i am very curious to hear queer people's opinions on the dangai ban - i hate twitter because the 200 word hot takes don't cut it for me (and I know it's not the poster's fault). Any lamentations about losing queer representation in China seems very superficial. There hasn't been queer rep in China since 2016 ie post Addiction - so what are we really grieving here?

I've been following queer media for over a decade... I was in BL spaces since the second Boy's Love movie came out. Every single country other than China has had a very similar trajectory. low budget, bad acting, bad writing (but lots of heart!) and slowly SLOWLY we are moving up. In Japan, we are getting real queer people in mainstream straight series where they aren't the butt of jokes, we're getting short but very well made gay shows that are ultimately very chaste or pure. There are values to every avenue taken to push queerness through from murder gays to sexless gays to tropes that cater to fujoshis - in fact fujoshi's have had a big hand in creating demand and pushing the genre forward. It's dangerous for a lot of queer people to express their love and support and for a demographic to be able to be vocal about this without compromising themselves - genius. A lot of self-proclaimed fujoshi of the time (like myself) were queer but in denial/hiding.

China was very much on the same trajectory - low budget, horrible stories, bad acting until things got shut the fuck down. And then with no political changes suddenly appears dangai - big bugdet, good shows, huge commercial successes. But what's the aftermath of that? The fact that there is an untying process to begin with makes it very clear to me that dangai is there for commercial purpose and very much NOT queer or enevelope pushing purposes.

As a lover of BL having queerness being a commodity is something I am familiar with and accept but dangais seemed to have taken it to such an extreme level. Like fuck people act like Yibo and Xiao Zhan's gazes meeting would cause the world to end. There's a queerness cleanup process here that leaves us only with the commercial successes. I want all BL actors to flourish and I am happy for them when it serves as a stepping stone for them into bigger and better projects but YiZhan's new projects have always filled me with so much bitterness for the reason I just stated.

Of course Word of Honor is different: from the romance tropes unrelated to the books, this being GJs second BL to Junzhe not untying to everything that happened in promo period - this production felt like it was made for queer people and for queer rep. And well, they got punished for it, heavily. Zhehan took the brunt of it obviously but damn Gong Jun is really going through it too and still clinging on holy fuck. I will always respect Zhehan and Gong Jun for the sheer cultural impact their actions have made.

I don't think dangai was ever meant to help queer people. Because when censorship goes against innovation queer people get punished. Being a pioneer in queer things is generally pain. The dangai ban is very reflective of where things are politically in China and if that's the reality that's the reality and I trust that queer people will find their way as they have done everywhere for centuries against oppression. T/encent making money while the country is actively erasing queerness - lots of new rules imposed onto danmei itself right now too right? - is just not where queer rep is at. And T/encent allegedly being a key player behind bringing dangai down? Like c'mon. Or the fact that the ban doesn't include GL shows and is based on some messed up ideas of gender presentation? Like we're all losing here.

The reason why so much asian queer media is bad is because they have so little to work with - like the Takumi-kun series was by any standards a horrible ass show but it was still ground breaking because they pushed the envelope on what we could expect from two romantic male leads and will therefore be one of my favorite BLs of all time. It will always and forever come before The Untamed - which is by any standards a really good show. Eventual commercialization is expected and a sign that progress is happening and the ideas are becoming mainstream outside queer circles.

But commercialization first? That's not where it's at. Capitalism doesn't give two shits about queer people.

tldr; the dangai ban is just a reflection of the political sentiment on queerness in China - a sentiment that has been known for close to a decade. My reaction to it is neutral, maybe even positive because now the bottom line has been drawn. Lamenting the loss of dangai as a loss of queer representation - which it arguably has never been about that - feels hollow.