Wave Makers
WAVE MAKERS ～選挙の人々～
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
"Let's not just let this go." A campaign staffer reports harassment; the line set off Taiwan's real #MeToo wave weeks after release.
Taiwan, the last months of a presidential campaign. Weng Wen-fang, the daughter of a veteran legislator, is deputy head of publicity and spokesperson for the opposition Justice Party, whose chair, Lin Yueh-chen, is challenging the incumbent president. Wen-fang lost her own council seat after she shoved a borough chief, one of her father's allies, who had drunkenly insulted her and her girlfriend, Chu Li-ya, and she would not apologise unless he did. Her boss, Chen Chia-ching, is a gifted operative whose hours are wrecking his marriage. Their newest staffer, Chang Ya-ching, carries a secret. She was once the student, assistant and lover of Chao Chang-tse, Speaker of the Legislative Yuan and now the ruling party's vice-presidential candidate, who sabotaged her career when she tried to leave and still holds intimate photographs of her.
When a senior party worker, Chien Cheng-li, harasses Ya-ching in the office kitchen, the men above them want it kept quiet for the sake of the election. Wen-fang refuses. Drunk one night, she tells Ya-ching: 'Let's not just let it go. If we do, people slowly die.' They find a former staffer whom Chien drove out of her job, and Lin, shown the evidence, sends him on leave and makes him resign, admitting it is less than justice. On a card to the women he harmed she writes: 'Please wait for the day this society catches up with you.'
Ya-ching befriends Chao's student daughter, Jung-chih, under a false name and leads her to a flash drive in her father's safe, full of photographs of women. Chen and his wife separate for a time; he apologises, and they reconcile. Wen-fang, sidelined for defying her superiors, starts a video channel online and wins a following. When a tabloid photographs the two women together and calls it an office romance, Ya-ching, afraid of exposure, deletes her accounts and goes home to her family, while Wen-fang tells the press she has never hidden her sexuality. Chao survives one scandal, over his secretary, by appearing beside his wife, but a screenshot of Jung-chih saying her father had an affair leaks. Ya-ching decides to tell her story on live television, Jung-chih gives the drive to Ya-ching and Wen-fang, and the scandal ends Chao's run. Lin wins by a wide margin. On election night Ya-ching comes back, and Wen-fang, who means to run for the council again, asks her to be her aide.
Starring
Hsieh Ying-xuanas Weng Wen-fang
The Justice Party's spokesperson, a legislator's daughter who lost her council seat and refuses to let harassment be buried.
Weng Wen-fang’s story
Wen-fang lost her council seat after shoving a man from her father's camp who had insulted her and her girlfriend, and she would not apologise unless he did. Now she speaks for the opposition's presidential campaign. When a senior colleague harasses the new staffer, Ya-ching, and the men above them want it kept quiet, Wen-fang refuses. She tells Ya-ching that if they let it go, people slowly die, finds a woman he drove out before and takes the evidence to Lin, who makes him resign. Sidelined for defying her bosses, she starts a video channel and wins a following. Named in a tabloid as Ya-ching's office romance, she tells the press she has never hidden her sexuality. On election night, planning to run for the council again, she asks Ya-ching to be her aide.
Jag Huangas Chen Chia-ching
Head of the party's publicity team, a gifted operative whose devotion to the campaign strains his marriage.
Chen Chia-ching’s story
Chen gives the campaign everything, leaving his wife, who works full time, to run the house and raise their son; he treats her job as less important than his. He apologises without changing anything, until she takes their son to her parents' home. Then he faces it, promises to do better, and they reconcile. At work he stands with Wen-fang behind Ya-ching, and when Ya-ching vanishes, leaving a drive of evidence behind, the two of them plan how to bring Chao's secrets out while protecting her. On the eve of the vote he tells Wen-fang that he loves this job, and urges her to take the stage again. Lin wins by a wide margin.
Gingle Wangas Chang Ya-ching
A new staffer harassed at work, who is also trying to free herself from the powerful man who was her professor and lover.
Chang Ya-ching’s story
Ya-ching was Chao Chang-tse's student, assistant and lover; when she tried to leave, he blocked her career, and he still keeps intimate photographs of her. She has found work with the opposition by lying on her CV. Harassed by a senior colleague, she expects nothing to be done, until Wen-fang refuses to let it go, and Ya-ching tells her about Chao. Under a false name she befriends his daughter, Jung-chih, and leads her to the drive of photographs in his safe. When a tabloid photographs her with Wen-fang, she deletes her accounts and hides at her grandfather's house. Then she decides to tell her story on live television; Jung-chih gives her the drive, and Chao's campaign is over. On election night she comes back, and Wen-fang asks her to be her aide.
Leon Daias Chao Chang-tse
Speaker of the Legislative Yuan and the ruling party's vice-presidential candidate, a family man with a hidden record of affairs.
Buffy Chenas Chao Jung-chih
Chao's university-age daughter, popular online, who begins to suspect her father and must decide what to do with the proof.
Why it matters
Wave Makers is about how an institution that believes in its cause handles harm done inside it: quietly, for the sake of the bigger picture. It is exact about the pressure on a victim to wait, and about the victim who is not perfect, since Ya-ching's story with Chao began as an affair, and its answer is that this changes nothing. Drawn partly from its co-writer Chien Li-ying's own experience, it did not stay fiction. Just over a month after its release, a former party staffer cited it in describing her own harassment, and more than thirty people, mostly women, came forward with accounts from politics, academia and the arts; President Tsai Ing-wen apologised for cases in her own party. A lawyer quoted by Al Jazeera cautioned that this was the work of generations, not one programme. The line people repeated keeps its argument: silence is not neutral, and its cost falls on the person asked to keep it.