The Power of Qing : The Guardian Web Series and Queer Worldmaking in Chinese Danmei

AbstractThis article examines the web series Guardian (dir. Zhou Yuanzhou, 2018) as exemplary cultural texts of Chinese danmei, which portrays homoeroticism and male queerness in postsocialist China within the contexts of increasing institutional and political homophobia. The textual evidence shows that Guardian constructs queer subtexts and brings out the queer potentialities of the seemingly nonhomosexual media production via the following strategic negotiations: first, by creating a bricolage of science fiction, fantasy, and superhero genres to contest the homophobic social reality; second, by portraying qing, a powerful emotional bonding in queer relationships, and magnifying same sex intimacy as normal, natural, and moral; and last but not least, by interrogating queer stereotypes through deconstructing essentialized gender boundaries and further transcending stereotypical gong-shou aesthetics in danmei. Its commercial values notwithstanding, Guardian exemplifies a critical representational terrain that envisions alternative, imaginative ways to reconfigure gender and sexual identities, rearticulate queer desires, and disrupt insidious gender politics and homophobic discourse. Importantly, Guardian signifies the danmei genre’s disruptive potential to offer abundant space for queer worldmaking, thereby challenging censored representations of homosexuality.Keywords: Chinese danmeiqueer subtextsqueer relationalitymasculine identitiesGuardian web series AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks the editor, Marissa J. Doshi, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this essay.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Hu et al. (Citation2023) chronicle three nodes of official-level “condemnation against male effeminacy” in postsocialist China (p. 282). The first node emerged under the so-called “Purifying the Internet Campaign,” targeting danmei that was suspected of containing “obscene and pornographic content” (p. 282); the second node appeared in 2018 when the official media marginalized danmei as “subcultures, subjugated to hegemonic masculinity” (p. 283); the harshest node started in 2021, which witnessed official “restrictions against both male effeminacy and danmei,” as manifested in the official crackdown of Word of Honor (山河令), a most popular danmei web series in 2021.2 When using the term “homoeroticism” throughout this article, I draw from Brennan (Citation2018), who positions homoeroticism within Sedgwick’s continuum, “between the poles of homosocial and homosexual, or suggestion and actualisation/validation” (p. 195). I further concur with Hatt (Citation1993) that homoeroticism edges toward “ambiguous sexuality,” situated at “the homosocial end of Sedgwick’s continuum” (Brennan, Citation2018, p.195).