Male Femininities: Expressive Forms and Mediated Relations in Post-2000 Chinese Popular Media

Abstract

This dissertation explores how feminine characteristics expressed through male bodies have been presented in post-2000 Chinese media, arguing against the binary opposition between state control and transgressive media content that existing studies focus on. To accomplish this, the research analyzes three distinct presentational modes. First, it examines male characters perceived as “niangpao” (effeminate men) by the public in five television and web dramas through character relationships and narrative analysis. Second, it investigates articles related to male makeup published in two men’s lifestyle magazines from the late 2000s through 2023 based on a critical discourse analysis approach. Third, it explores male streamers wearing women’s clothing on live-streaming platforms through a 20-month internet ethnography.These analyses demonstrate that feminine characteristics expressed through male bodies are presented in inconsistent and multifaceted forms. Television and web dramas continuously transform feminine male characters into multifaceted figures through motifs and narrative changes, while men’s lifestyle magazines similarly construct makeup practices flexibly between commercial and nationalist perspectives. Live streamers wearing women’s clothing—a transgender woman and a gender-queer individual—utilize their male bodies and femininity in different ways within platform economies, constructing varying modes of entertainment, identity formation, and sexualization in their streaming practices. Through these analyses, this research argues that male femininity can be defined as a negotiated process whereby neoliberal subjects interact with national ideology within the complex cultural, economic, and political contexts of post-2000 Chinese media. The dissertation contends that interpreting these multifaceted male feminine expressions through existing masculinity models is inherently limited. By framing these non-converging presentations as “male femininities,” this research suggests that male femininity can be an alternative approach that captures fluid aspects of gender and sexuality while acknowledging the complex negotiations occurring in Chinese media production. This positions traits expressed in male bodies outside the hierarchical order that typically devalues femininity, contributing to a comprehensive understanding not limited to specific concepts of masculinity and categories of gender and sexuality.