Chinese censorship isn’t the most important thing about The Untamed. Why is it treated as though it is?
When explicit televised BLs consistently have nothing more than their explicitness to recommend them, the retreat to quality is always going to take BL fans to Chinese Danmei adaptations, for political substance, romantic meaningfulness and life-changing queer inspiration. I was so excited to see one of my fave BL podcast teams give this pathbreaking Dangai the in-depth tour de force it deserves.
I was however, disappointed with one aspect of this conversation on the Review Podcast in that what first ensues is an enthusiastic, extended yet hollow discussion on Chinese censorship which for me somewhat overshadows an otherwise interesting and valuable discussion of the Biggest BL Drama in the World.
I believe the podcasters are acting in good faith by introducing statements such as that every country has official media censorship, but equivocating the censorship of American empire with Chinese indigenous attempts to control their own information and cultural sphere, is a false comparison I admit most stumble into without understanding the two are not comparable.
The US has the most sophisticated and thorough censorship and propaganda system in human history, affecting not just the inhabitants of its own national boundaries, but also profoundly and nefariously shaping the information sphere globally for billions of people. However what’s really outstanding is that most Americans not only don’t recognise how much of their worldview is censored - from their university education to mainstream news to Hollywood shows, and therefore erroneously believe their censorship regime is the standard that should be the baseline for the rest of the planet. For example the fact many believe Chinese are poor downtrodden slave labourers; there’s a ginocyde against Uyghurs in Xinjiang; Chinese are governed by a social credit system; and Taiwan is an independent country is a triumph of the almost seamless effectiveness of American censorship globally.
The US media censorship regime is for the purpose of manufacturing imperialist wars without casus belli; generating profit from the destruction of nature, lives and livelihoods; whitewashing multiple genocides; and normalising poverty, suffering, underdevelopment, white supremacy and capitalism.
In comparison, Chinese media censorship standards are not for naturalising multiple genocides, or manufacturing consent for illegal wars and resource theft around the world, and above all they’re not covert so Chinese citizens all know what is being redacted and why - Chinese media controls are *defensive*. China is a communist country; communism and socialism reject pornography and the commodification of human sexuality. More than 35 million Chinese fought and died to create and preserve a communist country where they can live their lives free from western oppression and especially western values which subjected them to the humiliation of colonisation, slavery, horrendous poverty and cultural degradation and whose purveyors are presently gearing up to reduce China to this state again even in 2025.
Americans are “free” to say and do almost anything in the name of self expression because their free speech changes nothing; it is impotent for improving the material circumstances of their lives - regardless of sexuality, because it doesn’t challenge power. Meanwhile in communist China:
The free speech of Americans hasn’t been able to grant them a real wage increase in 30 years; female control over their reproductive capacities; prevent African Americans from being killed anytime with impunity by state forces; provision of affordable health care for all; end chronic homelessness, halt widespread drug addiction - granted these have an almost zero chance of every happening under capitalist imperialism, but all of which Chinese citizens have been able to achieve since the communist revolution and the rejection of western value imposition.
Hence you’re unlikely to see make-out scenes on Chinese tv that you can masturbate to but you will see state-provided trans health care being rolled out in every province.
Because of this unacknowledged context Chinese governance consistently receives the highest citizen approval in the world because it is the most responsive to delivering on the demands of its people, while the U.S. and other western liberal, capitalist nations lack this level of meaningful legitimacy as stated by their own people. This explains why it’s imperialist, chauvinist and supremacist to start from the assumption of western superiority or to hold up western values as a standard, far less being equal in the conduct and pursuit of human welfare.
In China the great firewall is for the purpose of protecting national economic, political and cultural sovereignty, thereby securing the continued upwards trajectory in the lives of 1.4 Billion people. The failed CIA-backed Color Revolution at Tiananmen Square is one solemn reminder of what can happen to the Chinese way of life if American values permeate their society unchecked. This is a life and death struggle for the Chinese civilisation not irrational whimsies of prejudice against minority group identity.
On the specific matter of using and misusing LGBT organising for nefarious reasons - CIA pro-democracy, liberal identity politics funding has been used to mobilise anti-government and opposition movements in the guise of funding LGBT HIV reduction programs in Cuba, and in Nigeria foreign LGBT NGOs and their “aid” with political organising ended up with the government announcing a No Gay Marriage policy, a policy not one single Nigerian gender/sexuality indigenous movement even asked for. The subsequent regime change that was so successful in one of these two countries has led to catastrophic declines in the economic and social conditions of Nigerians - LGBT people are not least among the worst affected.
Nigeria is a capitalist country which subscribes to neoliberal capitalist values as promoted by the US and Nigerians largely admire the USA, viewing it worthy of emulation; Cuba is not. Cuba, like other *sovereign*, Socialist states before them, has one of the most progressive gender/sexuality suite of legal rights in the Americas and arguably the world, particularly in its recent Family Code revisions.
These negative impacts of kowtowing to western social orthodoxies are not accidental; they are the point of disingenuous white saviour, bad faith pro-LGBT and pro-democracy orchestration in the majority world and specifically in countries targeted by the US for Regime-Change, who can discount these experiences at their own peril. Astute leadership will not.
If you want to make the lives of queer Chinese people better and safer start campaigning for the removal of the 400 US military bases that surround China and threaten every citizen with annihilation, irrespective of sexuality, for the crime of wanting sovereignty in choosing their own future.
I’m hoping the Part 2 of this Conversation can zero in on much more important and interesting questions such as why so many more millions, perhaps even billions of viewers continue to watch and rewatch and bond over 50+ “censored” episodes - far more than consume the sexually explicit novel or all the other sexually explicit BLs combined, and why they find this queer-coded Dangai more meaningful, more impactful to their mental health and make them feel more optimistic about queer, anti-patriarchal love and romance than more sexually explicit works with less high viewing barriers to entry.
These are just some of my initial thoughts as I listened to that review Conversation which I hope will encourage people to dig deeper into this intellectually unfamiliar territory and come to their own conclusions especially when commenting about ways of life and being of countries, almost everything about which they know has been taught to them by China’s enemies and therefore conditioned by anti-communist propaganda under the might of the most aggressively immaculate imperial censorship regime, from cradle to grave.
Links to screenshotted References in comments.
