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The Engaged Spectator: Reading BL Novels in Contemporary China

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Abstract

Can a reader, upon reading literary fictions, be moved into social actions or engage in socially meaningful activities? If it is so, then will reading gay-themed, popular fictions mean anything for the LGBTQ issue in contemporary China? This article argues that a reader of gay-themed, “Boys Love” (or “BL” for short) novels may be moved into taking some social actions for greater tolerance and acceptance of the LGBTQ community in contemporary China, based on the concept of “engaged spectator”, which is a reconstruct of Adam Smith’s moral–psychological model of “impartial spectator” into an actively reading, socially engaged agent taking affirmative actions to bring about greater social justice. This “engaged spectator” shall have a few steps in its active reading of fictions and engaging in transformative social actions, namely “subjective identification”, “ambience appreciation”, and finally, “social engagement”—the three of which are in a lexical order. This tri-step model is based on a neuropsychological reading of Adam Smith into the reader empathy theory. Furthermore, this model is illustrated with Kirin, a popular BL novel, where the reader may engage in social actions to create a more tolerant environment for the LGBTQ community in contemporary China. The three steps outlined above shall offer us an account of explaining how an active reading experience may lead to a socially transformative result.

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Notes

  1. O’Brien (2008) and Song and Rong (2016) study the phenomenon of female friendship in the consumption of BL or slash novels (cf. Safford 2007), while Zhang (2017), Yan (2018) and Zhao (2018) study the phenomenon of a largely female audience of reading and writing BL novels in mainland China. Chen (2016) discusses the adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night into a BL manga. For a discussion of slash fan fictions, see Busse (2017), or the chapter by Russ in Hellekson and Busse (2014) and its review comments in Kustritz (2015) and Roh (2015, Ch. 2). Berry (2007) discusses the possible links between Ang Lee’s gay movie Brokeback Mountain and the subcultural genre of male–male erotic works produced by straight women in Asia.

  2. Anan (2015) documents the staging of BL works in Japanese theatres in the 1970s. See, for instance, the novels of such a genre in English (Hillman et al. 2005; Reimoz et al. 2005; Abraham and Studio Kosaru 2005; Abraham et al. 2006; Izanaki et al. 2007; Schilling et al. 2008; Lewis 2006; Madarame 2010), the research by Cha (2005), Toku (2010), Welker (2006, 2011) and Saito (2011), Galbraith (2013), Madill (2016) on manga, Ui et al. (2008), Zanghellini (2009a, b), Angles (2011) and review comments by Mason (2013a, b), Ridgely (2013), Suter (2013), the edited volume of Levi et al. (2010) and its comments by Roush (2010) and Galbraith (2011), and a work on the same theme by McLelland et al. (2015) and its comments by Shamoon (2017), Shamoon (2012) and review comments by Horiguchi (2013) and Nagaike (2014), Vincent (2012) and its comments by Hirata (2015), Jacobs (2015) and its review by Ruth (2018). Brenner (2007) discusses the difference between BL comic books and ordinary romance novels. Mason (2013a, b) traces this BL phenomenon back to the worship of beautiful boys (bishonen) in Japanese culture. The chapters by Nagaike, Glasspool, and Mackintosh in Galbraith and Karlin (2012) discuss the fantasising and consuming of male idol icons by Japanese female audience. For the culturally unsettling impact of such genre, see Aoyama (2013).

  3. Cf. Martin (2012), Chiang (2016), Lin (2018), on the phenomenon of BL in Taiwan; Kwon (2018), on South Korea, and the edited volume by Lavin et al. (2017) in East Asia.

  4. Cf. McLelland (2000, 2010, 2012), for the spread of BL manga to Australia, and his book in 2017 on the challenges currently facing the spread of Japanese popular culture worldwide (McLelland 2017; for comments, see Björn-Ole 2019), and Williams (2015) on the global impact of this Japanese genre.

  5. Similarly, in the research of education science, there have emerged some similar discussions. In critiquing John Dewey’s spectator theory of knowledge (1960), where the learner, as the spectator, assumes a passive role in the whole process of pedagogy, receiving and acquiring knowledge without exercising an active subjective agency, Hess (1994) suggests that teachers need to play a more active, engaged role in pedagogy. Similarly, King (2016) argues for a morally engaged educational research to inculcate democratic practices among pupils.

  6. Actually China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA), an association subordinate to SARFT, passed a regulation titled “General Rules of Reviewing the Content of Netcasting Audio-Visual Programmes” (wangluo shiting jiemu neirong shenhe tongze), adopted and effective on June 30, 2017 (see CNSA 2017). In the “General Rules”, the content should be deleted or revised should it contain a “presentation or representation of abnormal sexual relationships or conducts, such as incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual predation, sexual abuse, and sexual violence” (Article 8.6.2). Here homosexuality is within the category of “abnormal sexual relationship or conduct” (buzhengchang de xingguanxi huo xingxingwei), with an apparent disparaging tone. For comments, see Chen 2017.

  7. By definition, the seme, the “attacker” or the “top”, is the one who penetrates and dominates in the male-male sexual relationship, and the uke, the “received” or the “bottom”, means the one being penetrated during sex. For an explanation of these two terms, see McLelland and Welker (2015, p. 10).

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  1. Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China

    Xi Lin

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Lin, X. The Engaged Spectator: Reading BL Novels in Contemporary China. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 13, 233–257 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-019-00270-6

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