To put a spotlight on Chinese women being labeled as “Sheng Nu”–translated to “leftover women” used to stigmatize unmarried women over 25–international skincare brand SK-II premieres the film “Marriage Market Takeover” directed by Floyd Russ of Tool for agency Forsman & Bodenfors, Stockholm.
The campaign aims to emphasize that everyone should have the freedom to marry for love and not because of undue pressure from family and society. In the film, women who feel alienated and ostracized–often by their own parents–because they “dare” to live independently, to wait for true love or simply choose to live alone, decide to declare their independence at the marriage market in Shanghai’s People’s Park.
The marriage market is designed for women to find men whose “qualifications” are listed for matrimony. For some, it’s as if parents are selling their daughters who seek out the most desirable men–desirable in terms of job, income, property and other materialistic standards. The group of women in this short film instead turn that market on its ear, using it as a place to articulate their right to choose the lives they want to lead.
