Exploring debates over “boys love” media in the Philippines

From Misogynistic Backlash to Queer Emancipation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7154376
AutoresKristine Michelle L Santos (0000-0001-8511-3052, Ateneo de Manila University, autor correspondente), Thomas Baudinette (0000-0002-4095-5923, Macquarie University)
Ano2025
Volume25
Fascículo5
Páginas1147-1162
Data de publicação2025-07-04
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoFeminist Media Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1468-0777 • E-ISSN: 1471-5902
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14680777.2024.2345198
OpenAlexW4396626022
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas25

As a genre originally emerging from Japanese women’s popular culture and developing into a transnational phenomenon, debates over “Boys Love” (BL) media have increased in recent years. Within this article, we explore debates over BL through a case study of its reception in the Philippines, situating our analysis within the broader context of the Philippines’ heteropatriarchal culture. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis of traditional and new media discussions responding to the rise of BL fandom in the Philippines and qualitative interviews with 31 LGBTQ+ fans of BL, we reveal tensions between those who view BL positively and negatively. Through a feminist and reparative queer reading of our data, we contrast cisgender gay men’s dismissal of the genre as always already problematic due to its emergence from women’s culture with LGBTQ+ Philippine fans’ positioning of BL as an emancipatory media genre that combats homophobia. Ultimately, we argue that attempts by certain critics in the Philippines to downplay the queer emancipatory potentials of BL emerges from a misogynistic rejection of the contributions of women to Philippine queer culture. We conclude by calling for a more nuanced appreciation of BL’s queer interventions which recognises the genre’s deconstructive force

Backlash · Emancipation · Political science · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Engineering · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising