Strategic mouthing of words: the Chinese bromance drama Word of Honor, censorship and gender stereotypes

ABSTRACT

Comparing the mouthed words and official dubbings of Word of Honor (WoH), a Chinese web drama adapted from a homoerotic danmei novel, this paper examines which parts of dangai works are changed to accommodate censorship. The paper explains the censorship standards of the Chinese National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) regarding how the male image is conveyed: Men must achieve predictable social relationships with authorities and cannot be limited to their personal intimacies, let alone be regarded as objects of desire. On the other hand, the mouthed words hidden by the official dubbings are forms of strategic self-preservation. However, one must remain alert to how these mouthed words also support the dream of “a quiet time of equal rights for men and women”¹ for Chinese female audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Danmei
• Word of Honor
• adaptation strategy
• gender stereotype
• censorship

Introduction

On February 22 2021, a web drama entitled Word of Honor (WoH) was launched on Youku, a video streaming platform in China,² and rapidly gained popularity. On April 16 2021, all 12,348 tickets for a WoH-themed concert sold out within 14 seconds of going on sale, during which time approximately 600,000 people attempted to buy tickets.³ WoH is extremely popular on the Chinese internet, and as of May 28 2021, it had more than 100 million views on YouTube; later, it was made available on Netflix in its entirety.⁴

WoH is primarily about Zhou Zishu, the former leader of a secret service agency who, while wandering, encounters Wen Kexing, a leader in Ghost Valley, a gathering place for those who cannot live in ordinary society. The two of them become involved in a conspiracy to obtain a key called Glazed Armor to open a warehouse of classic martial arts tools and weapons and become “bosom buddies” through their adventures. The show is adapted from the danmei⁵ novel Faraway Wanderers (天涯客) by Priest. Because homosexuality has been a banned topic in TV series and web series in China since 2016, and WoH is similar to other dangai (adapted danmei) dramas, such as Guardian (镇魂) and The Untamed (陈情令), the narrative of the relationship between the two male protagonists in the original story was changed to that of a “socialist brotherhood” (Eve Ng and X. Li 2020, 486). However, compared with previous dangai dramas, WoH more prominently uses mouthed words; that is, the movements of the actors’ mouths indicate that they are saying what could be considered danmei-related lines, but the dubbings use lines that are approved by the Chinese National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA). In response to this approach, comments such as “complete collection of mouthed words of WoH (the screenwriter is a talent, this is love)” have appeared on Douban, a Chinese film, television, music and book review site that has a credible scoring system (Kaibin Xu and Yan Tan 2021). Moreover, an unofficial secondarily dubbed version featuring “dubbing to restore WoH’s mouthed words” by Huaixiubang (淮秀帮), a well-known dubbing team in China, has been posted to YouTube and Bilibili.

This paper examines which parts of dangai works have been changed to accommodate censorship by analyzing the mouthed words in WoH. First, this paper summarizes the constructive strategies adopted by danmei-related works. Next, since danmei authors show heightened consciousness of gender equality in their writing (Yanrui Xu and Ling Yang 2019), this paper also discusses the gender stereotypes in official dubbings compared with what is represented by the mouthed words. This paper argues that the fear of forming a female group that does not cooperate with being penetrated and the fear of forming an unpredictable male group are the dominant reasons for the authorities’ censorship of danmei.

Danmei, adaptation strategies, and censorship

Danmei began in the 1990s, when Japanese Boys’ Love (BL) manga were introduced to China through pirated Chinese translations that were published in Taiwan (Ling Yang and Yanrui Xu 2017). Since 1998, there have been danmei web forums in China, such as the Lucifer Club and the danmei section of the Sangsang Academy, and Chinese women have begun to create danmei fanfics or original danmei novels (Yang and Xu 2017). In the 2010s, danmei became more localized and mainstream (Jamie J. Zhao 2020), and highly popular novels began to be adapted into web series. From its beginnings to the present, the most popular form of danmei has been the novel (Yang and Xu 2017; Meijiadai Bai 2022). Danmei authors publish online, and the most influential danmei novel website is Jinjiang Literature City (hereafter referred to as Jinjiang). Because danmei involves romantic male‒male relationships with homosexuality and “obscenity and pornography,” censorship of both its original works and adaptations has been strict. To cope with such censorship, multiple strategies have been adopted for the various danmei formats, from the original novels to the web series adaptations, in efforts to keep the stories public.

During the “Clean Net 2014” antipornography campaign to remove illegal pornographic content from the internet, Jinjiang changed its danmei section to chun’ai (pure love) and introduced strictly circulated rules, for example, “No description of anything below the neck” (Xiqing Zheng 2019). In addition, Jinjiang launched a reporting system to encourage flagging any violations of current policies and strengthened the manual review of texts and automatic monitoring systems (Aiqing Wang 2020). In response, danmei novel authors adopted various circumvention strategies, which Aiqing Wang (2020) has categorized as follows: first, metaphors; second, code-switching, in which sensitive words are replaced with words in other languages, such as English; and third, satire, which involves referring to “indescribable parts below the neck.” Despite the poor reading experience after these strategies were implemented, danmei novels have been kept public to some extent. However, after Jinjiang was suspended twice in the span of two months in 2019, the pornographic content of these novels was completely locked or removed. According to a member of the Jinjiang management team, one locked novel “contains a paragraph of description with less than 400 characters without specific organs or interactions, but it has been reviewed as a ‘pornographic depiction of the highest level of eroticism’” (Aiqing Wang 2020, 154–155).

Thus, it would seem that “pornography” is the dominant reason why the government has censored danmei (Xi Tian 2020b). While the Criminal Law of China provides for the crimes of producing, duplicating, publishing, selling, and disseminating obscene materials for profit (Article 363) and disseminating obscene materials (Article 364), it also states that literature and artworks of artistic value that contain pornographic content are not considered obscene materials (Article 367). However, danmei is often not considered to be of artistic value, as web literature is scorned by cultural elites (Yang and Xu 2017), and danmei writers have long been concerned about being targeted as subversive. The case of danmei writer Tianyi’s arrest in late 2017 confirms such concerns. Tianyi was arrested in November 2017 prior to the “Clean Net 2018” antipornography campaign, and her trial was made public in November 2018. She was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months on charges of producing, duplicating, publishing, selling, and disseminating obscene materials.

However, in the context of the authorities’ highly arbitrary decree enforcement, the dominant reason for the censorship of danmei may not be its pornographic nature. For example, danmei writer Shenhai was arrested in December 2017, prior to the “Clean Net 2018” campaign, and was eventually charged with illegal publication. Like Tianyi, Shenhai printed and sold her own books without a registered publisher. Since such content is not subject to official review, unregistered publications that draw large groups of readers pose a threat to the authorities’ ideological control. Although Shenhai’s works were more literary than Tianyi’s (Bai 2022), their sexual descriptions accounted for a significant proportion of her writing. However, Shenhai’s family could afford legal representation, and she eventually avoided the obscenity charge (Bai 2022). The ongoing censorship of danmei as “pornography” is thus likely only an excuse.

Shenhai is now out of prison, and in April 2022, she changed her pen name to Yasheng and chose a legitimate publisher to republish her masterpiece, Desharow Merman. The republished novel was retitled Name for You (为你而名), with the main character’s name changed by one word and the kissing and sexual scenes removed. This strategy is similar to those adopted in other danmei novels, such as Husky and His White Cat Master. The version of that novel that was published in China is titled The Way Home for Begonia and Drizzle (海棠微雨共归途), and its kissing and sexual scenes were also drastically cut.

Despite strict censorship, popular media are eager to cater to the immense consumption power of women (Xi Tian 2020a), and online literature is relatively inexpensive,⁶ so many danmei novels are still chosen as the original works for web drama adaptations. When danmei-related web dramas were first made, the producers completely restored the romantic relationships of the main characters as they occurred in the original works, for example, in the case of Addicted (上瘾), which was first streamed on January 29 2016. However, on February 22 2016, Addicted was banned. Shortly thereafter, on February 27, the annual meeting of the national TV drama industry was held, and the following principles for censorship of web series were announced: “Self-censorship will still be enforced for content broadcast on video sites. However, the censorship standards for web dramas and TV dramas must be unified, and what cannot be broadcast on TV also cannot be broadcast online.”⁷ On June 30 2016, the China Association of Network Audiovisual Program Services issued the General Rules for Reviewing the Content of Network Audiovisual Programs,⁸ which classifies homosexuality as an abnormal sexual relationship and representations of homosexuality as vulgar, pornographic and obscene. The rules state that content containing expressions of homosexuality must be removed before broadcast; if the problem is serious, the entire program should not be broadcast.

Since then, adding female protagonists or changing BL to heterosexual storylines has become a temporary strategy but has resulted in fan protests (Shana Ye 2022). In 2018, the strategy of changing romantic narratives to those of romantic “bromance” emerged. Taking one of the more successful and popular works as an example, Cathy Yue Wang (2019) noted the following three main points of this strategy: 1. Intimate physical actions such as kissing and caressing were removed, dialog reflecting intimate feelings in relationships between men were removed, and dialog emphasizing the participants being in such relationships as “friends” were added. 2. Eye and facial expressions and physical gestures were used to suggest romantic and sexual attraction between the characters. 3. A heterosexual storyline involving the female supporting characters was added. This careful strategy of compromise proved to be a commercial success. Since then, The Untamed, which continues to follow this strategy, has been an enormous hit as a tie-in with anime and radio dramas.

If it were not a “bromance” but rather a male‒male romance that was so widely disseminated by this drama, across Chinese society, more groups of women might have formed that were unwilling to cooperate with male authority. Because BL can stir up disobedience in women’s minds (Bai 2022), interaction with BL texts allows young women to actively engage in gender issues (Fran Martin 2012) and influences their potential to transform society (Tian 2020a). This is a more dominant reason than pornography for the authorities to censor danmei: the fear of female groups forming that do not cooperate with being penetrated. The adaptation of one of the original scenes in The Untamed (episode 49) proves this point. In the original novel, a male character hates his father, and when he comes to power, he hires prostitutes and forces his father to die of fatigue by having uninterrupted sex with them. The web series recreates the erotic narrative of “do not stop, even if he dies” through indirect narration coupled with scenes of prostitutes reaching underneath the father’s shirt, fondling his naked chest and tearing off his clothes. Male—female pornography can be preserved in adaptation, but male‒male love cannot. That is, it is permissible for female audiences to enjoy women catering to men performing sexual acts, but as Naoko Mori (2019) says, “there are indeed forces that prevent women from enjoying sexual expression” (Mori 2019, 99). Moreover, the group of women brought together by danmei seems to be threatening to patriarchal society. For example, they include strong women who are so determined in their love of the series that “even their souls are rotten,”⁹ and there are women who endorse the objectification of men to “repay” patriarchal society’s objectification of women (Martin 2012).

After the success of The Untamed, the producers next selected a highly popular danmei work, Faraway Wanderers by Priest, and adopted a bold strategy: mouthed words. There are cases in film and web drama works where the characters’ lip-syncs do not match the dubbing due to the replacement of lines that failed to pass censorship tests with lines that are similarly lip-synced and can pass censorship tests. In Episode 35 of The Untamed, for example, the mouthed line, “You’ve also carried me before” was adapted as “You wanted to carry me before,” and “When did I carry you?” was adapted as “Why should I carry you?”¹⁰

WoH also exploits this system. As mentioned above, the movements of the actors’ mouths indicate that they are saying what could be considered danmei-related lines, but the dubbings use lines that have been approved by the NRTA. If the danmei dramas before WoH “[invited] the audience to fantasize about male‒male love through an easily accessed alternative interpretation” (Tingting Hu and Cathy Yue Wang 2021, 6), then WoH went a step further by inviting native Chinese audiences to confront male‒male love through easily accessible mouthed words. This strategy illustrates a shift in danmei from “a quasi-underground field of limited aesthetic autonomy” (Zhange Ni 2020, 199) to a limited “aboveground field” that offers the possibility of and is circulated without the need for “fan translation” (Ng and Li 2020, 491). However, this strategy has not been discussed in a previous study (Ye 2022). In the next section, I will discuss how this strategy interacts with censorship by comparing the mouthed words and dubbing and highlighting the censorship-imposed gender stereotypes reflected in this strategy.

Fear of losing male dominance

The mouthed words chosen for this study are, to the greatest extent possible, those generally acknowledged by native Mandarin audiences. On the video website Bilibili and on YouTube, the secondarily dubbed versions of the WoH series with high viewership, including “Dubbing restoration of the mouthed words in WoH!,”¹¹ “Dubbing restoration of the mouthed words in Episode 2 of WoH!,”¹² “Dubbing restoration of the mouthed words in Episode 3 of WoH!,”¹³ “Dubbing restoration of the mouthed words in Episode 4 of WoH!,”¹⁴ and “Dubbing restoration of the mouthed words in the finale of WoH!”¹⁵ by Huaixiubang, were compared with the official version. Among these five dubbing restorations, some dubbings were not selected as data because they did not reflect the actual mouthed words and were created just for fun. For the five dubbed restorations that were considered, two native Mandarin speakers watched each restoration three times and recorded the mouthed words that they recognized. Then, the two viewers compared their coding, and only the mouthed words that were consistently identified by both viewers were selected as data.

In the analysis of Chinese danmei novels, Ke Ning (2014) notes that the narrative of danmei novels is mainly constructed as follows: (1) the male’s body is constructed as an object of desire; (2) the relationship between the male and society is downplayed, while the one-on-one intimate relationship between two men is retained and emphasized. In contrast, to adapt danmei narratives as brotherhood narratives, (1) the male’s body must not be constructed as an object of desire, and (2) the relationship between the male and society is emphasized, while that between the two male characters is downplayed. The retrieved mouthed words and official dubbings confirm these rules for adaptation, as I will discuss below.

Adapting constructions of the male body as an object of desire

In the retrieved mouthed words, the construction of the male body as an object of desire is manifested by describing it as (1) beautiful (Table 1), (2) a sex-related object (Table 2), and (3) nonhuman (Table 3). First, among the mouthed words that construct a male character’s body as beautiful, Wen Kexing (hereafter referred to as H2) describes the overall body of Zhou Zishu (hereafter referred to as H1) as a “rare beauty” (a) or a “beauty” (b, c, f, g), and H2 describes parts of H1’s body, such as the “prettiest shoulder blades” (e), demonstrating that H1”s male body is treated as an object of desire. However, in the official dubbings, the lines in which a male’s body is constructed as beautiful were adapted, and the description of H1”s body was changed from “beautiful” to a neutral description (“a great surprise” (A)/“extraordinary” (C)) or to an evaluation of his ability (e.g., identifying him as a master of martial arts (D)). By using this “bromance-as-masquerade” strategy “presenting male‒male romance in the guise of bromance” (Hu and Yue Wang 2021, 4), WoH gives audiences the space to make up lines in a logical narrative. However, the producers do not stop at this strategy, as they choose to restore the mouthed words describing H1’s “beauty.” This not only exploits “the sexual appeal of the male body for its female viewership” (Ye 2022, 6) but also caters especially to the female viewer’s emotional appeals by displaying beautiful male faces.

Table 1. Male body constructed as beautiful.

Mouthed words	Official dubbings
(a) I’m sure that after taking off your outermost skin, it will show a rare beauty.^16	(A) I’m sure that after taking off your outermost skin, it must show a great surprise.
(b) Isn’t that the way a hero saves a beauty? You don’t need to be ashamed when being helped by me. It’s a beauty saving a hero.	(B) What’s the point of playing hero with me? You don’t need to be ashamed when being helped by me. I am playing zero with you!
(c) Your figure speaks of delicacy and uprightness. You must be a beauty.	(C) Your figure speaks of delicacy and uprightness. You must be extraordinary.
(d) However, Ah-xu, you’re handsome, but do not play the flute well.	(D) However, Ah-xu, you are such a master of martial arts but tone-deaf.
(e) Zishu, carry me. Zishu’s shoulder blades are the prettiest.	(E) Mom, carry me. Mom’s shoulder blades are the prettiest.
(f) I told you that he is a beauty.	(F) I told you that he is by no means ordinary.
(g) I can touch your shoulder blades eventually. I’ve admired them for a long time. Chengling, do you know that when I first saw your master, I judged that he must have changed his face by virtue of his unparalleled shoulder blades. Underneath the mask of the green face, he was a stunning beauty. Indecent. How am I indecent? My skill of recognizing beauties by their figure is a truly decent thing.	(G) Yes, if it were not for this internal injury, how would I have had the opportunity to serve such a master as Ah-xu? Chengling, do you know that when I first saw your master, I judged that he must have changed his face by virtue of his unparalleled bones. Underneath the mask of the sick man, he was a peerless master. You can keep bragging. I am not. My skill of knowing a person by his figure is unique and real.

Table 2. Male body constructed as a sex-related object.

Mouthed words	Official dubbings
(h) Don’t refuse me right away. I’ll pay a good price, repay with my body.	(H) Don’t refuse me right away. I’ll pay a good price, whatever you want.
(i) You risked your life for the old man who paid you three maces of silver. I only spent a little bit. Is it okay if I sell you the rest of my life? Okay. Sell yourself to the brothel.	(I) You risked your life for the old man who paid you three maces of silver. I only spent a little bit. I will be at your disposal in the future, okay? Well, then, beat it nicely.
(j) Don’t move your hands. Stop pretending to be tough.	(J) What do you want? Stop pretending to be tough.
(k) Master, are you having an affair with Zhang Chengling?	(K) Master, do you know Zhang Chengling?

Table 3. Male body constructed as nonhuman.

Mouthed words	Official dubbings
(l) Of tens of thousands of flowers, I pick only one of you.	(L) Of tens of thousands of flowers, I can pick one thousand.
(m) Why didn’t he care about anything after meeting the Sick Dude? Is that Zhou a fox spirit^23?	(M) Why didn’t he care about anything after meeting the Sick Dude? Did that Zhou drug him?

As suggested by the comment that “Zhou Zishu is too beautiful” for the close-up shots of H1”s face,¹⁷ the beauty of the character’s face is essential to the success of a danmei or dangai drama. The danmei movie Han Zi Gao: The Male Queen (2016), for example, was strongly criticized by Rotten Girls because the characters” appearances did not reach their expected level of beauty. Many Rotten Girls made comments after watching the movie, such as “it only takes a minute to leave the rotten circle.”¹⁸ Some Rotten Girls attach importance to facial beauty, which is also known as yankong (颜控appearance-obsessed). Regardless of whether they bring this tendency to actual love and marriage, as Sonoe Akai (2017, 9) says, an excessive tendency to focus on appearance in love and marriage can lead to high expectations and an inability to make choices “within one’s means.” However, as some women become financially self-sufficient, they can safely continue to be yankong without getting married. This is a cause for concern on the part of the authorities.

Nevertheless, most of the comments about certain characters’ beauty in Table 1 concern shou/uke¹⁹ H1. Since the uke in BL is always considered to function as a marker of femininity (Yukari Fujimoto 2015), these comments about the beauty of shou/uke can also be seen as a reminder to female audiences to remain beautiful. However, there are also mouthed word strategies for gong/seme H2 as an object of desire in WoH. Table 1 includes references to the idea that “beauty saves the hero” (b), in which H1 snaps at H2, and Table 2 includes H2 as a sex-related object (“repay with my body” (h), “sell you to the brothel” (i)).

The line “Don’t refuse me right away. I’ll pay a good price, repay with my body” (h) occurs in a scene in which H1 refuses to allow H2 to buy the medicine he has made. The shape of H2’s mouth suggests that “repay with my body” can be read; that is, as a form of payment, H2, a man, will allow his body to be used by another man. Furthermore, when H1 and H2 are shopping together at the market, H2 claims that he did not bring money to buy something and uses H1”s money, which H1 does not want. At this time, H2”s mouthed words say that he can “sell you the rest of my life” (i) to pay back the money, and H1’s mouthed words reply to H2 by saying he will “sell [him] to the brothel.” These two mouthed lines involve not only the male body as a sex-related object but also the possibility of selection for sale.

Once a male is penetrated, he may no longer be able to take advantage of male privilege. The late-Qing tanci Fengshuangfei (1898), which is written from a female perspective about male homosexuality, discusses the social roles of men and women, and is known as the first danmei work written by a woman in China, recounts the following. Bai Wushuang (Bai) was adopted by a high-ranking official, Mu Lei (Mu), after the death of Bai’s father, who was an official. Although Bai is very beautiful and Mu loves his beauty, he does not have sex with him because Bai is the “descendant of a famous official” and is “too weak to even bear the weight of his clothes.”²⁰ However, after Bai is raped by a man, Mu rapes the 12-year-old Bai with a clear conscience. From then on, Bai begins a life of being sent to the enemy repeatedly as beauty bait. If Bai had not been raped, he might have used Mu’s power to gain resources as a man in society, yet he lost this possibility because he was penetrated by a man.

Bai’s story raises the question of how sexuality and gender are related. In some Japanese BL works, being penetrated is the same as “becoming a woman.”²¹ However, Akiko Hori (2019) argues that the power relationship between the penetrated and the penetrating partner does not become a dominant-subordinate relationship because love regulates the balance: “Seme seems to dominate physically and socially, but it is uke who can take the initiative mentally, and this balance creates a power game in which the forces are competing against each other” (Hori 2019, 290). This love, however, is itself constructed in a male-dominated society by the standards preferred by men (Huiying Liu 2000).

With the increasing economic self-reliance of women, both media texts and real-world society in China have introduced works and activities that cater to women, yet both the media and society have also demonstrated the illusory nature of women’s power in China. Qi Li and Yaoji Tan (2014) analyze the image of “leftover women” in television drama, pointing out that women’s self-reliance, defined from the viewpoint of consumer culture, is only an illusory image obscured by patriarchal culture. In real-world society, although the Zhenhun girls (镇魂女孩) can light up the twin towers in Shanghai, a woman with more than seven children was chained up inside her house in Xuzhou,²² near Shanghai. Danmei provides a kind of mental anesthesia. In China, where there is a massive gap between the rich and the poor in urban and rural areas, immersion in danmei, which has “city-centered storylines” (Charlie Yi Zhang 2017, 137), leads danmei’s “city-born fans” (Zhang 2017, 137) to enter a cycle of exposure to only “urban class fantasies.” For example, WoH fans, who are mostly educated urban middle-class women, have engaged in appreciation and discussion of the ancient poems referenced by the drama (Ye 2022). Their relative economic privilege allows them to ignore or even forget the real and serious situation of women in China. If the official dubbed version of WoH is a script that allows women audiences to “ironically endorse the scripts of heteronormative family and gender roles” (Ye 2022, 11), the mouthed-words version is a dream that allows women audiences to create a “quiet time with equal rights for men and women.”²³

As media producers weave these dreams, some images that had previously been restricted to the female gender are used in reverse as male images. Such is the case with the “fox spirit” (Table 3). When H2’s waitress is confused that H2 has given up the goal of looking for the glazed armor and only spends time around H1 all day, she suspects that H1 has influenced her master and calls H1 “a fox spirit.” The “fox spirit” is a creature that is often constructed in Chinese contexts as a beautiful young woman who seduces men (Jiachuan Li 2021). Male fox spirit figures began to be seen in Chinese web dramas after 2016. In particular, danmei works such as The Male Fairy Fox of Liaozhai (2016) allow female audiences to transfer appearance anxiety and slut-shaming to men through the image of a beautiful male fox who sways the male protagonist’s love for the female protagonist. However, just as the term “male fox” emphasizes the “male” gender, “fox spirit” is, by default, female. The picture of gender equality remains painted with the brush of male authority. Thus, in danmei or BL works, the prejudice concerning sexuality and gender that “to be penetrated is to become a woman, to become a woman is to have fewer rights” remains unquestioned.

Adapting male social relationships and one-on-one romantic relationships

Ning (2014, 6) indicates that when friendships among men are adapted from mainstream media to a danmei narrative, it is crucial to explore and strengthen the degree of the romantic relationship between the two main characters, especially relative to their relationship with the entire group and with other characters. In contrast, in adapting danmei as a brotherhood narrative, the romantic relationship between the two main characters is weakened, while the relationship between men and society is strengthened, as shown by Table 4. In some lines, the mouthed words that emphasize the intimate love of these men are adapted by dubs such as “friend” and “confidant.” Such substitutions include H2 asking H1 if he wants to “eat snow and drink ice with” him (w) and wants to see “the bridal chamber with [his] sweetheart; sleep together”²⁴ (n). In other words, mouthed words that emphasize the romantic relationship between the two are adapted by dubbing that emphasizes the male homosocial relationship. For example, in the later stage of the interactions between the two leads, the line “even God cannot take you away from me” (t), which expresses H1’s possessiveness of H2, was adapted as “even God cannot take me” (T), which expresses nothing but H1’s will. Furthermore, it is not the male image of only H1 and H2 that is altered; other male characters are treated the same way. The mouthed words with which a mercenary leader who is loyal to his foster father expresses his one-on-one emotional need for the foster father, “It’s enough to have me alone” (r), were adapted to state that the leader believes that it is enough for him to achieve great things (R). This adaptation weakens the leader’s one-on-one emotional need for his foster father but emphasizes his place in society. Why is such adaptation necessary?

Table 4. Men’s social relations and one-on-one relations.

Mouthing words	Official dubbings
(n) In the illusion, I saw the bridal chamber with my sweetheart; we sleep together, forget all our worries, enjoy our lives tremendously.	(N) In the illusion, I saw how when I was a little kid, I put a dead mouse in my mom’s quilt.
(0) Ah-xiang, do not be boring, you should not get involved.	(O) Ah-xiang, you should not get involved if it has nothing to do with you.
(p) If there is no soulmate in life, I will live without happiness, die without pain.	(P) I thought he was my soulmate.
(q) Brother Zhou is severely ill. If he passes away one day, Mr. Wen will lose his love.	(Q) Brother Zhou is severely ill. If he passes away one day, Mr. Wen will lose his soulmate.
(r) On the side of the couch, how could I let others sleep soundly? It’s enough to have me alone to be with my foster father.	(R) How can I allow others to meddle with my plan? I alone can achieve great things.
(s) You’re wasting a heavenly item. I spent a long time queuing to buy it for you.	(S) You’re wasting a heavenly item. I spent a long time queuing to buy it.
(t) I bet that you will open up to me one day. If I don’t see my victory, even God cannot take you away from me. Open up? Human hearts are evil. What’s so good about looking into mine? I can only help you after I see it. Just sleep. You will not care about me anymore.	(T) I bet that you will open up to me one day. If I don’t see my victory, even God cannot take me. Open up? Human hearts are evil. What’s so good about looking into mine? I can only help you after I see it. Just sleep. You will not think of me as your friend anymore.
(u) The number of times I have been chased can be counted with one hand. In addition, they’re all because of you. It’s called happy in love, frustrated in battle.	(U) The number of times I have been chased can be counted with one hand. In addition, they’re all because of you. It’s called hopelessly arrogant and eventually struck by lightning.
(v) No one I can drink with at night, no one grows old with me.	(V) No one I can drink with at night, nobody understands my worries.
(w) I don’t know, if you and I can leave here alive, would you like to eat snow and drink ice with me and live forever?	(W) In other words, if you and I can leave here alive, we will have to live in seclusion for a long time, eating snow and drinking ice, and live like that forever.
(l) Of tens of thousands of flowers, I pick only one of you.	(L) Of tens of thousands of flowers, I can pick one thousand.

The disruption of gender stereotypes by danmei is unwanted by the authorities of the patriarchal society. Danmei parodically reshapes the relationship between male and masculinity (Zhang 2017); masculinity also values emotions and private spheres over social ones. However, this masculinity is, first, the dismantling of gender stereotypes (male-rational-public, female-emotional-private). For example, the laopo (老婆 wife), whom WoH fans call the gentle Zhou Zishu, represents an attempt to break the stigma of laopo by using it for a male (Qingning Lin 2021). Second, characters who demonstrate this masculinity—such as Zhou Zishu, whose popular lines include “The mountains and rivers are not important, it is important to meet your soulmate” – may cause the authorities to worry: If Chinese men are keen to “meet their soulmates,” who will still dedicate their lives to the authorities?

The year 2016, the “year of the beginning of danmei,” was a time when intimate relationships between men were being promoted in Chinese society. The popular term gaoji (搞基 get along as close as gay couples) is unique in that it emphasizes a one-on-one relationship between two people (Wei Wei and Junpeng Shi 2017). Unlike the previous concept of gemen (哥们 buddy), gaoji refers to an emotional relationship that emphasizes heterosexuality but with “no scruples” and “no lower limits” (Wei Wei and Shi 2017). This “no scruples” emotional relationship is an expression of the diversity of masculinity. Osburg’s study of elite men in Chengdu, China, revealed that in recreational social situations, men’s expressions of affection and intimacy toward other men are necessary to build male relational alliances and create intimacy among business partners (John Osburg 2013). In other words, this diversity of masculinity in China may contribute to the formation of a group of men whose emotional relationships reflect an ethos of “no scruples” and differ from those in the past. Such difference raises concern for the authorities that is akin to their anxiety concerning the formation of “disobedient” groups of women.

Conclusion

By comparing the mouthed words and official dubbings of the bromance drama WoH, this paper presents the censorship standards of the NRTA regarding how the male image is conveyed: Men must achieve predictable social relationships with the authorities and cannot be limited to their personal intimacies, let alone be regarded as an object of desire. These qualities are the basis of male dominance. With stricter control over the content published on online platforms in recent years (Lulu Wei 2018), not only danmei but also dangai have been considered to exert a possible impact on the social order in terms of male dominance. As of January 2021, the reason given at the National Radio and Television Work Conference for the total call-off of dangai films and dramas was “disregard for social order and the single-minded pursuit of profit.”²⁵

In contrast, the mouthed words hidden by the official dubbings serve the purpose of “breaking from the ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ fixed in the media.”²⁶ Audiences who are watchful and familiar with Mandarin will notice the differences between the shapes of actors’ mouths and the dubbed lines; when they do, they may examine the original lines and read the original danmei novels. Under the pressure of political power, Chinese works of entertainment are full of signs and riddles. This kind of implicit expression is also a limited but clever self-preservation method that allows works to pass on ideas in the narrow space between self-censorship and market interest.

WoH was removed in August 2021, mainly because Zhang Zhehan, the lead actor, is listed as an unethical artist because he attended a friend’s wedding at the Nogi Shrine in Japan in 2019 and was criticized for taking photos near the Yasukuni Shrine in 2018. Clearly, when Zhang published photos in the past, he and his entourage did not think that the photos were inappropriate. In other words, the photos were considered to be in accordance with the “rules” in 2018 and 2019. However, due to the opacity of these “rules,” producers of cultural and entertainment works must apply stricter self-censorship. In the future, I will discuss the kinds of expression to which such rigorous self-censorship leads.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ritsumeikan University [program to support the submission to high-impact journals].

Notes on contributors

Mi Erin Zhou

Mi Erin Zhou is an assistant professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan. Her research covers cultural studies in China and Japan, foreign language education, media policies. Zhou is writing a book titled Boys’ Love in China: An Introduction to Danmei [BLと中国:耽美をめぐる社会情勢と魅力].

Notes

1. The atmosphere created by the mouthed words echoes the concepts of “quiet and good years” and “a social environment that respects the development of women and gender equality,” which are often mentioned by Chinese propaganda agencies.

2. Mainland China, in this paper.

3. The WoH concert tickets sold out in 14 seconds. Jiefang Daily, April 19, 2021 (confirmed on July 28, 2021).

4. WoH is now available on Netflix and is broadcast to more than 190 countries and regions. The Beijing News, May 28, 2021 (confirmed on October 7, 2021).

5. Danmei is defined as “a term that collectively refers to male‒male same-sex love stories created for and by women and sexual minorities, either original or derived from other works” (Yanrui Xu and Yang 2019, 29), borrowing from the Japanese word “tanbi” (Alvin K. Wong 2020; Hu and Wang 2021). Since danmei has developed independently in China, when referring to works involving Chinese Boys’ Love (BL), danmei is used in this paper instead of BL.

6. The royalty fee for an online novel with average popularity is between 200,000 and 500,000 RMB (Zhe Ji 2019, 115), but the price of popular works is much higher (Ni 2020).

7. The censorship of web series and TV series uniform standards: What cannot be broadcast on TV cannot be broadcast on the Internet. People’s Daily Online, February 29, 2016. http://ent.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0229/c1012–28157447.html (confirmed on October 12, 2022)

8. Network audio-visual program content audit general rules. Baidu Baike. (confirmed on October 12, 2022).

9. Erotic Manga Artist Pikupikun: “Sexual Preference Cannot Be Regulated” Why Eliminate Boys’ Love Manga? Is it bad to be corrupted by original settings & worldviews? ABEMA News Official, September 11, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahNM3AReyV8 (confirmed on October 12, 2022) “Rotten” refers to the hobby of enjoying BL, and “Rotten Girl” is a self-mocking term for female fans of BL works.

10. These mouthed words are referred to in “Level 10 mouthing words for real: It turns out that Wei Wuxian in Chenqingling truly memorized Lan Wangji!” (October 17, 2020. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13A411E7TN confirmed on October 7, 2021) and were unanimously recognized and coded by two native Mandarin speakers.

11. 159,047 views. March 3, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JAo8YrIF-I (confirmed on March 25, 2023)

12. 845,000 views. March 6, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1rV411v7dG/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.-1 (confirmed on August 15, 2021) Since the four links (Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 and the finale) on Bilibili have become invalid, please refer to the series of the mouthed words in WoH from @user-jm1×q2if6k on YouTube. For example, https://youtu.be/_ctwrsfxJFc (confirmed on April 30, 2023).

13. 478,000 views. March 12, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1KA411T7DS/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.0 (confirmed on August 15, 2021)

14. 390,000 views. March 22, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV19K4y1U7HK/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.0 (confirmed on August 15, 2021)

15. 874,000 views. March 27, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yp4y1b7yX/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.-1 (confirmed on August 15, 2021)

16. The differences between the mouthed words and the official dubbings are underlined.

17. https://k.sina.cn/article_3884616198_pe78a8a0602700x3ff.html?from=ent&subch=oent March 30, 2022. (confirmed on October 12, 2022)

18. http://ent.sina.com.cn/v/m/2016-07-13/doc-ifxtwihq0167210.shtml?from=wap July 13, 2016. (confirmed on October 12, 2022)

19. In sexual situations, the penetrated is considered the shou/uke, and the penetrator is considered the gong/seme (Miho Aida 2013; Wei Jung Chang 2021).

20. Cheng Huiying, New Edition of FengShuangfei, 165. People’s Literature Publishing House, 1996 edition.

21. “You get it, don’t you? As you can hear, your man has become my woman. Give up this guy.” Kneel Down to This Love [この愛にひざまずけ]. June 15, 2005. LEAF Inc.

22. Investigation of the incident of “woman who gave birth to eight children in Feng County.” Xinhua Net, February 23, 2022. http://www.news.cn/politics/2022–02/23/c_1128408829.htm (confirmed on October 13, 2022)

23. The dubbing in the Huaixiubang version is “狐狸精 (fox spirit),” but the two native speakers thought that the mouthed words were “大狐狸精 (a big fox spirit).” Regardless, the phrase “狐狸精 (fox spirit)” is considered to be present in the mouthed words.

24. When H2 says this line, the scene on screen involves H2 whispering to H1 and smiling, which encourages viewers to think that the “sweetheart” to whom H2 is referring may be H1.

25. The audience deserves better after the full stop of “raising class” online variety and dangai. January 10, 2022. https://www.chinanews.com.cn/m/yl/2022/01–10/9648319.shtml (confirmed on October 6, 2022)

26. Chou, D’s speech on gender awareness from the “Yaoi phenomenon” in Taiwan at the Regular Symposium at the Gender Center of the School of Information and Communication at Meiji University July 3, 2009. https://www.meiji.ac.jp/infocom/gender/performance/pdf/2010nenjihoukoku.pdf (confirmed on October 17, 2021)