“The contemporary experience of television reception is becoming more personal, ephemeral, mobile and instant than ever before” (Rustad, 2018) As Rustad says, the contemporary television era is not just about new ways of producing, distributing and consuming television, it is also about repositioning the television experience. Take the Chinese TV drama industry as an example, due to the fact that Boy’s Love novels and comics are growing more and more well-liked in China, the online movie “Like Love”, adapted from Angelina’s novel “I Love You If You Were Men”, was released in 2014, opening the way for film and television dramas adapted from LGBTQ novels. 2015’s broadcast of ” Counter Attack ” even allowed the two characters’ leads to get the benefits of Boy’s Love. However, China’s dramas with homosexual themes really took off in 2016. In that year, 13 web dramas and web movies based on Boy’s Love novels were launched. The hit “Addicted” was a direct hit for the two male leads in the drama, directly completing the leap from ” amateur” to online celebrity and achieving a real sense of homosexual drama became widely known. This is why a large number of people came in, and want a slice of the action. But it did not last long, and at 12 episodes into its run, Addicted was forced off the air by an injunction, and the two male leads were ordered to be banned from appearing together.

As Mareike Jenner adds to Lotz’s understanding of Internet-distributed television, TV IV is understood as a process. This process brings together the discourses of technology, viewer behaviour, industry, policy, and national media systems (Jenner, 2018, 18-19). Although the LGBTQ community is socially accepted in mainland China, government-controlled media and Chinese policy do not support this stance. Weibo, the biggest social media network in China, made an announcement on April 13 that demonstrated this. That announcement stated that Weibo would launch a focused cleanup campaign against illegal comics, games and short video content. Among them, homosexual themes were listed alongside comics and short video content involving pornography and violence as targets of the purge, and a large number of LGBTQ topics were blocked (Kuo, 2018). Although Weibo announced that it would no longer purge content targeting homosexuality under immense public pressure, TV series with homosexual themes received a heavy blow. Since then dramas such as The Untamed, Guardian, the romance in these BL dramas have been advertised as friendship. Also, the producers are pressured by the state to add a female lead to them.

The scenario for LGBTQ-themed dramas in China is still highly challenging because the government still controls film and television in mainland China, from the shelving of actual LGBTQ-themed dramas to the present subtle LGBTQ-themed dramas.

References

Kuo, L. (2018). China’s Weibo reverses ban on ‘homosexual’ content after outcry. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/china-weibo-bans-homosexual-content-protest.

Mareike Jenner (2018). Netflix and the Re-invention of Television. Cham Springer International Publishing Palgrave Macmillan.

Rustad, G. (2018). Skam (NRK, 2015–17) and the rhythms of reception of digital television. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 13(4), pp.505–509. doi:10.1177/1749602018796755.

Video References

Chadult (2019). Wei Wuxian & Lan Wangji | Bury our Love《陈情令 The Untamed》. [online] http://www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQASLXMZZsk&t=45s [Accessed 28 Nov. 2022].

kazumi TOP (2016). Like Love 2 Nobody Knows But Me Cut Maiding Birthday. [online] http://www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivRUiQ7a_N4&t=26s [Accessed 27 Nov. 2022].

YARUI XIAO