China moves to kill romantic gay-themed ‘boys’ love’ dramas amid wider crackdown on entertainment industry
- ‘Dangai’ dramas, a type of Chinese drama adapted from boys’ love (BL) novels that originated in Japan, have taken the Chinese TV industry by storm in recent years
- Chinese regulators are now trying to remove any depictions of men in popular culture that do not conform to old-fashioned gender stereotypes
One of the most successful drama series in China in the past year is Word of Honour, which depicts the friendship and brotherly love between two male protagonists.
Not only has it turned the two little-known leading actors, Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan, into super idols, it has also received a rating of 8.6 out of 10 from more than 565,000 users on media review platform Douban.
It’s just one of the dangai dramas, a type of Chinese drama adapted from boys’ love novels that originated in Japan, that have taken the Chinese television industry by storm in recent years. But viewers may not be able to see anything new in the genre in the near future as calls by authorities for a boycott grow.
Used to portray gay relationships by replacing sexual elements with subtext or bromance, dangai dramas are regarded by regulators as “misleading” for younger generations that contribute to “toxic idol worship” amid a broader crackdown on China’s fandom culture since last year.
At a national conference on the television and film industry earlier this month, Yang Shuo, who heads the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau, said his authority has banned the dangai genre in films and TV series completely to “create a clean and healthy cyberspace for the capital city”.
Although the authority only has control over content produced in the Beijing municipal area, the ban is set to have a much wider influence as two of China’s three leading broadcast platforms, iQiyi and Youku, are located in Beijing.