Reimagining queer Asias: Performativity, censorship and queer kinship in the fandoms of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and The Untamed

Abstract

Online queer fan spaces around dangai (Chinese television drama adaptations of danmei, or Chinese novels centering homosexual content) have emerged as places of debate and dialogue as well as a counterpublic to the hegemony of Western media representations of same-sex relationships. I analyze queer fan spaces and responses to the danmei Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and its dangai adaptation The Untamed to showcase how queer Asia has emerged as a radical reimagining of generalizations made in favor of a single global queer voice. I explore how the novel and the drama subvert heterogendered stereotypes and highlight both the dynamic nature of political censorship and the subversive power of queer Asian communities. Placing queer kinship in online fan spaces at the forefront, I present a radical rereading of existing stereotypes associated with danmei and dangai, offering alternate possibilities to the terms "queer" and "Asian."