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ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to compare Sinophone and Anglophone fan fiction consisting of female-oriented male‒male romance: danmei and slash, respectively. To increase comparability, we analysed Harry Potter fan fiction in which the characters Harry and Draco are married. Male‒male marriage was selected because our online Sinophone and Anglophone BL fandom surveys indicate this to be the most popular story element of the nine options we provided. We analysed five stories originally written in Chinese and five originally written in English which subsequently had been fan-translated into Chinese. Using thematic analysis, we found some robust patterns. In contrast to the Anglophone fiction, the Sinophone tended to: stress the importance of family approval for the marriage; incorporate a wedding ceremony; employ clearly gendered roles between partners; utilise extended, as opposed to nuclear, families; and showed the couple to produce children, particularly boys. Hence, the stories mirror the relative social conservatism and social liberalism of their cultures of origin. However, in reading and writing such danmei young Chinese women are still pushing at the boundaries of the traditional family.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the writers who created the stories analysed in this article, the translators who made the Anglophone fiction available to a Chinese audience, and to the host websites who allowed us to analyse this material. Professor Liheng Fan was supported by a scholarship from the School of Education Science, Henan University, China to spend a year as Visiting Professor in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, UK. The authors’ online BL Fandom surveys can be found in English at https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey and in Chinese at http://www.sojump.com/m/3989081.aspx
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Geolocation Information
This research was conducted in the United Kingdom. It compares material – fan fiction – created in the United States, Canada and possible other Anglophone countries with that created in Mainland China.
Notes
1. Interestingly, in terms of cultural preferences, while James/Snape is almost absent in the Anglophone fandom it is popular with Japanese fans (Noppe Citation2010).
2. Terms from Japanese yaoi designating the penetrating partner or ‘top’ (seme) and penetrated partner or ‘bottom’ (uke) which resonates with characteristics indicated in slash fiction by the position of the name of the partner before or after the /, that is seme/uke.
3. Short amount of text omitted from the original material.
4. Alpha/Beta/Omega: a fanwork kink trope in which, amongst other characteristics themes, Alphas are dominant and can impregnate Omegas, while Betas are subordinate to Alphas.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anna Madill
Anna Madill is Chair of Qualitative Inquiry in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Academy of Social Sciences. She co-founded and chaired (2008–2011) the BPS Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section. Anna’s projects include research funded by the British Academy on Boys’ Love manga. She tweets @UKFujoshi and her work can be found at https://leeds.academia.edu/AnnaMadill.
Yao Zhao
Yao Zhao is a doctoral student in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. Her thesis is titled ‘Understanding Yaoi/Boys’ Love Chinese Fandom’ and she is supervised by Professor Anna Madill. Yao was born in Kunming in Yannan Province, South West China, and obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the Australia National University.
Liheng Fan
Liheng Fan is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, Henan University, China. She is a committee member of the Chinese Association of Social Psychology. Professor Fan was a Visiting Scholar at Purdue University, USA 2011–2012 and Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, UK 2015–2016. Her research interests include gender differences and teenagers’ internet life and, as well as numerous academic articles, she is the single author of two books: Teacher Expectation Effects (2008) and Teenagers’ Internet Life (2013) both published by the China Social Science Press.