Emasculating the Nation: 'Sissy' Boy Bands in China

Abstract

The paper discusses the recent public debates in China revolving around effeminacy of male stars and its alleged harmfulness for China’s next generation, sparked by the performance of a girlish boy band known as New F4 in a state-sponsored back-to-school program in September 2018. Angry parents condemned the band’s feminine images as representative of a “morbid culture” and a bad example for young boys. Both social media and state media outlets, such as People’s Daily and China Women’s Daily, soon joined the heated debate on standard of masculinity and virility of the nation. Some asserted that “effeminacy of young men today means an effeminate China tomorrow,” while others called for a more open-minded attitude toward diverse standards of masculinity. The paper posits different reactions to the images of “sissy” boys (niangpao) in a wider context of the “crisis of masculinity” in post-Mao China and a time-honored discursive link between manhood and nationhood. Based on an empirical study on audience reception, the paper explores various factors that give rise to popularity of and aversion to this type of male images in China and thus investigates the negotiations of masculinity associated with the transnational flow of images and discourses of popular culture. In particular, it looks at how this type of male images, as a product of the highly commercialized celebrity industry, has changed people’s mindset on masculinity, created generational gap in this regard and constituted a dialogue with the politics of nationalism in contemporary China.