The new issue of Intersections on Yaoi, Boys Love, or gay animations for girls, is out, and it is called ‘Japanese Transnational Fandoms and Female Consumers,’ guest-edited by Mark McLelland. I am very grateful to Mark McLelland and Carolyn Brewer for including my documentary On The Japanese Doll Complex. It fulfills a long-awaited desire to publish quirky and artistic types of products in academic journals.
Ting Liu’s article ‘Conflicting Discourses on Boys’ Love and Subcultural Tactics in Mainland China and Hong Kong,’ talks about censorship and shows that fans of Yaoi animations in Shanghai protested against one of the Internet crackdowns on pornography and their favorite websites.They turned an officially sanctified ’scribble wall’ into a ‘rotten wall.’
As Liu writes: “After the state launched the anti-pornography campaign in April, danmei participants turned a much bigger tuyaqiang (涂鸦墙 the scribble wall) at the East-Asian Comic and Animation Tongren Convention (东亚动漫同人大会) in Shanghai into a huge fuqiang (腐墙 rotten wall) in May 2007. Participants left messages such as ‘The party says we should build a road of tongren with Chinese characters, whereby BL is the predominant, with GL as a supplement,’ ‘The single spark of BL can start a prairie fire!,’ and ‘One who does not have danmei characteristics is not a person! One who does not have SM characters is not a good person!’
Yes rotten wall, I hope your sparks will fly right across the border… cause I have been bad.
