Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Danmei Controversy
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mdo7
 Posts: 8222 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Wow, I didn't think ANN's TWIA would do a deep dive into Danmei and Chinese BL stuff. Yes, for those of you that don't know. Yes, China has a big grudge against LGBTQ. So I'm noting this because people who don't read Danmei or are not familiar with Chinse-language BL may not be aware of the anti-LGBTQ persecution and censorship in China. But thanks for diving into this topic.
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2558 Location: Online Terminal |
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I think you two eventually hit on something I am in full agreement with. The best way to combat the issues brought up with danmei's representation of queerness is to demand more queer stories. Saying danmei doesn't "count" for whatever reason is just using the language of the oppressor to further splinter an already marginalized group. Don't fall for it.
Quality is subjective. Existence shouldn't be. |
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FishLion
 Crazy Fangirl Posts: 856 |
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I'm glad to see this sort of discussion here. I am glad that people demand more queer representation but hate how "bad representation" gets demonized. Of course people shouldn't feed into stereotypes or myths about gay people, but sometimes people forget the broader context of works and to view those elements as part of a broader whole. In particular, I am tired of hearing about how BL does not represent real gay men as an inherent downside because what people look for in BL is not real gay representation, it's spicy romance. The equivalent for me would be GL so I can't say how gay men feel, but when I approach GL works I understand it is is written for an audience with different desires. I love when the spicy romance mixes with representation, but if you turned all BL into perfectly safe good representation of gay men a lot of people would not be interested. I know there are plenty of people interested in more true to life depictions, but at the end of the day they are different stories for different people and making all BL true to life depictions would not make everyone happy. I think a spectrum of stories that run the gamut from being fantastic to realistic is the best thing for enjoyers of gay media as long as someone isn't trying to exclude gay people from gay media (hello "lesbians aren't yuri" people) or taking negative lessons about gay people from the stories it's fine. Saying we can't have gay people in toxic relationships is like saying that racy romance books can't have toxic dynamics because they aren't representative of healthy relationships when that is why people enjoy them! It gets really close to being anti-kink or anti-sex in my opinion, this idea that some people are only allowed to exist when they are the most polished and healthy version of themselves can actually be very exclusionary (not that we can't discuss why such dynamics are unhealthy in reality). That is my first reason that just focuses on the genre discussed, but my second reason for thinking this is fine is that exploitation often indirectly spurs a conversation and leads to representation as you mentioned! I read a site for gay women with reviews for old movies that have lesbians in them, and they adore exploitative classics over there! Why exactly? Because in an era of film censorship it was actually not allowed to make gay content, so for a long time the only lesbian film produced for major motion pictures was exploitative or at the very least had to cast lesbians as the bad guys. They have a ton of movies they love where gay women are written as the villain but also find a way to express power and agency in a way that can be empowering if you know about and prepare for the downsides. While the majority of the parts were not representative of anyone's real life outside of featuring gay romantic contact, almost everyone there would agree that they are happy to have such a long history of films to look at even if in an ideal world there would have always been more realistic representation. That has really informed how I look at problematic media in general as a gay woman, it's always nice to find real representation but that is much more niche than spicy GL romances that you can relate to a little as a gay person and enjoy on a surface the same way everyone does. Thus, I will always support real representation getting out there but I let people have their mostly fictional depictions of gay people as long as they aren't spreading lies or misinformation. I apply this to any variety of popular media that lifts up tropes about gay people that don't match reality, but that goes triple for Danmei being in a place that gay content is censored. They are essentially in a similar position to US gay media back in the day, make your gays clearly in the wrong or not too overtly gay or you will be censored (though risking arrest is obviously much more dangerous then just having producer rules that don't allow for gay content) and thus I have zero interest in critiquing the representation when better representation could lead to actual dangers for the author. For all I know they could want better representation but they have to write their character like a Disney villain to get past the censors, I am not familiar with their personal context or conditions under those rules and I am just going to support the great gay media landing at my door step. It would be interesting to know how queer Chinese people feel about these books. I would guess it would be much like here with some appreciating having pulpy, exploitative media of gay people rather than nothing and some feeling like it is setting them back, but we will only truly know when gay people in China stop being censored and can write an honest evaluation of the genre. |
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Joe Mello
Posts: 2558 Location: Online Terminal |
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I'd argue there's a degree to which those transgressions could be acceptable as well, assuming the depiction is appropriately absurd. Do people really think that soaps, teen romances, or Hallmark movies are accurate depictions of heterosexual love? Presented in another way, if someone sees a piece of media that inspires them to think more openly and positively about queerness, should it matter what that piece of media is? |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2576 |
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I don't have much to add to the topic of Chinese censorship of queer media that hasn't been said already, but for the topic of gay representation and non-realistic representation's place in media, I feel a lot of people forget that art and literature are largely vehicles of expression. Straight and lesbian women tend to love BL not specifically because hot guys do hot things, but because two men means the inherent power dynamic that often comes with gender can be discarded. Yuri can have this distinction, too, but the yuri genre's diversity (of authors and readers) means the works that do this don't stand out as much. BL allows a lot of authors to avoid tropes that almost naturally imprint on works with gendered romance dynamics, making them powerful modes of expression. That, to me, is "queer" enough. I apply this approach even to series with androgenous straight characters. If there is an inherent attempt to show or infer the breakdown of norms about gender, it's usually "queer" in my eyes. I don't gatekeep. Not all media is meant to be realistic or representative of its cast. It can still be "gay" even if it's not "gay", if that makes sense.
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FishLion
Crazy Fangirl Posts: 856 |
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Exactly, I am always down to analyze a work or talk about it's weaknesses in discussion but there are times I deeply connected with media as a gay person and found out much later it leaned into negative tropes. I am glad I know that history now and I wish it didn't rub some people who are tired of it the wrong way, but it 100% made me see myself on screen even though it wasn't a perfect work of representation. You can even lean into that interest like some of those writers I mentioned do and make lists of the best trashy lesbian movies from film history! It's a complicated matter when to be harsher, like a lot of big budget Hollywood movies lean into those tropes harder and seem to be doing so in a cynical way because gay people are good drama fodder for Oscar season. Those sorts of movies I tend to look at more intensely because movies with Oscar push budgets go to massive audiences that are more likely to consume those tropes earnestly and uncritically (see fair like Dallas Buyers Club for examples of the inhumane tragedy porn some Hollywood movies like to engage in regarding trans people) because if you are going to make a big marketing push to win an award by telling a story about queer people with a massive budget it is entirely reasonable you hire some queer people to make sure the work isn't using a queer story to market itself as deep drama while ignoring queer people and their lives. Smaller markets get more grace on the other hand because I am more willing to believe that a smaller scale production was trying to be earnest and fumbled rather than cynically trying use gay people to appeal to viewers. A BL author is someone I can believe is unaware of the lives gay people and their lives outside of fiction, some people may even enjoy stories about gay people because gay relationships are taboo, but I don't think such a person would say "I can make my romance have a gay character to sell to more markets and maybe even get some awards." I think most BL authors just do it for the love of the game, even if the game sometimes rests on old tropes and shallow depictions that come with a lack of personal knowledge of gay men. I would rather them do that and have something to use as a starting point for discussion then just not have people consider gay romance at all. If you tried to consider BL/GL as separate from gay media than there would be almost none in the manga and anime world, so I am glad to deal with imperfect attempts at representation. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2459 |
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Funnily enough, I’ve heard younger generations (so Gen Z/Zillenials and newer) are a little fed up with so many “nice” portrayals of LGBTQ+ rep because it feels very samey. I wind up feeling a little mixed about that—happy that these younger folks have grown up in a world where that kind of rep feels normal to the point of becoming passé, but also a little miffed because it feels like only a decade or so of half-decent to actually great rep doesn’t feel like nearly enough when measured against, like, all of media. :T
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 921 |
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I've only been able to appreciate danmei passively for the past few years; I was introduced to it via the Heaven Official's Blessing dongua, which Nicky and I covered for TWIA a few years back. As danmei has gotten more and more popular in the US, I find myself interested in checking more of it out. Part of what I know is that it's somewhat hard to sell merch of certain danmei, due to publisher's rules.
I've seen the danmei community grow larger and larger over the past few years, and I appreciate them for their passion towards the media and for their creativity in both creating fanart for this series and for the colorful argot they've developed (like how authors are "cab drivers" and the smuttier stuff are "parking lots"  ). This is a world that has brought people together across continents.
It's especially a pity that so many of these authors get arrested considering how much support they get over in the US. |
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Puchu
Posts: 59 |
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I suspect that it's not so much that "nice" portrayals get samey - all tropes do after all - but rather that a "problematic" character or situation just inherently has more dramatic tension, which makes it more interesting to explore. Don't get me wrong, I love me some wholesome fluff, it's basically the literary equivalent of huddling under a warm blanket with a nice cup of hot chocolate/your hot beverage of choice, and I doubt the genre will die anytime soon, but there's just something about those absolute disaster "y'all need therapy" characters... It's also probably more strongly related to fandom culture shifts than what's seen in published media. I'm not certain how familiar you are with fandom/fanfiction culture, but there's been a quite extreme increase in "purity culture" in fandom/shipping spaces over the last decade or so, specifically among younger fans. Shipping wars and the like have always existed, but recently, it's not been enough to just like or dislike a ship. If you ship something, it has to be canon and/or ethically sound. If you don't like a ship, there has to be some kind of reason why it's "evil" and "bad" to justify why you don't like it, and the rhetoric is quite aggressive towards anything even remotely "problematic", with people desperately looking for flaws in anything they don't like so they can condemn it and its fans. Young fans will quite literally be asking if it's "okay" to ship something, or feel guilty about any fandom activity that isn't "perfect" and moral. It's not really a surprise that since the pendulum has swung this far in one direction, people are calling for the opposite. |
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FireChick
Subscriber Posts: 2760 Location: United States |
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I wonder if this column was inspired by this news story that broke recently.
I'm not really a danmei person myself, but whether you're a fan of danmei or not, China's crackdowns on books like this is simply unacceptable and downright inhumane. I feel terrible for all the poor people who got arrested just because they wanted to write what they love, not to mention worried that, at the rate we're going, America might be going down that route as well, what with all the LGBT book bannings that have been going on. |
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Joe Mello
Posts: 2558 Location: Online Terminal |
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I do imagine some of it is genuine concern over characters being pigeonholed into a "magical queer" archetype which is valid, but if the concern is solely because it's part of a larger discussion over determining what is and isn't "appropriately" queer, then the real concern is y'all got to get over yourselves.
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SilentSong
Posts: 1 |
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All replies to this thread are great and I really enjoyed reading them,
I would add to this convo that Sevenseas has in fact published the works of a Chinese gay man in their danmei collection (that being Arise Zhang): - Astrolabe Rebirth - Dinghai Fusheng Records - Joyful Reunion - Legend of Exorcism - Riverbay Road Men’s Dormitory - The Twin Jades of Jiangdong, apparently not even a danmei. Available in English there's also: To Rule in a Turbulent World, published by Via Lactea. Sevenseas is also publishing a baihe (= GL) this November called The Beauty's Blade. I would add that with the current state of Chinese censorship, authors prefer to remain anonymous and give as little details of themselves as possible, so there might be more queer people writing danmei than we think... |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 884 |
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We have a pride month display at the library I work at, and I've been wondering if I should put some bl and danmei on it. I haven't done it because I thought that it is by women for women, but maybe I should. There's a Hanya Yanagihara book on there and from what I've heard her work is kinda fetishisting gay men's suffering so maybe some danmei is fine?
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divina_reyna
Posts: 1 |
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Danmei fans have had to endure years of hate comments every time a danmei gets licensed and the replies are flooded with activists spamming the company and reader to not support this series because the author is homophobic or transphobic and trying to get the release cancelled. To see people lump the two groups together now when we large want nothing to do with one another is so weird.
If a creator wants nothing to do with "queer" or "LGBT" groups or any real world issues and only want to make danmei for other female readers it should be their choice. This largely feels like an attempt try to recruit danmei fans into supporting political causes they want nothing to do with. |
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FishLion
Crazy Fangirl Posts: 856 |
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I know several queer people that are Danmei fans, just because some people are weirdly aggressive about attacking it doesn't mean they are opposing concepts. Also social media makes the most rage inducing stuff float to the top, of course the replies are flooded with jerks, it's just how the internet works and doesn't not reflect how all people feel. I always find that idea hilarious anyway. Can people imagine doing that for anything else? Like if you wrote a novel about a group of people and just made stuff up whole cloth, of course the group will have things to say. Not that it makes those people right to be aggressive, but you can't treat people like a prop in a story without expecting them to have some thoughts. . I am very far on the side of "let people have their magical fantasy queer men that don't necessarily match reality" if they enjoy those stories and I know several gay people that do, but if you are going to say that the "groups want nothing to do with each other" then you are clearly just someone who got annoyed by people on the internet and judged an entire group of people for it. Also, someone already posted a gay Danmei author, so it kind of seems like the two groups wanting nothing to do with each other is largely a myth you made up looking at social media. To be honest it feels more like you are trying to recruit people to be mad at queer people more than this little analysis recruits Danmei lovers to political causes. I will also repeat what I have said before and mention that anyone who likes imaginary "nonpolitical" gay stuff but hates hearing from gay people or assumes they are annoying based on social media is being ridiculous. No group is a monolith and if I judged real life people by what they post on the internet I would have a very incorrect view of the world. Besides that, it's like people who eat meat but can't stand hearing how the sausage is made. Real people do the things you like reading about and are hurt or killed over it. I hope people stop being annoying on the internet but if you really understand the fact that people are harmed or killed for doing what you like reading about then you should understand it is incredibly cruel to make an opinion about the entire group based on a the way people act o the internet. |
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