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China and Inner Asia
Organized Panel Session
This paper explores how a modern form of female masculinity—tomboyism—is commercialized in contemporary China’s pop culture. China has witnessed an unexpected popularization of young, masculine female stars, particularly in reality TV shows and the music industry since 2000. Drawing on global queering theory, gender studies and media studies, I trace the cultural roots and routes that have enabled and mediated the mainstream celebration of tomboyism in an increasingly globalized, yet largely hetero-patriarchal society. I demonstrate that this trend showcases the transnational flows and appropriation of androgynous beauty in inter-Asian celebrity industries. At the same time, premodern and modern China’s social-political manipulation of female gender and sexuality has served as a driving force in this process. Through my analysis I show that Chinese tomboyish representations have been transculturally shaped and situated in a series of lesbian, feminist and queer pop cultural events in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Ultimately, however, I argue that in negotiation with these historical and cross-cultural influences, tomboyism in Mainland Chinese media signals a ‘non-lesbian’ female masculinity. It is infinitely proximate to lesbianism yet never coincides with lesbian identity or identification.
Jing (Jamie) Zhao
Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, United Kingdom