White vulnerability and the politics of reproduction in Top of the Lake: China Girl

Abstract

T op of The Lake: China Girl (Australia, Jane Campion, 2017) is the sequel to Jane Campion and Gerard Lee’s crime series Top of the Lake from 2013, directed by Campion and Ariel Kleiman. After four years of absence, Inspector Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) returns to the Sydney Police Force and comes to lead the murder case of an unidentified young Asian woman, found in a suitcase at Bondi Beach. The investigation connects Robin to a group of Thai sex workers, and a network of couples – including two of her closest colleagues – willing to pay these women large sums of money as surrogate mothers via illegal commercial arrangements. Moreover, on her return to Sydney, Robin makes contact with her now teenage daughter Mary (Alice Englert), whom she gave up for adoption at a young age. Worrying links between the murdered girl and Mary are revealed, as it turns out that one of the prime suspects is Mary’s boyfriend Puss (David Dencik). The circumstances surrounding the adoption are revealed in season one, set in the fictional town of Laketop, New Zealand. Visiting her dying mother, Robin becomes involved in the investigation of the disappearance of a pregnant twelve- year- old, Tui. The case results in the exposure of a paedophile ring implicating a large number of men in the small community, among others the missing girl’s father and the police officer in charge. In the process, Robin’s traumatic past unfolds through flashbacks: the gang rape that she was the victim of as a teenager, and the following pregnancy and adoption. The approximately each festival May 2017, and