A wen-wu Approach to Male Teenage Chinese Sports Fans' Heteronormative Interpretation of Masculinity

Bibliographic Data

ID3946172
AuthorsAltman Yuzhu Peng (0000-0002-3440-0761), Zhen Troy Chen (0000-0003-2450-277X), Shuhan Chen (0009-0006-3614-6783)
Year2023
Volume134
Issue1
Pages69-85
Publication date2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01417789231155896
OpenAlexW4383876211
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited46

This article analyses how performatively heteronormative, male teenage Chinese fans consume sports games through the prism of masculinity, using secondary school students' engagement with the NBA (National Basketball Association) as a case study. Drawing on focus groups of twenty-three participants, we discover that male teenage sports fans constantly evoke elite NBA athletes as male ideals to define a desirable, heteronormative wen-wu masculinity specific to the post-reform era. In this process, they often engage in a double-standard practice, manifesting as their appropriation of the CP (coupling) rhetoric to 'ship' athletes and their problematisation of heterosexual women and LGBTQ fans' similar usage of it. This double-standard practice constitutes an attempt to monopolise the interpretation of masculinity both within and outside of the sporting context. It sheds light on the heteronormative male cohort's rejection of alternative masculinities, underscoring how aspects of gender politics unfolding in wider society are reflected in China's teenage sports fandom

CONTEST · Context (archaeology) · Hegemonic masculinity · Human sexuality · Interpretation (philosophy) · Masculinity · Political science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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