Paradoxical Tomboyism: Revived female masculinity in Chinese talent shows

ABSTRACT

Since Hunan TV’s musical talent show Super Girl (2004-2006) had featured high profiling of female tomboyism, presenting numerous female contestants in masculine forms on stage, the tomboyish female celebrity tends to be marginalized, and mostly serve as a foil to the feminine girls who are in the central positions. Until the late 2010s, this curse was broken by Liu Yuxin, a tomboyish female singer in the top Chinese talent show Young With You Season 2 who obtained huge popularity and took the central position in her band. Exemplified by Liu’s case, this essay offers a postfeminist reading of the ambivalent ways in which Liu’s persona is constructed as a paradoxical site by presenting on-stage performance in a non-normatively masculine manner, and an off-stage personality that is traditionally feminine. In doing so, we unveil the masquerade of the contemporary Chinese talent shows, which attempt to convey an impression of their tolerance of non-traditional feminine identities, while disavowing female masculinity when offset by more conventionally feminine traits.

KEYWORDS:

• gender
• tomboy
• female masculinity
• Chinese TV
• postfeminism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Young With You Season 1 (2019) is a male-focused talent show which is excluded in the essay.

2. The Thai singer, the member of Korean girl band Blackpink.

3. This model is based on Judith Butler’s (1990) queer theory of the phallic lesbian as a political figure who competes for power with the patriarchal authority by mimicking men or becoming a phallus-bearer.

4. See more at https://www.iqiyi.com/v_19ryfkiv8w.html and https://www.iqiyi.com/v_19ryfkj7p4.html, accessed January 19 2021.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tingting Hu

Tingting Hu is a Research Fellow in School of Journalism and Communication, Wuhan University, China. She received her PhD at Macquarie University, Australia. Her research interest lies in the articulation of film, media and cultural studies with feminist theories, transmedia studies in various socio-cultural contexts. Her recent publications appear in the Journal of Contemporary China, Television & New Media, Continuum and Asian Studies Review.

Minyue Wang

Minyue Wang studies in School of Journalism and Communication, Wuhan University. Her research interest lies in the articulation of Chinese media and cultural studies, celebrity studies.