ABSTRACT
Chapter Five studies two tremendously popular reality shows: Super Girl (2004–16) and Produce 101 (2018–19). Localizing Euro-American singing contest reality shows in the Chinese context, the 2005 season of the Super Girl show produces arguably a first made-in-China young idol Li Yuchun. Her striking star image of androgynous appearance not only re-invents the conventional model of femininity, but also constructs an affective nexus to Chinese young women who form virtual sisterhood in a new participatory youth culture to voice their queer desires. However, their queer expressions mainly dwell on the level of youthful fantasies contained in a melodramatic narrative to avoid direct confrontations with the mainstream heterosexual ideology. Such a queering trend has been continued and escalated in Produce 101, an Internet-based reality show. Its young fans have gathered in online communities, appropriating queer idol images displayed on the networked small screens of their computers, laptops, tablets and cell phones to openly support the local LGBTQ movement. However, under the pressure of double censorship, the subversive potential of the latest gay icon has been un-queered, or re-incorporated back into the mainstream values aligned with the neoliberal market individualism and the state-sanctioned China Dream discourse.
