Miscellaneous links

[sqbr]

Dream Boy And The Poison Fans (Transcript) The connection between Xiao Zhan, the actor who played the lead in The Untamed, the AO3 getting banned in China, and the related back-and-forth of fan-groups attacking each other. ffa has some folk who blame him/his management a lot more for what happened (and some who fiercely disagree), I am way too ignorant about China to weigh in but it's all very interesting.

Beyond Authenticity: the Spectre of Han Hegemony On the simplistic discussions around Mulan.

China bars media coverage of Disney's 'Mulan' after Xinjiang backlash.

To me it feels like a lot of Western companies have this overly simplistic, and often racist, idea of what it means to Appeal to Chinese Sensibilities, and end up alienating everyone. I've been getting into Chinese web-novels lately (specifically The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the m/m fantasy novel that was adapted into the Untamed) and even just from that can tell the situation over there with censorship and social attitudes is really complex.

I know I’m late The author of 'Love, Simon' talks about how being put in the 'problematic straight person profiting from queer experiences' box made it incredibly difficult and painful to navigate figuring out and being open about her bisexuality. 'Own Voices' is all well and good but people apply it in overly rigid ways that end up hurting marginalised writers who don't fit the narrow expectations on Diverse Writing.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I remember at the time being surprised that AO3 had lasted as long in China as it had. For over 6 months before hand they'd been flooded with Chinese fans because the government had shut down most of the Chinese-run sites. It almost felt like they were herding people onto AO3 to shut that down too and get the community all at once. But that's probably attributing more organisation than was occurring. So though only some of that about Xiao Zhan was known in English fandom at the time of the ban (and I didn't realise it was THAT Xiao Zhan until I listened to the NPR thing), I was 0% surprised that China had blocked AO3, and didn't think that the fan blow up was a determining factor, especially.

Though I remember finding the narrative that the Chinese M/M-lite shows were a Great Blow against Chinese censorship! Justice! pretty irritating.

[sqbr]

Yeah, it's possible the AO3 was going to get taken down soon anyway, and the government will obviously never say either way.

I have pretty much no idea how progressive these shows are within their cultural context, and I am pretty sure most other non-Chinese fans don't either, they just pick whatever interpretation they find most personally appealing.

[lizbee]

'Own Voices' is all well and good but people apply it in overly rigid ways that end up hurting marginalised writers who don't fit the narrow expectations on Diverse Writing.

And Will Kostakis has a wonderful essay about the negative consequences for his career after he came out.

(This is a very Australian context -- I understand that US authors are less dependent on school visits and Catholic school gatekeepers for income -- but it's worth keeping in mind, especially in light of the noxious "closeted authors should not write queer fiction" hot take that followed Albertalli's essay.)

[scytale]

I am months late, but my eyes caught on The Untamed while browsing, so I read the first couple of articles.

I found that they (particularly the Mulan essay) provided really great food for thought. It's also all very sad and complicated.

I think the analysis of fan cultures and the impulses they feed in the transcript is really interesting -- I'm a little wary of it, because it feels maybe a little too pat and good of a story, but there were parts of the analysis of the motivation behind fan cultures that resonated, personally:

And also there is - another reason is because I feel when people are pursuing or, say, when they're adoring certain kind of celebrity, they must find something in the celebrity that we'll have our self. and "Because Xiao Zhan is portrayed as such a sweet person, he also needs protection because that gentleness can be taken advantage of." both feel like things I've seen in Western fan cultures.

And:

What she's defending is someone's interiority. I like that she uses the word heroic dream because she's suggesting that to dream it in the first place is in and of itself an act of courage in that you're pushing boundaries that other people place on you, that you place on yourself. And so in fan fiction, you're at least trying to break free of those, to put yourself out there, to make these creations of yours public.

[sqbr]

And also there is - another reason is because I feel when people are pursuing or, say, when they're adoring certain kind of celebrity, they must find something in the celebrity that we'll have our self. and "Because Xiao Zhan is portrayed as such a sweet person, he also needs protection because that gentleness can be taken advantage of." both feel like things I've seen in Western fan cultures.

Yeah I've never been into celebrity focussed fandoms myself but a lot of this still sounded familiar.