ABSTRACT
In Mainland China, homosexuality is still a relatively sensitive topic that has effectively been banned from mainstream media. The impact of this censorship on Chinese queer culture is prominent: it has not only discouraged domestic media production but also stimulated Chinese queer fans to seek resources internationally, including relevant resources on major international streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu that are banned in mainland China. Fans have found alternative ways to translate, consume and disseminate these films outside of commercial streaming platforms to circumvent censorship. Among the wide range of queer media texts translated, films that involve queer characters of Chinese ethnicity or Chinese setting have been particularly welcomed and widely discussed within Chinese LGBTQ+ communities, given the shared cultural affinity as well as international scope that these films address. These discussions raise interesting questions on the transcultural links in global queer cinema as well as the fan-driven economy of queer media in China. Through a case study of Alice Wu’s two films Saving Face (2004) and The Half of It (2020), both of which feature queer Chinese American protagonists, this chapter examines how the transcultural interpretations of homosexuality has deeply intertwined with the rising of transnational queer diaspora enabled by international immigrant flows and digital media and how the representations of racial and ethnic identity in the Global North can be dislocated and reappropriated by local audiences in the Global South. It argues that the emotional and cultural belongingness, constructed among fans via translation and sharing these films support and enrich the development of local queer culture. However, issues such as class and race, both of which are highlighted and intertwined in the queer representations of the films, are rendered less visible and insignificant for Chinese audience. As such, the complexity is reduced, rendering the translations more utopian than the originals, and opening up a question of the limits of translation in a queer context.
