay
While more people are breaking out of cultural and societal constraints, there’s still a suffocating pressure to fit in. The featured characters can all attest to this when discussing the hardships they’ve faced. This includes things that they can’t control, such as their physical appearance and sexuality. Through their challenges and endeavors, various social issues are also highlighted.
“There is a group of people in Taiwan who have been labeled as [weirdos] throughout their lives,” Yang says in the introductory video. “We want to tell people that it’s actually a nice thing to be a weirdo. I believe that before every person became ‘normal,’ they were once a weirdo too. We must eradicate this discrimination in a progressive society.”
Launched last October, the documentaries will be released on YouTube over the course of three years, with five completed so far. The series premiered with two pieces, both under 20 minutes long: Taiwan Batman (動保蝙蝠俠) follows a burly, menacing and heavily tattooed man who has dedicated his life to ending animal abuse, while Legit Moms, Illegitimate Kid (非法母親) chronicles a lesbian couple who travel to Cambodia to get in vitro fertilization treatment since they are not permitted to do it in Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of Garageplay
Three more films have been released so far: Dear Period (尼泊爾布思議) tells the story of a former office worker who is now dedicated to promoting the use of menstrual pads in rural Nepal; Fatbulous Me (多肉女子生存之道) looks at two women fighting discrimination against those who are overweight and promoting body acceptance; and The Debunker (真相地圖), which features a computer programmer who uses his skills to create information maps for the public to tackle issues ranging from face mask shortages to the illegal dumping of incinerator waste.
While these characters come from all walks of life, a common thread seems to emerge: these “weirdos” are actively trying to change society, and much focus is placed on their vision for a better future. While their stories and the social issues they’re involved in certainly deserve screen treatment, the overly inspirational tones makes one wonder why these “weirdos” must be portrayed in such a shining light.
That said, there are 13 more films and two more years to go, and it will be interesting to see if future productions can look at weirdos from a more nuanced perspective. Could there be someone who is struggling, or someone who is doing something interesting just for the sake of it?
Photo courtesy of Garageplay
Overall, it’s still a good start, and the production quality is quite impressive and uniform, despite each film being helmed by a different director. Each piece carries a unique stylistic flair, with creative touches such as poem readings, faux-superhero cartoons and other designed scenes add to the visual palette.
While some of these characters — especially Taiwan Batman — cry out for a more extensive narrative, what’s shown is enough to get a sense of why they’re different and why they do what they do. The under 20-minute, online format is ideal for the attention span of today’s Internet users, and will get Yang’s message out more effectively.
Fortunately, for those who want more, there’s plenty of other material to check out on the YouTube channel, including bonus interviews with both the directors and characters, theme song music videos and other behind-the-scenes goodies.
Photo courtesy of Garageplay
This month the government ordered a one-year block of Xiaohongshu (小紅書) or Rednote, a Chinese social media platform with more than 3 million users in Taiwan. The government pointed to widespread fraud activity on the platform, along with cybersecurity failures. Officials said that they had reached out to the company and asked it to change. However, they received no response. The pro-China parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), immediately swung into action, denouncing the ban as an attack on free speech. This “free speech” claim was then echoed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
Exceptions to the rule are sometimes revealing. For a brief few years, there was an emerging ideological split between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that appeared to be pushing the DPP in a direction that would be considered more liberal, and the KMT more conservative. In the previous column, “The KMT-DPP’s bureaucrat-led developmental state” (Dec. 11, page 12), we examined how Taiwan’s democratic system developed, and how both the two main parties largely accepted a similar consensus on how Taiwan should be run domestically and did not split along the left-right lines more familiar in
Many people in Taiwan first learned about universal basic income (UBI) — the idea that the government should provide regular, no-strings-attached payments to each citizen — in 2019. While seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 US presidential election, Andrew Yang, a politician of Taiwanese descent, said that, if elected, he’d institute a UBI of US$1,000 per month to “get the economic boot off of people’s throats, allowing them to lift their heads up, breathe, and get excited for the future.” His campaign petered out, but the concept of UBI hasn’t gone away. Throughout the industrialized world, there are fears that
Most heroes are remembered for the battles they fought. Taiwan’s Black Bat Squadron is remembered for flying into Chinese airspace 838 times between 1953 and 1967, and for the 148 men whose sacrifice bought the intelligence that kept Taiwan secure. Two-thirds of the squadron died carrying out missions most people wouldn’t learn about for another 40 years. The squadron lost 15 aircraft and 148 crew members over those 14 years, making it the deadliest unit in Taiwan’s military history by casualty rate. They flew at night, often at low altitudes, straight into some of the most heavily defended airspace in Asia.
RSS