Masculinity in crisis? Reticent / han-xu politics against danmei and male effeminacy

Liang Ge; Tingting Hu; Ziyao Chen; Xu Xia

doi:10.1177/13678779231159424

Masculinity in crisis? Reticent / han-xu politics against danmei and male effeminacy

Liang Ge, Tingting Hu, Ziyao Chen, Xu Xia

Culture, Media & Creative Industries

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article examines the tension between public gender expressions and official regulations in mainland China. Utilizing a critical discourse analysis, we investigate a transition in state-initiated criticism and censorship against the danmei genre and male effeminacy. Focusing on the pandemic period, we use official regulations and state media feature articles as data, ‘reticent / han-xu’ politics as a grounding theoretical basis, and statements from mainstream media platforms as secondary resources. We argue that han-xu politics functions as the Chinese party-state's strategic response to a perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’. They first invisibilize and marginalize soft masculinities, and if this is not effective, then suppress and prohibit cultural forms that violate hegemonic masculinity, which works to perpetuate the hetero-patriarchal social-familial system.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	274-292
Number of pages	19
Journal	International Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume	26
Issue number	3
Early online date	2 Mar 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231159424
Publication status	Published - May 2023

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Cite this

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Masculinity in crisis? Reticent / han-xu politics against danmei and male effeminacy

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