TY  - JOUR
IS  - 5
N2  - The male-male romance web series The Untamed reached a height of media interest in the summer of 2019 in China. Numerous Chinese young women were obsessed with the drama centred on the relationship between the two male protagonists, and many fan followers identified themselves as ? The Untamed Girls?. Through online observation of young female fans of the male-male romance web series, this study articulates how they were self-organised as a counterpublic and utilised strategic ways to negotiate with the party-state censorship. Drawing upon the conceptualisation of ?ambivalence?, the study analyses a dual ambivalence in their collective actions. It is argued that The Untamed Girls? participation as a popular feminist project is, however constantly intertwined with an assumption of heteronormativity and an internalised misogyny, where these seemingly empowered women are simultaneously reaffirming a heterosexual regulation of sexual desires and devaluing women when they celebrate the male-male romance embodied in such a drama series.
PB  - SAGE Publications
A1  - Ge, Liang
VL  - 44
Y1  - 2022/07//
N1  - © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
ID  - discovery10200882
AV  - public
EP  - 1033
JF  - Media, Culture & Society
SP  - 1021
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01634437221104713
TI  - Dual ambivalence: The Untamed Girls as a counterpublic
ER  -