Korean-Pop, Tom Gay Kings , Les Queens and the Capitalist Transformation of Sex/Gender Categories in Thailand

Bibliographic Data

ID7537809
AuthorsMegan Sinnott (Georgia State University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume36
Issue4
Pages453-474
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1035-7823 • E-ISSN: 1467-8403
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10357823.2012.739995
OpenAlexW1987293991
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited34

Since the early 2000s, masculine style for queer women in Thailand has been heavily influenced by Korean popular culture, or “K-pop”. K-pop is marked by deliberate gender androgyny and overall gender play. This new aesthetics of masculinity used by masculine-identifying women has been accompanied by linguistic shifts in which explicitly sexualised terms, such as queen and king , themselves products of complex transnational borrowings, have been borrowed from Thai gay male culture. This paper seeks to explore the possibilities of queer cultural transformation through forms of commodified images and capitalist intrusions. It also explores the process of creative borrowings made through transnational, national and local circuits of knowledge. This article is based on ethnographic research conducted in 2009 and 2010 focused on young queer women in Bangkok who have adopted the K-pop style and the new sexualised terms of identity, such as tom gay king and les queen , for example. It is also based on review of printed material including the fashion magazine Tom Act and the NGO publication Anjareesarn

Aesthetics · Androgyny · Art · Commodification · Ethnography · Identity (music · Literature · Masculinity · Media studies · Popular culture · Queer · Sociology · Style (visual arts · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture

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