Course:ASIA319/2020/"rotten"(腐)

Introduction

The term fu (腐）is broadly used to describe boy's love in Chinese digital folklore and largely appears in Chinese media, films, and television, which is also similar to the meanings of "BL", "danmei (耽美)" and "cpy". A series of terms related to fu (腐) have since proliferated on to various media platforms and in daily vernacular, such as "Funv (腐女)", "Fu renlei (腐人类)”, "Fuxiang (腐向)", "Fu Wenhua (腐文化)", "Mai Fu (卖腐) ”. Some women proudly call themselves "Funv (腐女)", and many popular literature and films and TV series are geared towards "Fuxiang (腐向)”. Thus, these words not just become buzz words in the society, but they have also become a cultural phenomenon attracting media attention and scholar's research.

The genesis of the keyword

The appearance of Fu Culture (腐文化) as a subculture is closely associated with the development of the Internet and social media. Fu culture in China originally derived from Japanese 'Boy's Love' culture and tanbi culture. In Japan, the genre 'Boy's Love' feature love stories between males, which is mainly launched by manga, novels, animation, and video games. It is primarily marketed to female readers, and most of them also are created by female authors. Women who create and read BL contents are defined as fujoshi (腐女子). BL culture was imported to Taiwan in late 1970, and to Hong Kong in the late 1990s . With the development of the Internet, since the culture clan, BL culture speared to mainland China by pirated manga, video sharing and cyber literature from the conduits----Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the same mode of transmission, Japanese tanbi or danmei ("耽美") is the character of Japanese kanji , while danmei is the Chinese phonetic form of "耽美") genre was popular in China in 1991 and 1992. In Japan, tanbi is an anti-naturalist literary movement since the 1970s, which pursues aesthetic sensuality. The genre is used in manga and literature, and both of them fascinated Japanese women. Even though the intricacies of BL content and tanbi culture in Japan may not identical, for Chinese audiences, BL and tanbi (耽美) are almost same, most likely because the earliest readers to reach these genres in China were highly educated women who were keen to read Japanese manga and literature. Most Fujoshi will have reveries about the relationship between men in the real world. Since they bravely expressed their desire, they identified themselves as Funv (腐女). The contents depicting the romance between males and the topics related this theme have been in vogue since. However, the BL story is fascinating because the two male protagonists are not generally recognized by a couple. In some cases, the love of men is described as a friendship between brothers, because they are not yet accepted by everyone, especially under pressure from the central government. In Funv's fantasy, boy's love have a fateful sense of helplessness, but love is so powerful that they can get through all the troubles and embrace each other. The more depressed they are, the more beautiful and firm their love will be.

With the spread of cyber literature and the use of social media, Fu culture has become a widely accepted cultural currency in mainland China in the beginning of 21^st century. The largest Chinese literature website, Jinjiang Literature City (www.jjwxc.net), which was founded in 2003, is the base of Danmei and BL literature and culture. Jinjiang claims itself as a women-oriental original literature website, which had 42.99 million registered users in 2020 October; of these 42.9 million users 91% are women, and 84% of users are in the 18-35 age group. It was reported that the website Daimei published 375 thousands novels online before 2017 March. Meanwhile, the largest Chinese online community, Baidu Tieba (百度贴吧) has 4.65 million live users in Funv Ba (腐女吧) , 1.05 million in Funv Anime Ba (腐女动漫吧) by 2020 November. The netizens in these communities discuss literature, couple stars, share pictures, animations, radio dramas, and videos which related to Daimei or BL culture . Because of the existence of a large number of funs group (腐女) as market potential, Chinese online video platforms started their crass-media creation, which were to adapt hot Danmei fictions to web-dramas. According to Yao's research , in 2014, IQIYI (爱奇艺), one of the most popular online video platforms in China, adapted the web-Danmei fiction "I Love You If You Were Men" (你是男的我也爱) to the fist web-Fu-Drama (腐剧) , "Like Love" (类似爱情), which was viewed more than 1.25 million time. By 2016, there were more than 50 web-Fu-Drama been online broadcasted. Some of them became the most searched hashtags. Even though homosexual genre has censored in public publication and distribution since 2016 in mainland China, "The Untamed" (陈情令) aired in 2019 summer was viewed over 600 million times in first two weeks. The prevalence of Fu culture in China brings many profound social influences. At the same time, some scholars analyzed that some Funv(腐女) were dissatisfied with the disadvantaged position of female characters in Danmei's novels and comic books, and tended to choose works without female characters. Danmei reflects the desire, equality and freedom pursued by women. But at the same time, it also reflects that women in society are affected by patriarchy, and some even deny and resent their identity. In fact, the popularity of Fu culture also reflects women's resistance to social pressure on them.

Glossary of its explicit dictionary meanings

The word "腐" (Fu) in Chinese translated as an adjective means rotten, decayed, backward, corroded; as a verb means decay, fall behind. However, the earliest appearance of meaning which related to Fu (腐) as a subculture is Fujoshi (腐女子) in Japan. Even though women in China who are in favour of Danmei or BL romance call themselves as Funv (腐女), to some extent, which is a kind of self-mockery, to make fun of being addicted to immoral love-relationship stories, and being "bad", or "decayed", while the real origin is from Japanese. Therefore, the Chinese word "腐“ is no longer used in this situation.

An elaboration of its variegated meanings, actual usages, and value-loaded implications

In Xu and Yang's research, Funv (腐女) group in China was divided from the earliest female Japanese anime funs who found the most interests in Danmei content which deptics "beautiful young men" (bishonen) and BL stories on imported manga. In the late of 1990s, with the rise of interactive forum, there were some Danmei forums established for the funs to share piratic Danmei and BL content. The enthusiasm for Japanese Danmei and BL culture (some of the content came from Taiwan authors) motivated the creation of local Danmei fictions and short videos in the beginning of 2000. The transmission of large local Danmei works and fans discussions and the emergence of fan fiction on various websites, forums, platforms, social media marks the formation of Chinese Fu Culture (腐文化). Since the fun group also attract some men, especially young men to join, the people who enjoy Fu Culture were called Fu Renlei (腐人类). The rise of Fu culture is related to the Hallyu (Korean Wave): South Korea’s star-making policy guides fans to develop in the direction of Funv. Arrange a couple-like combination (cp) in an idol group, their emotional interaction seems extremely easy to attract fans who interest in BL, thereby increasing the exposure and popularity. Some cosplay and fan-oriented animation exhibitions also use "Fu" to attract people's attention and get business opportunities. The capital and market cater to the appearance of Fu Culture to make topics between male stars, and to arrange ambiguous relationship or sexual actions between male characters on film or television for the purpose of catching the attention of female audiences. These behaviors are dismissively identified as Maifu (卖腐). However, the sexual implication in Fu Culture or in the action of Maifu (卖腐) is totally different with homosexual relationships, because they are commercial culture, and oriented to female consumers.

Chinese Fu subculture are obviously influenced by Japanese tanbi and BL culture, while the behaviors of the funs or the Funv (腐女) are similar to the "slash" fandom culture in the West. According to Wu's research , the fan-fiction of Kirk/Spock from TV series Star Trek appeared on the zine magazine marks the emergence of "slash" culture in the U.S.. "Slash" represent the "/". The symbol marks between two men's names used by Western fandom, meaning they are fancied to have romantic relationship. "Slash" culture is a Western commercial culture, which is also oriented to female funs to provide them more dimensions to image and interpret the storyline. In China, a large numbers of fan-fictions (in Chinese called tanrenwen "同人文" ) are created on BBS, online fan communities, forums, blogs featuring Fu Culture. The difference between Chinese Funv tanrenwen (腐女同人文) and "slash" culture and Japanese BL fan-creators is that the former is an initiative fan culture, while the both of the laters are the interaction between media franchise and fans. In the early days of the innovation of online novels, many fan fiction were based on martial arts novels or martial arts movies. As one of the famous Wuxia novel author, Wen Rui'an's original work is very popular among Funv because the brotherhood and interaction between male characters in his creation had a sense of "cp". Many fan fiction authors like to develop their works based on the world and character settings in Wen's book to satisfy their own fantasy.

Social, cultural, and political problems

Homosexuality is neither a crime nor officially regarded as an illness in China. Adult, consensual and non-commercial homosexuality has been legal in China since 1997, when the national penal code was revised. Homosexuality was removed from the Chinese Society of Psychiatry's list of mental illnesses in 2001. The public health campaign against HIV/AIDS pandemic however does include education for men who have sex with men. There is a linear relationship between the proliferation of the internet and digital media and the progression of gay rights in worldwide and in China. In the last 20 years both have become more prevalent issues breaching into mainstream culture and consciousness.

One of the social and cultural problem associated with the term "Fu" (腐 ) in the context of Chinese television and visual media is that it is used to describe the depiction of homosexual relationships and there is a obvious negative connotation with the synonyms of rotten, decayed, backward, corroded; and as a verb to fall behind. This is perhaps reflexive of some homophobic attitudes that place homosexual relationships in a niche of Chinese media. It is also worth noting that the primary audience and producers are primarily female, even in the particular genre of "Boy's Love". There is perhaps an issue in the lack of sincere representation in that the authors may not be apart of the community they are depicting, and may not be able to most accurately represent that marginalized community.

Fu culture as a spontaneous subculture is chased after by the commercialization, but it still can be identified as a brave challenge of Chinese women towards Chinese patriarchal hierarchy and gender relationship. The Funv articulate their sexual desires and willing to seize the initiative in gender relationship is a progress in Chinese long feudal patriarchal history. However, Funv groups appear the divide about who is the true or false Funv in some platforms, such as "Bilibili", "Zhihu (知乎)" which arguing whether accept the erotic content in BL story or just pursue love relationship in Danmei stories, which indicates the concession of Funv group to the dominated political discourse. Even though the prevalent of Fu culture provide more hop topics to the public in China to homosexual relationship, Fu culture still haven't really touched the existence of Chinese gay group.

Studies related to the keyword

In their article, Boya Hua, Vickie F. Yang, and Karen Fredriksen Goldsen explore the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults in mainland China, with an emphasis on the shifting nature of the cultural context. Based on a culturally informed perspective, the intersection of LGBT stigma with cultural values (familial responsibility, filial piety, and loss of face) and larger structural changes (the aftermath of the one-child policy, economic reforms and globalization, LGBT human rights, and HIV policies) are creating dramatic shifts in Chinese society and impacting the lives of LGBT older adults.

Emily Williams explores a distinction between BL and danmei in the cultural stratosphere. She describes that while the two terms can mean the same thing; both mean male/male romantic or sexual fiction in Japan and China respectively, the similarities in context and the historical connection suggest there are still some differences in fan culture. Culture, laws and the nature of the internet has lead to some of the key differences being highlighted namely the differences in the censored Chinese danmei and the relatively uncensored Japanese BL.

M. P. Lau & M. L. Ng present a digest and synopsis of material relating to homosexuality in Chinese culture. With illustrations from the royal palaces, upper class households, entertainment companies, scholars' conclaves, novels and fiction, seaboard populations, travelers, emigrants, socially marginalized groups, closed institutions, and folk literature, they present an analysis of a wide variety of the aspects of homosexual culture in China.

Conclusion

The term fu (腐）is broadly used in Chinese digital folklore, and frequently appears in Chinese media, films, and television. It's prevalence has proliferated a series of related terms such as "Funv (腐女)", "Fu renlei (腐人类)”, "Fu Wenhua (腐文化)", "Mai Fu (卖腐) ", and "Fuxiang (腐向)”. The word "腐" (Fu) in literally translated in Chinese as an adjective meaning rotten, decayed, backward, corroded; as a verb means decay, fall behind. The term presents a series of cultural, society, and political issues within Chinese digital media including LGBTQ rights, sincere representation in media, and the flow of media across borders. The term also allows commentary on the digital literature community and relationship between audience and author.

References

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