Ambiguity, political self-affirmation, and sexual transubstantiation in brazilian fandom's discourse of boys love (bl) series

Bibliographic Data

ID3984402
AuthorsIgor Leonardo De Santana Torres (0000-0001-7455-3212, Universidade Federal da Bahia, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume11
Issue1
Publication date2025-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNovos Debates (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2358-0097 • E-ISSN: 2358-0097
PublisherAssociação Brasileira de Antropologia (PUBLISHER • BR)
DOI10.48006/2358-0097/v11n1.e111013
OpenAlexW4412835730
LanguageEN
References cited17

Originating from texts that date to Japanese yaoi manga of the 1970s, boys love (BL) series, male homoerotic dramas produced in countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, are a transnational phenomenon whose reception process in each locality responds to different sociocultural aspects. Understanding the different consumption experiences of this media has been one of the main objectives of researchers from the most varied disciplinary fields. Thus, in this text, I explore the case of the Brazilian fandom, in which an identity filter mediates the consumption of these series. Through ethnographic research on digital social media platforms, such as X and Telegram, I discuss the value of political self-affirmation in these dramas and what its defense implies based on the fans' discourses. I argue that this phenomenon is directly related to the primordial activism strategy of the Brazilian LGBT+ movement and that the demand for political self-recognition also reiterates the dispositif of sexuality and the matrix of gender intelligibility through the objectification of identity and essentialization of sexual practices, perpetuating the subordination project of Scientia Sexualis, which produced subjects, or rather, sexual specimens

Ambiguity · Fandom · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Media Studies and Communication · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy

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