Word of Honor and brand homonationalism with “Chinese characteristics”: the dangai industry, queer masculinity and the “opacity” of the state

ABSTRACT

Examining the dangai phenomenon and the web series Word of Honor (WoH), this paper investigates the entanglement of neoliberal management of queer desires, authoritarian regulation of consumer-citizenship, and traffic in various forms of nationalism. Creating an ambient space for queer agency, danmei practices is often regarded as utilizing queer “opacity” as liberatory strategy to outfox the state and societal constraints on non-normative gender and sexuality. Yet the dangai industry in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) shows that the economization of queerness finds “opaque” ways to profit through managing risk and anxiety of “missing out” even when a state explicitly censors queer commodities. Situating WoH in the “she economy,” the paper demonstrates the ways in which queer potential dangai is cahooted with neoliberal and authoritarian state imperatives for fostering proper gendered consumer-subjects and heteronormative social harmony for national building through embracing the “beautiful, powerful” but “caring and loving” nuan nan (“warm men”). Drawing connections between the newly constructed soft masculinity and other cultural exports such as the “wolf warrior,” the paper argues that dangai allows the militant masculinity to be “homonationalized” in service of rebranding Chinese nationalism in a time when Chinese global expansion is fiercely criticized on the global stage.

KEYWORDS:

• Homonormativity
• danmei and dangai
• Word of Honor web series
• Chinese LGBTQ culture
• brand homonationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.sohu.com/a/436653139_114941

2. Being purchased by Netflix is usually considered as a marker of success in Chinese entertianment industry.

3. https://www.msn.cn/zh-cn/news/national/红星观察|“山人”狂喜,《山河令》走出国门,播放已破五千万/ar-BB1f361W

4. http://sh.people.com.cn/BIG5/n2/2021/0304/c350122-34605300.html

5. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-28/Chinese-TV-drama-Word-of-Honor-gains-popularity-overseas-YZTr4EQAta/index.html

6. Ling Yang and Yanrui Xu observe the rampant nationalism on the Chinese Internet and among BL fans. For example, native Taiwan and Hong Kong fans and mainland Chinese fans split regarding the 2014 prodemocracy movement in Hong Kong.

7. https://www.163.com/dy/article/GDEH39BF0516DPPV.html

8. See http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2021/0902/c437700-32215672.html, https://ent.sina.com.cn/v/m/2021-08-26/doc-ikqciyzm3653305.shtml, and http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2021/0829/c1001-32211523.html

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shana Ye

Shana Ye is Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Her research area focuses on transnational feminism, queer studies, post/socialist studies and theories of affect and trauma. Her work examines the ways in which discourses of queer sexualities in post/socialism are intertwined with histories of colonialism, Cold War ideology, globalized modalities of neoliberalism, and new forms of empire making. E-mail: [email protected]