Articulating the “L” Word Globally in a Cyber “Garden of Eden”: Online Chinese Queer Fandom of Western Media and Celebrities

• Other Authors: Zhao, Jing (author.)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; Chinese
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/item/cuhk-1292398

本论文探讨伊甸园外国连续剧交流站——一个最有影响力的关注西方娱乐影视的华文粉丝网站。伊甸园是被一个规模庞大知名的中国粉丝翻译组始建于2003年初。此网站提供访问者友好开放的空间去以酷儿的角度阐释讨论西方影视和明星。大多数活跃的伊甸园粉丝在网上交流时都自称来自中国大陆。一些粉丝曾经或者目前尚在各不同西方地区生活。网站上大多数资讯是通过该站粉丝线上寻找的国外（主要为英语）网站的信息或者通过与其他非华文粉丝群体的网上交流得知的。 === 伊甸园其中一个论坛——拉字至上——是在2005年初为提供粉丝讨论美国女同性恋电视剧《拉字至上》建立的。这个论坛长期非常活跃。随着其他女同性恋题材的西方影视在伊甸园粉丝群体中的知名度上升，粉丝在这个论坛上的讨论焦点也被很大地扩展了。这个论坛逐渐地被转型成一个不仅关注《拉字至上》虚构人物和现实明星的酷儿粉丝空间，并且也囊括了粉丝对其他西方女性明星和影视角色的讨论。鉴于本身这个粉都的聚焦就是西方，目前被该站粉丝八卦讨论的客体仍旧多是西方女性。 === 本研究建立于全球化理论，全球酷儿和粉丝研究和中国性/别性向研究之交界处，着眼于西方酷儿文化，本土中国对于女性性别性向传统和酷儿粉丝自身在一个虚拟跨文化情境下的幻想和欲望之间的内在连结，互动和矛盾。通过一个对伊甸园粉都与酷儿相关的话语解析，笔者试图阐释在其粉丝活跃却又自相矛盾的西方女同性恋幻想中的前景和迷思，以及这些话语如何反映了其粉丝对于本土和外来的女性性/别性向规范的改编和挑战。笔者建议将其粉丝关于西方女同性恋影视和女性明星的酷儿八卦视为一种多层次的进程。在此过程中，伊甸园粉丝不仅仅被本土和外来的关于女性性/别性向规范阻扰，他们也同时创新地运用这些规范准则。他们通过这些实践来创造一个有距离的，同性恋友好的空间去表达非常规的，性/别化的，性化的幻想。从这个角度来讲，这些粉丝八卦讨论并非是反映一种对现实LGBTQ问题的逃避，而是一个强有力的酷儿自我的表达。因为在其实践的核心是一个对现实中西方女同性恋境况的用心深刻反思。 === This thesis explores one of the most influential Chinese-speaking fan sites devoted to Western entertainment media, The Garden of Eden Communication Site for Foreign Series (GE). GE was originally established in early 2003 by one of the most sizable and renowned Chinese fan translation groups. The fan site offers its visitors a friendly, basically open-access space to view fan discussions, most of which are queer readings of Western media and celebrities. The majority of active GE fans have claimed a Mainland Chinese origin during their online discussion. Some of the fans have travelled to and/or are currently living in diverse geographical regions in the West. Most of the information disseminated in GE is gathered through fans’ online searches of foreign-language (mostly English) websites and/or communication with other cyber, non-Chinese-speaking affective communities. === Specifically, one of the GE forums titled “The L Word” was built in early 2005 for fans to discuss the American Lesbian TV show The L Word (Showtime, 2004-2009; TLW). This forum has been extremely active. Along with the mounting popularity of other lesbian-themed Western media among the GE fan community, the topics posted by the fans on the forum have broadened substantially. Gradually, the forum has been transformed into a site that not only features queer fannish practices dedicated to both the fictional characters and real-world celebrities of TLW but also extends the scope of discussion to other Western female celebrities and media characters. Due to the initial Western focus of this fandom, the objects being queerly gossiped by the fans in the forum are still primarily Western females. === Situated at the intersection of globalization theory, global queer and fan scholarship, and Chinese gender and sexuality studies, this research aims to explore the conjunctures, interplay, and contradictions between Western queer cultures, local Chinese conventions regarding female gender and sexuality, and queer fans’ fantasies and desires within a virtual, transcultural context. Through a critical study of the GE fandom’s queer-related discourses, I offer an account of the intertwined promises and paradoxes of its fans’ active but self-contradictory Western lesbian imaginaries, and how they reflect the fans’ simultaneous adoption and contestation of norms about female genders and sexualities practiced at home and abroad. I suggest viewing the fans’ queer gossip about Western lesbian media and female celebrities as a multilayered process. During this process, the GE fans are not just frustrated by normative ideals at home and abroad about female genders and sexualities; in fact, they creatively deploy these ideals. They do so to create a distanced, homo-friendly, imaginative space for the articulation of non-normatively gendered and sexualized fantasies. In this sense, rather than reflecting an escapist retreat from real-world LGBTQ issues, the fans’ gossip manifests a powerful form of queer agency because at its core it is a poignant, critical response to both real-world Chinese and Western lesbian situations. === Zhao, Jing. === Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2016. === Includes bibliographical references (leaves ). === Abstracts also in Chinese. === Title from PDF title page (viewed on …). === Detailed summary in vernacular field only. === Detailed summary in vernacular field only. === Detailed summary in vernacular field only.