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ABSTRACT
This article examines one of the most sensational (and controversial) Chinese talk shows of the post-2010 years, The Jinxing Show (TJS; 2015–2017), known for its host, Jin Xing, China’s first transgender woman celebrity. I explore how the transculturally situated aesthetics, talk themes and presentation styles of TJS contributed to Jin’s on-screen presence as a form of ‘uneventful queer’ (McCarthy 2001) TV culture in a supposedly LGBTQ-censoring China. My televisual-discourse analyses of TJS reveal a ‘post-trans’, cosmopolitan-neoliberal rhetoric through which Jin promoted ‘proper’ Chinese womanhood and ‘desirable’ Chinese cultural citizenship in her unique ‘bitter-speaking’ style on the show. Meanwhile, I demonstrate that TJS crystalised certain queer-promising transcultural flows and encounters which were often endorsed by (or in fact dovetailed with) the government’s nationalistic-patriotic self-imaginary in an age of globalisation. Diverging from the scholarly criticism of Jin’s public persona as epitomic of Chinese-specific neoliberal tenets, this study emphasises the dual ‘post-trans’ and queer subjectivities generated through TJS and sheds light on the ‘Chinese-specific’ queer presences, desires, lives and possibilities that have been paradoxically enlarged and publicised through Jin’s on-TV advocacy for the state’s ideological-political projects.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express her gratitude to Karl Schoonover and Rachel Moseley for their tremendous support and encouragement for her research on queer Chinese TV. She feels grateful for the detailed and extremely helpful feedback from the two anonymous reviewers which greatly helped strengthen her argumentation. She also thanks the generous research grants offered by the City University of Hong Kong for supporting her research and publication activities on this topic.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 It should be noted that this transculturality is not limited to Jin’s TV presence and talk mentality. As Andrew Kimbrough notes, Jin often suffused ‘a distinctly Western form with a unique Chinese perspective’ in her dance choreography (Citation2004: 106). This extensive transculturality in her public persona and artistic performances is therefore closely associated with her cosmopolitan background and past experiences, rather than being unique to the design of the talk show.
2 I acknowledge that the denotation and connotation of a few abovementioned terms, such as ‘nonbinary’, may not fit comfortably into either type of transgender I discuss here. Nevertheless, rather than bolstering a dichotomised categorisation of transgender practices and subjectivities, my discussion aims to underline the inner incongruence, hybridity, and cultural-historical specificity of Asian transgender culture.
3 See examples at: https://ent.ifeng.com/c/7mV7Fnpr9Vu.
4 Some scholars also believe that her father’s background as a military officer may have afforded her some protection and freedom (Davis and Davies Citation2010).
5 For instance, see https://hornet.com/stories/jin-xing-china-transgender/
6 The Jinxing Show, Dragon TV, 28 September 2016, 9.23 p.m.
7 The Jinxing Show, Dragon TV, 15 July 2015, 9.23 p.m.
8 The public lecture was given in Mandarin.
9 The Jinxing Show, Dragon TV, 2 December 2015, 9:23 pm.
10 The Jinxing Show, Dragon TV, 2 December 2015, 9:23 pm.
11 The Chinese phrase Jin uses to denote prostitutes is similar to the English words ‘whore’ or ‘hooker’.
12 In contemporary Chinese culture, people often deem being rustic or countrified as the opposite of being Western- or Japanese-style. Rustic Chinese people are not urbanised and high quality, and thus unable to represent a cosmopolitan image of Chinese citizens in a globalised world (see Song Citation2015: 110–111).
13 For example, see http://changepw.com/?p=34994.
14 The Stonewall Uprising closely associated with the American gay liberation movement began in 1969, in Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn. There have been some debates surrounding the political nature of Stonewall. For more details, see https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/stonewall-era.
15 The animal sign of the 2017 Chinese Lunar Year is the Rooster.
17 This picture was also publicly and widely shared by his Chinese fans in cyberspace. For example, see https://tieba.baidu.com/p/245225064.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jamie J. Zhao
Jamie J. Zhao is a global queer media scholar and currently Assistant Professor in Media and Cultural Studies in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR. Her research explores female gender and sexuality in Chinese and East Asian entertainment and pop culture in a globalist, digital age.