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Challenging Common Perceptions About Sex and Sexuality on Chinese TV

Watching this video what strikes me is how the presenter is able to illustrate the important points she is making throughout her script’s narrative, with Ancient Danmei adaptation footage as well as scenes from other magnificent queer-coded historical CDramas, but there exists no other country on Earth you can replicate this for.

I was only vaguely interested in the substance of this setting-the-record-straight video (I knew most of this history already) but what really hit me was the extent of relevant visuals that could easily be assembled to support the text. In the opening introduction above, she is able to illustrate her points using visuals from several Chinese TV adaptations created from Danmei novels - Love Is More Than A Word; The Untamed ; WoH, and still didn’t run out of content for the next 20 minutes.

I have often wondered why it is that Chinese TV and China-based streaming platforms have dozens of EPIC, including fantasy, wuxia, cultivation, detective, martial, and imperial court Danmei or other queer homoerotic story adaptations featuring MM or FF love on a grand, 50+ episodes scale, but there is not even one single gay Game of Thrones in the ostensibly more “accepting, non-restrictive and uncensored” Anglophone queer media sphere.

While China has these in dozens, many rivalling or exceeding GoT or Marvel scope of ambition, it would be hard to find five big budget, blockbuster queer cinematic masterpieces each, from the prolific filmmaking Anglosphere, even if you were to ask for the historical or costumed as well as any modern era queer, big-budget spectaculars to be combined. An interesting paradox, isn’t it?

- What’s the Reason the West has Not Produced Even One Gay GoT? -

This I think is a valid enquiry but rarely have I come across comparative media analysis such as this really honest, moving and illuminating reflection by a queer American person inspired by his multiple re-watches of CDrama, The Rise of Phoenixes, in which the author tries to wrestle with this very conundrum.

Very different perspective from how most western viewers of Chinese queer media usually approach evaluating these types of productions which are often produced by Chinese queer people themselves. This is definitely partially a result of evaluating the products of other peoples’ culture on the basis of naturalising and elevating the shortcomings of the media you grew up on, and then imposing them as the minimum standards for everyone else everywhere.

Even many international viewers who are fans of a Danmei novel before its adaptation seem to forget Danmei is meant to stand as a disruptive, anti western-centric force, in active resistance to normative discourses of western narratives, and still tend to evaluate them from the limits of what is available at home.

Consequently, Chinese Dangai and mainstream queer-coded CDramas depart from Japanese and other BL traditions by not being primarily concerned with the currently existing world of individual queer students or salarymen as in Thailand, South Korea or Japan, but with imagining whole alternative worlds in which systemic transformations producing just, new civilisations can be carved out and impacted on by people who happen to possess same-sex desire and who use their queerness to change the world around them, not just who gets to sleep with whom.

It’s the idea of *transgressive male intimacy* that constitutes the central nervous system of Chinese BL, not merely transgressive male-male sex, hence a much more socially and politically panoramic romantic, emotional, and erotic potential is contained within a queer Chinese TV production (A Couple of Mirrors), even when it’s queer-coded (Nirvana In Fire) or an original screen play that’s barely ambiguous (Killer And Healer) or less covert (ABO Desire) than its international peers. Among regional BL film producing countries only China offers this magnitude of narrative depth and expanse at scale and it’s always nice to see that acknowledged.

Important to remember that China has no media rating system according to age, so there is no such thing as *NC*, *Adults Only*, *PG*, and so on; if a piece of media passes the quality test in China, that makes it equally good for everyone to consume. This means both a minor child and an adult can be inspired, informed, validated and entertained by the same outstanding works, for example Ne Zha 2.

Sort of adds another layer to perspectives on censorship and media freedom when it comes to diversity and accessibility of explicit and implicit queer representation; a single, narrow story that’s allowed to be told about men, masculinity and sexuality in any time period for a restricted audience, versus a wider creative pallet of options that are available for the enjoyment of the entire population of cinema and CDrama consumers.

Among other things, this comes in very handy for illustrating the odd script about the normalisation of queer love in China, both ancient and modern 😉.

Link to the Rise of Phoenixes article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/01/the-refreshing-gender-politics-of-the-rise-of-phoenixes

Seeing yourself on screen is a beautiful thing, even if you need subtitles.

Link to the full video the clip comes from: The Romance of Male Concubines in the Han Dynasty of Ancient China - https://youtu.be/WMCl-4SKjbs?si=FYSpo-c78n19RGa_

#Dangai #Chinese Danmei adaptations #The Untamed #Mo Dao Zu Shi #Love Is More Than A Word #WoH #Word of Honor #Rise of the Phoenixes #Nirvana In Fire #Killer And Healer #ABO Desire #Ne Zha 2 #A Couple of Mirrors #Game of Thrones