Queer TV China
Televisual and Fannish Imaginaries of Gender, Sexuality, and Chineseness
9789888805617
Distributed for Hong Kong University Press
Queer TV China
Televisual and Fannish Imaginaries of Gender, Sexuality, and Chineseness
An examination of the rise and influence of the internationally popular “queer TV China” genre.
Since the 2010s, Chinese television has seen an explosion in popularity in dramas featuring same-sex intimacies, LGBTQIA-identified celebrities, and explicitly homoerotic storylines, even as state regulations on “vulgar” and “immoral” content grow more prominent. This emerging “queer TV China” culture has generated sizable transcultural queer fan communities both online and offline. Still, these seemingly progressive TV productions are caught between multilayered sociocultural and political-economic forces and interests. Taking up the many definitions of “queer,” this book counters the Western-centric conception of homosexuality as the primary lens to understand nonnormative identities and desires in the Chinese and Sinophone worlds. It proposes an analytical framework of “queer/ing TV China” to explore the impact of various genres, narrative tropes, censorial practices, and fandoms on subject formation and desire within heteropatriarchal Chinese broadcasting.
Since the 2010s, Chinese television has seen an explosion in popularity in dramas featuring same-sex intimacies, LGBTQIA-identified celebrities, and explicitly homoerotic storylines, even as state regulations on “vulgar” and “immoral” content grow more prominent. This emerging “queer TV China” culture has generated sizable transcultural queer fan communities both online and offline. Still, these seemingly progressive TV productions are caught between multilayered sociocultural and political-economic forces and interests. Taking up the many definitions of “queer,” this book counters the Western-centric conception of homosexuality as the primary lens to understand nonnormative identities and desires in the Chinese and Sinophone worlds. It proposes an analytical framework of “queer/ing TV China” to explore the impact of various genres, narrative tropes, censorial practices, and fandoms on subject formation and desire within heteropatriarchal Chinese broadcasting.
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Notes on Romanization and Chinese Characters
Introduction: Making “TV China” Perfectly Queer
Jamie J. Zhao
I. Queer/ing Genders and Sexualities through Reality Competition Shows
1. Growing Up with “Tomboy Power”: Starring Liu Yuxin on Post-2010 Chinese Reality TV
Jamie J. Zhao
2. When “Jiquan” Fandom Meets “Big Sisters”: The Ambivalence between Female Queer (In)Visibility and Popular Feminist Rhetoric
in Sisters Who Make Waves
Jia Guo and Shaojun Kong
3. A Dildonic Assemblage: The Paradoxes of Queer Masculinities and Desire on the Chinese Sports Variety Show Let’s Exercise, Boys
Wangtaolue Guo and Jennifer Quist
II. Queer/ing TV Dramas through Media Regulations
4. Addicted to Melancholia: Negotiating Queerness and Homoeroticism in a Banned Chinese BL Drama
Aobo Dong
5. Taming The Untamed: Politics and Gender in BL-Adapted Web Dramas
Jun Lei
6. Disjunctive Temporalities: Queer Sinophone Visuality across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Alvin K. Wong
III. Queer/ing Celebrities across Geocultural Boundaries
7. Queer Vocals and Stardom on Chinese TV: Case Studies of Wu TsingFong and Zhou Shen
Linshan Jiang
8. Gay Men in/and Kangsi Coming Oscar
Tianyang Zhou
9. Queer Motherly Fantasy: The Sinophone Mom Fandom of Saint Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana
Pang Ka Wei
References
About the Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Notes on Romanization and Chinese Characters
Introduction: Making “TV China” Perfectly Queer
Jamie J. Zhao
I. Queer/ing Genders and Sexualities through Reality Competition Shows
1. Growing Up with “Tomboy Power”: Starring Liu Yuxin on Post-2010 Chinese Reality TV
Jamie J. Zhao
2. When “Jiquan” Fandom Meets “Big Sisters”: The Ambivalence between Female Queer (In)Visibility and Popular Feminist Rhetoric
in Sisters Who Make Waves
Jia Guo and Shaojun Kong
3. A Dildonic Assemblage: The Paradoxes of Queer Masculinities and Desire on the Chinese Sports Variety Show Let’s Exercise, Boys
Wangtaolue Guo and Jennifer Quist
II. Queer/ing TV Dramas through Media Regulations
4. Addicted to Melancholia: Negotiating Queerness and Homoeroticism in a Banned Chinese BL Drama
Aobo Dong
5. Taming The Untamed: Politics and Gender in BL-Adapted Web Dramas
Jun Lei
6. Disjunctive Temporalities: Queer Sinophone Visuality across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Alvin K. Wong
III. Queer/ing Celebrities across Geocultural Boundaries
7. Queer Vocals and Stardom on Chinese TV: Case Studies of Wu TsingFong and Zhou Shen
Linshan Jiang
8. Gay Men in/and Kangsi Coming Oscar
Tianyang Zhou
9. Queer Motherly Fantasy: The Sinophone Mom Fandom of Saint Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana
Pang Ka Wei
References
About the Contributors
Index