This book examines different forms and practices of queer media, that is, the films, websites, zines, and film festivals produced by, for, and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in China in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It traces how queer communities have emerged in urban China and identifies the pivotal role that community media have played in the process. It also explores how these media shape community cultures and perform the role of social and cultural activism in a country where queer identities have only recently emerged and explicit forms of social activism are under serious political constraints. Importantly, because queer media is ‘niche’ and ‘narrowcasting’ rather than ‘broadcasting’ and ‘mass communication,’ the subject compels a rethinking of some often-taken-for-granted assumptions about how media relates to the state, the market, and individuals. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about queer communities and identities, queer activism, and about media and social and political attitudes in China.
Introduction
Part I. Contextualising queer community media
- Queer community media in China: an archaeology
- The ‘queer generation’: documentary filmmaking as social activism
- ‘Documenting comrades’: building a queer community archive
- ‘We are here’: the politics of memory in queer feminist history
- Toward depathologisation: Queer Comrades and community health activism
- Queer as catachresis: the ‘guerrilla years’ of the Beijing Queer Film Festival
- ‘The lucky one’: the ‘pleasure principle’ in participatory communication
- The queer global south: minor transnationalism between China and Africa
Part II. Documenting queer history
Part III. Queer screen activism
Part IV. Queering international development
Conclusion
Biography
Hongwei Bao is Associate Professor in Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Contemporary East Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK.
'Bao’s book is a rich addition to the still nascent subfield of queer studies concerning mainland China. Compared with previous studies, largely coming from anthropology and literary studies, the book is uniquely focused on institutional and community history. Bao’s ability to document the complex relationships between grassroots organizations, NGOs, foreign embassies, and government agencies behind the scenes of queer activism in China effectively deconstructs the Cold War notions of censorship and freedom that are often uncritically applied when analyzing media practices in China. Although the book is written with non-Chinese specialists in mind, it offers a view of queer culture in China that is deeply rooted in its communities. By bridging the queer community in China and its international counterparts, the book is an extraordinary work of cultural translation.' - Dr Jiangtao Harry Gu in The Journal of Asian Studies
‘This comprehensive book is one of the first scholarly works to capture the recent history, changes, and complexities of LGBTQ activism and practice-based media cultures (produced by, in, about, and for gender and sexual minority communities) in an increasingly globalized and digitized China. In a society and a scholarly world where queer Chinese women’s media practices and cultures are far less valued and critically appraised than those of their male counterparts, the attention Bao pays to both traditional and digital media and public spaces, carved out by queer women filmmakers and activists of the past several decades, deserves readers’ appreciation … This important academic source in queer Chinese studies will be useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on Chinese gender and sexuality studies, queer and feminist studies, global and transnational communication, and film and media cultures.’ - Dr Jamie J. Zhao in The China Journal
