So there I was watching an episode of this well-known entertainment/variety show in Taiwan called KangXi Lai Le (康熙來了). There are two hosts and often there are famous celebrities from the Chinese-speaking entertainment world who come as guests, most often to promote their latest CD or movie. A director came with two actresses and two actors. The movie, however was not the central focus of this episode.
Instead, on one side of the set, there was a group of (presumably) queer Taiwanese men who would be the “Beautiful men-appreciation jury” (美男鑑賞團). Four famous male celebrities, two of whom were actors in the movie being promoted, would one-by-one stand in a door frame on the set, with the curtain pulled all the way down. At the show hosts’ command, the curtain would be released to reveal the male celebrity’s legs, up to his waist, then up to his chin, then his face. At each point, the hosts would ask the jury, would you go for that? Are sneakers or boots a plus? Skinny or well-built? [If you’re curious, the male celebs involved were:張孝全, 郭彥均,韓志杰, 范植偉, with 張孝全 being the most handsome, of course]. And yes, they were all fully dressed.
This episode really turned the tables and forced the handsome, (presumably) heterosexual men to “come out”. Literally, the term in Chinese, 現身 is to reveal the body into the here and now. That’s exactly what the male celebs were doing when they were being slowly “revealed” by the curtain. These male celebrities were put under scrutiny. The show host selected a “jury member” to be carried by the celebrity (the prince saving a princess hold) or the jury member could try to carry the celebrity. Each time a male celebrity was “revealed”, the show hosts would ask the jury members to raise their hands if that male celebrity was on their “fantasy list”. The queer Taiwanese men were allowed to explain their tastes, as well as shout out the occasional comment (“Take off the suit, you look better without it!” “Whoa, turn around again. Extra points for that behind!”).
This was mainstream Taiwanese television. I don’t see this episode being aired in the U.S. In the U.S. where LGBT organizations often fall prone to prevalent white hegemonic notions of “queerness,” it’s important to keep in mind different models of being as well as different backgrounds of queers in the United States, especially in light of histories of immigrants from non-Western countries. Variety and diversity is the way to go. Don’t place the U.S. as the only shining gay beacon shining its way into the dark corners of the so-called Third World. We don’t need to globalize those Post-Stonewall ideas of queerness in a way that transplants U.S. customs and norms into other countries and denies agency of other countries.
Don’t give me that. Taiwan is pretty fuckin’ impressive.
*Note: Though this episode occasionally uses the word “gay”, most of the time the word tongzhi 同志 is used. The word literally means comrade. The first character tong 同, means same, and is the same character used for the Chinese word for homosexual 同性戀. The second character zhi 志, means ideal, will or purpose. Put together, the word literally describes people with the same purpose and ideals. Historically, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Republic of China in 1911, said at his deathbed, “Comrades, keep struggling, the fight is not over” [paraphrased]. Later, during the Mao era, the term comrade was used in the communist sense – a word used to stir people to work for their country. Using the word tongzhi to describe the LGBT community in Taiwan is significant, for this word seeks to insert itself in the national psyche and redefine terms in order to link to a broader historical timeline. While the term was first introduced in the the Hong Kong film festival in the 1990s, tongzhi has now been reappropriated as a politically-charged term of empowerment used in Taiwan that differentiates TW (+ to a certain extent, HK) from Mainland China, undermining the national “sanctity” of the word comrade as used in Communist terminology. Also significant, the term tongzhi then signifies a framework of queerness that is not always Western-centric.
*P.S. what the male host (Cai Yong Kang 蔡永康) is wearing is hideous. Half-toga, anyone?
Musings from Joe Flynn 