Beyond a queer utopia: interrogating misogyny in transnational boys love media

Abstract

Boys love (BL) media, a transnational Asian genre centring on male couples, is gaining global attention and academic discussion. As a queer genre, BL has received much positive attention due to its challenging of heteronormativity in a particularly marginalized context. However, scholarship on BL has not sufficiently addressed the issue of misogyny that is intrinsic to BL media and industry. Pointing to this persisting gap in scholarship, we interrogate this misogyny through the lens of representation in BL texts and industry engagement with female fans that complicate the subversive politics associated with the genre. We argue that naming and exploring misogyny in BL is important for the political project of celebrating its queer potential. Affectively engaging with the genre as ‘fandom killjoys’, we discuss key examples from Thai, Chinese, and Japanese BL series to identify major trends in the transnational genre. We further examine how the Thai BL industry, in particular, commercializes fan practices and directs fan affect to generate profit. In so doing, we identify significant limitations of BL media and the BL industry, contributing to ongoing scholarship on BL and its political potential.