#indian ql

[neuroticbookworm]

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

[waitmyturtles]

Thinking About QL Fandoms and Markets For Indian Queer Media

Alright, ::rubs hands together::, let's see if this old auntie can get the link history of this thread straight first.

@impala124 originally wrote in an ask to dear @lurkingshan about Shan's thoughts on a developing fandom for Indian queer media.

Shan subsequently asked a few of us on the internet, brown Asian and/or otherwise, to weigh in, which @starryalpacasstuff did here. Starry's piece has a few great reblogs with media resources that everyone should scurry to check out.

The inimitable @neuroticbookworm then decided to show us her literary Tae Bo skills and dropped an absolute MONSTER of a must-read regional media and industry analysis here. (Let me emphasize that this is a MUST-READ PIECE if you're interested in Indian media.)

I'm going to use NBW's piece as a reference throughout my weak-ass response tea here, because she covered almost everything that needed to be said about why there ISN'T a robust or developed fandom on the internet for Indian queer media. So go read that first, and if you forget to click back here, it's all good, because I'm just gonna offer some unorganized macro-level thoughts at this point.

****

I'd like to first amplify a number of themes that @neuroticbookworm made clear in her piece about the "media industry in India." I'm only putting that phrase in quotes not because NBW wrote it (she didn't), but because it's a wholly inaccurate phrase.

1) INDIA IS *NOT* A SINGLE, UNIFIED CULTURAL MONOLITH. Remember your early social studies classes on early civilizations? The Aryans, Harappa, Mohenjo Daro? Those specific civilizations arose in the north of the Indian sub-continent, and not a lot of social studies spaces outside of Indian classrooms give love to the other regional areas in India -- like, say, all of South India, hello -- that belong to other civilization definitions.

To be grossly overgeneral, ancient civilizations in the northern subcontinent were known as Aryan civilizations, while those of the southern subcontinent were known as Dravidian civilizations. We see these differences today in the food we brown people eat, and ESPECIALLY in the languages we speak. Tamil (a Dravidian South Indian language) couldn't be farther away from Hindi (a North Indian language emanating from Sanskrit).

2) While the prominent political nationalists of India (😐) would like to have you believe that all Indians are monolithically similar -- or rather, SHOULD be monolithically similar by way of all Indians speaking Hindi, consuming Hindi media, and erasing religious diversity (🤬) -- nothing could be farther from the truth of our incredibly diverse and complicated subcontinent. We Indians are regionally, and therefore culturally, diverse in a great myriad of ways, way beyond our food, language, and religious preferences.

[For my non-Indians and non-Asians reading this, think about the two dishes you see the most on Indian restaurant menus outside of India. Chicken tikka masala and tandoori chicken, right? That's typical "Indian" food to the untrained eye. CTM is a British dish borne from immigrant South Asian chefs; and tandoori chicken was created by North Indian Punjabis. My own Indian origins are half-half (lah), I'm half-South and half-North Indian (with some SE Asia thrown in there, boleh!). My brain fucking freezes when I speak to someone who thinks the extent of "Indian food" is CTM and TC, and I have to explain, for the millionth time, the basics of the incredible array of South Indian vegetarian food that I grew up eating and loving.]

Thus, what I'm trying to say is, when we say the word "INDIAN," there are some questions that a curious listener should be tuned into asking to get specifics about just what kind of "India" or "Indian" the speaker is speaking of. I'll often get the question, "but WHERE in India are your parents from," from tuned-in Asians, who want to know specifically about my regional background.

VERY SO OFTEN IN POPULAR DIALOGUE ABOUT "INDIAN MEDIA," THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION OF THE CONVERSATION IS THAT THE SPEAKER IS ONLY SPEAKING ABOUT HINDI-LANGUAGE MEDIA, WITHOUT RECOGNIZING THAT REGIONAL AND/OR NON-HINDI LANGUAGE MARKETS MIGHT BE MAKING MEDIA, EVEN POPULAR MEDIA, FOR THEIR SPECIFIC REGIONAL MARKETS AND AUDIENCES WITHOUT AS MUCH OF A GLANCE TO THE DOMINANT HINDI-SPEAKING NORTH.

NBW says this brilliantly in her incredible piece, which delineates the major differences in the MANY regional and even sub-regional media markets of India, that produce a VAST array of media in the languages of the regions, markets, and audiences that this media serves.

On a personal note, when I was a kid, I only watched old South Indian films subtitled in English that my South Indian dad found. My North Indian mom watched them with us happily. We didn't do Bollywood in my house because frankly, dad hated those films and wasn't into them. Now that I think about it, it's probably because those Hindi films didn't bear a single resemblance to the cultural and life he lived growing up in South India.

3) Alright, so we have established that in terms of media, to speak about "Indian media" as a monolith is utterly incorrect, and just, go back to NBW's piece to get an excellent analysis of the details of that situation.

NBW does a bang-up job highlighting important pieces of regional media throughout her post, and like I mentioned before, there are multiple lists of media in the reblogs Starry's piece linked above ( @silverquillsideas notes in her reblog of Starry's piece that two important films come out of the state of Bengal, a market that us Indians should certainly pay attention to in particular.)

I therefore might posit that there might not actually be a unified "fandom for Indian queer media."

IT IS CLEAR from the reblogs of the various pieces that we've written over the last few days, that us Indians who love QLs certainly don't INHERENTLY know, universally, about ALL the queer media, across the subcontinent, in the MANY languages we speak, that has been made.

We have a lot of learning to do across our own regional identities.

I'd argue that, instead, from an organic growth perspective, that regional media markets in India would respond to THEIR OWN AUDIENCE'S AND MARKET'S DEMANDS and create queer media WITHIN THEIR OWN REGIONS

a) if their market(s) demanded it, AND b) if there was either pre-production funding, or a guarantee of net revenue from the airing of such media.

A fandom doth not create media.

It is filmmakers that create media.

And those filmmakers need

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

to make media.

Some regional markets will, by nature, be willing to take risks on a filmmaker's desire to make queer media. Those projects could succeed, or could fail. Badhaai Do is one of the best examples of a Bollywood breakout piece that gained even some international attention, and certainly attention ACROSS the subcontinent.

But I want to emphasize this point about

MONEY.

The question that we're pondering is, why isn't there a more prominent fandom for Indian queer media and/or QLs?

@twig-tea made note, in her reblog of Starry's original piece, about the importance of accessibility and subtitling, an important note not just for international audiences, but for regional Indian populations that don't speak the same language(s). Accessibility allows fans to watch the media of their own markets, and markets outside of their boundaries.

But even bigger than this is, before we even get into accessibility, is: the filmmakers need money to spend to MAKE projects, and in an ideal scenario for themselves and/or their studios, they then need to (hopefully) make a PROFIT to demonstrate a sustainable desire and demand for the media they're producing, a profit that could hopefully be re-invested into more and new queer media projects.

Let me not get into all the obstacles in which filmmakers, queer or otherwise, might run into issues with production fundraising for a queer-centered project. We Indians know about our conservative, often violent, obstacles.

NBW does a fabulous job in her piece discussing what COULD be made by way of queer media that COULD gain a stronger cultural foothold over time across the subcontinent.

4) A fandom, most often, develops as a response to media already created. A fandom, HOWEVER, *IS*, often, in today's digital age, often recruited to fundraise for projects they want to see! GoFundMe, right?

I think it was @impala124 in a reblog that mentioned that there's already a "market" for Indian QLs. But we've established now that there are actually many unconnected regional media markets in India that can't be assumed to be glommed together.

If a fandom WANTS to see a particular kind of media, in their own specific regional market, it's certainly well within its rights of speech to create internet buzz for it.

But I think we as fans also need to take responsibility for a better understanding of the economics of media creation, and to be patient as queer media is produced across the subcontinent, and to simply do our best to hype it up on the internet when we can, so that commercial sponsors and potential production funders can then pay attention to what us fans want -- and what we're willing to pay for.

And let me be honest, this is a *tremendously difficult proposition* for a field of media that's just really small against the giant, mainstream, well-funded media markets of India. And this field of queer media would be guaranteed to face crippling and disgusting conservative criticism as it gains more of a prominent cultural foothold -- as we are seeing in South Korea literally at this very second.

Looking on the economic bright side: we see in Thailand and in Japan that QLs make MONEY. Shit, not just Japan being into Japanese QLs, but also, Japan is so into Thai QLs that the major Thai channel and studio, GMMTV, has a distribution deal with the Japanese channel TV Asahi to air Thai QLs in Japan. MONEY, BABY! INTERNATIONAL DOLLAS. Great Sapol, of the QLs Manner of Death and Wandee Goodday, just wrapped a stint in a mainstream Japanese drama, and I'll assume that's because he's hotttt and talented gotten a lot of attention in Japan from his previous Thai QL work, as well as his lengthy resume in Thai mainstream media.

The hunger for QLs is there in these two major national markets, and the Thai and Japanese audience markets have proven that the demand for content for these countries can be economically fruitful. So the media markets of these two (much smaller than India) countries are pumping ever more money into production, and filmmakers are responding with more QL content than ever.

We have not even begun to contemplate reaching that tipping point in India, across our regional markets, yet. Again, NBW offers some creative paths forward that will take time to develop.

Fuck, I mean. Imagine Bollywood looking towards Thailand and its branded pair formula as an inspiration to develop queer media. (IMAGINE.) Get two super popular Bollywood actors together in a branded acting coupling/partnership. Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan doing India's version of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. In aprons! Making keema and rajma and chapatis. ShahSaif (SaifShah?!). KhanKhan. How would that go down?

It's a proven economic formula in Thailand. And that's just one example. We're well familiar, separately, with how Japanese QLs gain traction in bigger media spaces for its audiences, with media being adopted for the screen, as they mostly are, from popular yaoi and yuri mangas.

India and its regional media markets need some proven economic formulas within its regional markets to prove that queer media can gain culturally important footholds across the mindsets of various audiences -- and to prove that those footholds can produce profits.

The fandom element in this is that the regional fandoms, while creating buzz, could also prove to be important economic factors to a regional queer media industry being able to survive, and maybe even thrive.

Assuming that I am speaking to a mostly progressive group of fans here: we can only hope for this, and we must support the queer media that the subcontinent currently produces, IN *ALL* THE LANGUAGES (!!!!), to demonstrate to producers that Indians, wider South Asians, and even non-South Asians, WANT THIS MEDIA. We want it, we SHOULD want it, and damn it, we should SPEND OUR MONEY on it, to show our appreciate to the filmmakers taking risks to make this media.

I'm out! I need a chai and a samosa and a dosa.

[forkaround]

I have a café set QL (literally, one is a BL couple other GL) with a mental health focus, set in India, where the girl finds out she has autism and boy has adhd. (And yes, they go see a therapist for it.) am I doing too much? going too hard on neurodivergence? Like, yes, we need more of it. But both of them in one (1) book? I believe I can explore both well but my concern remains - is it too much? Will someone think it reads like a PSA. I feel like I'm over correcting for complaints I think / predict will come up and I need some reassurance and/or advice.

[telomeke]

Thanks for tagging me dear @lurkingshan! 💖

This post had me spinning all sorts of ideas and observations around in my head over the past couple of weeks, but I've finally decided I probably need to keep them to myself.

While I consider myself multi-cultural and have an abiding, almost reverential appreciation for South Asian culture (especially Tamil culture, language, music and cuisine), my own homebase and comfort zone are firmly within Southeast Asia and I suspect my penchant for wild theorizing may lead me to say something others might find offensive, if I turn my gaze toward India instead (because I wouldn't want to focus only on the positive, and my unfiltered takes on negative factors could be read as insensitive even if they weren't intended that way).

It's such a gigantic country with mind-boggling population numbers. Given the talent pool, consumer base and the gosh-dang natural beauty that abounds (in both the human and other landscapes, physical and cultural), there is so much potential for wildly entertaining and hugely successful QL media to emerge if interested makers can just get around the various obstacles (and spirit-dampening inertia).

I look forward to the day when we'll finally get to enjoy beautiful Indian QL, on its own terms, as a form of media in its own right! 🤩

‌‌

Hello Shan! Love your recs! Whenever we talk about queer media in Asia, the absence of India is pretty staggering to me. It's true that homosexuality has been decriminalised only recently (late 2010's) , but still we get something with a queer subtext from the heavily censored China. As a culture, I would place India to be as conservative as Korea, but we do have some queer stuff, albeit tame, from there. Do you have any thoughts on this subject, if so, can you please share your thoughts? Thank you!

Thanks for sending this question—you are not the only one who has noticed this absence of India in the bl scene. I think this has a lot to do with the way these different Asian countries think about cultural export and commerce, honestly. The Korean government is explicitly interested in using media to export their culture across the globe and develop financial power tied to that, with queer media being part of that (though certainly wildly underfunded compared to het media, and that funding seems even harder to come by more recently), whereas this does not seem to be an approach India yet favors. Which means it is brutally difficult for queer creators in India to get funding and resources for their art, and even harder to get distribution to show it to others. I know there have been some limited queer media releases from India, but they’re typically hard to even learn about, let alone access.

That’s about all I can speak to as someone who is not South Asian and doesn’t have deep context about current political and cultural movements in India. But I have lots of friends who might have more to say on this, so I’ll tag a few in here in case they’d like to add any thoughts: @starryalpacasstuff @waitmyturtles @grapejuicegay @neuroticbookworm @telomeke.

[bengiyo]

Hi Ben!

So, I'm currently working on catching up to several of the qls I've missed out on in the past 3-4 months or so in addition to the exploring indian queer media series I'm starting, and that includes watching Taiwanese bls for the first time.

But, I'm having trouble deciding which ones to watch first and which ones to shelve for later, so I'm asking you to pick for me!

I've mainly got 4 shows on my list- We Best Love, My Tooth Your Love, Kiseki: Dear to Me and Unknown. I'm planning on watching 2 of them now and keeping the others for later.

So, I'll be watching whichever two that you pick, and saving the others for later. I'm going to get around to watching them all eventually, it's just a matter of which I watch first.

Oh, and if there's a different Taiwanese bl you think I should start with, I'm open to anything. Thanks for the help!

Hello! I feel woefully deficient when it comes to Indian queer cinema. Offhand I can only recall Loev (2015) and Margarita With a Straw (2014). Please share some of your favorites!

I think what's a lot of fun about your request is that three of the shows you presented as options were directed by Ray Jiang (We Best Love, My Tooth Your Love, and Unknown). Lin Pei Yu wrote Kiseki: Dear to Me and We Best Love.

I don't think I'd recommend Kiseki: Dear to Me because it was fun as a live watch for all the crack, but it's mess of a show. It also reopened an old wound and pissed me off.

Similarly, I think We Best Love has great performances in it not supporting by the cleanest structure if we're only recommending two shows.

So, I recommend My Tooth Your Love and Unknown as your two shows to watch. I think My Tooth Your Love has solid character writing, and includes some of my favorite camerawork in the genre.

Likewise, Unknown is a solid adaptation of a mainland Chinese novel with good writing around the family dynamics and changes they face. I have strong notes about where it faltered in the end, but it's a really solid production.

Let me know what you think when you watch them!

[silverquillsideas]

I'm sorry for the stalking but I read your comment on a tumblr post (the one about mileapo coming to mumbai) and wanted to say hi. Internally screaming a little because I rarely see anyone from our part of India in QL fandoms even though there are lots of desi folks here.

Also, YOUR ART OMG! So pretty!!!

Omg hi!!! Lmfaoooo Indians are EVERYWHERE!! If you're on twitter, we have a gc full of Indian kinnporsche/QL fans lol... I can add you there!! We are a mad group 😂

Also thank you so much for liking my art hehe 🥰

[miusmusings]

9 people you'd like to know better

Thanks for tagging me, @summersinpuglia! Sorry it took me so long to respond :')

Last song: The Moon Represents My Heart from Moonlight Chicken. I just adore it so much?? Also helpful for writing fics, it just gets me into the ~feels~ every time. (There's also Boy Sompob's You Are My Destiny but that's technically not my last song sooo).

Currently watching: Around 8 airing shows a few completed ones. Too many jajaja. Out of them, I'm really, really loving Be My Favorite. Eight weeks, and not a single slow or disappointing ep. Strong candidate for my top 5 qls list. I'm also very intrigued by the ep 1 of Laws of Attraction. Deranged lawyer who has lost all faith in humanity and lives only for himself x righteous justice bringing common man, sprinkled a liberal garnish of political corruption and intrigue? Yum! There's Hidden Agenda on the side forming a pretty web—not sold on it so far, but it's my first JoongDunk show and they're living well up to their name. The chemistry is fantastic u.u Be Mine Superstar and Stay By My Side (Taiwanese) are serving as great appetisers which I'm enjoying without thinking too much ^^ (Too sleepy to write about the others >.>)

Currently reading: The Year of the Runaways by Sanjeev Sahota, and The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Devkurani. Two at the same time ahaha~ And they are of completely different genres. The Year of the Runaways tells the story of immigrants who comes from very different social positions, tackles caste system, stigma, and a bit of religion. Very grounded in reality, and a little depressing(?). The Palace of Illusions is set in the mythic past, a semi historical semi fantasy fiction retelling one of the most widely read Indian epics from a woman's perspective. Whenever I feel too down after reading the former, I come to The Palace of Illusions for a little tour into magic and political intrigue ^^

Current obsession: Do bls count? But other than that, I've been writing a lot of fics and re-reading my favourite danmei. I'm also watching a lot of videos from the Cooking History youtube channel, food and history—two of my beloveds.

Again, thanks for the tag! I hope you have a great day/night! <3

Tagging: @wenyousi and @valentinaonthemoon, but if you're reading this, please feel free to join in!

[waitmyturtles]

I’m unfortunately not finding it at the moment, so I hope dear @telomeke (@telomeke-bbs) doesn’t mind me tagging them in this dialogue, but this reminds me of a post you wrote about Bad Buddy, in which Wai, after graduation, shifts his color usage to reflect his more religious/spiritual-minded mindset as he wears yellow (and I think you also noted the way in which his shirt was buttoned, too, as he spoke with Pat and Korn outside the university buildings two years after graduation).

In any case: this post is so important to note that no artistic assumptions are universal through the lens of cultural context and competency for each the countries from which we’re watching QLs, and reflects a lot of the perspective from which I write — and that a huge part of the joy of the process of blogging about about Asian shows on a public platform like this, is that I can be accountable (as an Asian myself) to the new information I learn about in my journey of learning about the broader Thai BL genre.

For instance: I was chatting briefly with @neuroticbookworm as I was ruminating over this topic, and she reminded me that white is used for mourning in Indian Hinduism. Taking into account that there is quite a bit of Hindu influence on the practice of Thai Buddhism — I don’t know if that’s an automatic assumption we can make when we see white in Thai shows, particularly in a spiritual context, but it’s an important contextual note that other non-Thai Asians will bring to the viewing of a Thai show in the first place (I trust @hallowpen’s interpretation of white from their Thai interpretation!). And all of this is noteworthy from a majority audience perspective — the majority audience of Asian QLs being Asians.

In any case, all of this is to say that having cultural context in the color interpretations is so important. When we watch Aof Noppharnach’s works, many of his shows are laden with references to Thai spiritual culture (even, to the Wai point, Bad Buddy at the end of the series), and along with that lens on spirituality is a set of cultural points and assumptions about the way in which this devotion looks that’s beyond the set of rules that, say, a Western film class would teach on color theory.

I simply wish that when people did color theory based meta for BL works they did so with the knowledge or acknowledgement that colors mean different things in different cultures instead of solely from an ethnocentric pov

[waitmyturtles]

Oh my EFF, where DO I START. Moonlight Chicken, episode 7 thoughts and impressions. But first, a question for the family:

Did any of you notice the filming style slightly change during the condo/living room scene with Jim and Wen (after Jim put on the chicken shirt), and the second scene with Jam and Li Ming, when they’re eating the ginger stir-fry? In both scenes, I noticed that the camera pans were a bit more fast/jerky between characters, and that Jim and Jam (#jimjam) were filmed from the chest up. I wish I knew more about cinematography, but it seemed to me that the other shots throughout the show were wider and taller. I don’t know if this means anything to anyone, but if it does, I would love to hear thoughts on it. I feel like the shooting style gave those scenes some kind of different old-school flavor. 

1) JUST GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH WHY IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD. Sorry for the yelling, but now I know, I KNOW, full-bodied, there is no way one post is enough for each of these episodes, so just expect a whole freaking unspooling over the weekend. ANYWAY. I’ll try to organize the quick thoughts first, then the deep thoughts.

2) Just get First and Khao together again already! They can’t help their chemistry to be ridiculously great. AND HOW GOOD IS FIRST. HOW GOOD IS HE. Just knowing when to fume just slightly, when to pull back for the sake of a scene. AND HOW GOOD IS KHAOTUNG. God. His crying! It took me OUT. Tears over here, streaming tears.

3) Speaking of hearts aching, I cried not only during the funeral scene because of Khao, but because I love this now-repeating motif that Aof uses of bringing a song that’s sung in the show as music for the background of the show, à la Bad Buddy. To think of every step of art to weave into a drama to keep you fully connected -- it’s really beautiful to me.

4) Mark/Leng with his UCLA jacket, what up, Cali, cute cute. (By the way, I’m missing View/Praew. She was incredible in 10 Years Ticket, and I think she could have lent her brilliance to MC. I’m going to add The Shipper to my list for First/Ohm/View.)

5) The continued motif of showing the cast participating in time-honored spiritual rituals. As sad as it sounds, I love funeral scenes and the way a temple brings together a community. Even Wen working at the temple -- it’s very real (at least at the Indian/Asian funerals I saw as a kid) to basically have a lot of the funeral feel like a community get-together.

6) Heart joining Li Ming to hand out drinks at the temple just messed me up. It messed me up good. When the young adults automatically help out at events without being told by their parents. It means a lot in Asian societies. 

7) Deeper thoughts. @wen-kexing-apologist hit on this in their BEAUTIFUL POST about the show being centered on parent-child relationships. There’s a lot here in this episode, I may not get to it all. 

Here’s how I’d break it down (and this post by @justafriend-ql covers so much so well):

a) Jam comes back after years of not seeing Li Ming b) Li Ming is OBLIGATED, by UNSPOKEN CULTURAL RULES, to continue to respect her as a parent c) Li Ming, clearly, wants fucking none of it d) Li Ming/Fourth EMANATES distaste for what he’s dealing with  e) Li Ming STILL has to control himself around his mom who moved him aside to live her life f) He has to ALSO DEAL with his uncle, who (yes, hypocritically) (but also hypothetically) asks him why he’s gay g) So Li Ming has to also deal with his uncle’s internalized homophobia and old-fashioned views on gays in society, which may very well arise in part from his upbringing in rural Isaan h) Jim has to also deal with his sister’s guilt over not having been a mom, and her trying to sort of half-heartedly show up (until the last scene with them, which I think was meant as a symbol that there might be healing happening among the three), and i) Jim beginning to see Li Ming for the adult that he is becoming.

@justafriend-ql covered in their two posts about Li Ming the sheer SIMMERING, the shimmering ANGER that Fourth portrayed, and I felt @wen-kexing-apologist​’s  pain in my bones when I watched those scenes.

So much of what I am loving about Aof’s work as I enjoy my ride through his oeuvre is this family dissection -- the microscopic examination of the painful aftereffects of holistic filial piety (COUGH Bad Buddy) -- and I can never say enough how important his family art work is to Asian audiences. When I see these scenes of young adults holding themselves back with every iota of their energy to not JUMP KICK their parents when they’re acting stupid -- man, I feel that so hard. 

Jam coming back and asking for Li Ming is just lame, and we all know it, and Li Ming knows it. And yet, he is BOUND by CULTURAL PRACTICE -- cultural rules that even JIM REFERENCES -- to need to hold back and respect his mother, because that’s what Thai cultural boundaries demand. So I agree with @justafriend-ql that what Fourth radiated was beyond brilliant. As a viewer, I really want to see Li Ming’s gates open and to see him rage, because my inner child wants to rage right along with him.

But that night scene with Jim and Li Ming, man. 

I think this bit of this scene is what ended up helping Jim to relax, and to see Li Ming as an adult. 

I am loving how Jim is written. The constant, CONSTANT pull between old values and new. This scene so beautifully depicted Jim in that balancing struggle. 

Li Ming is just pulling Jim along to the light of the future, as children/young adults do. Li Ming NEEDS his uncle to see HIMSELF (Jim) in Li Ming. And I think that’s what’s happening, in part, in this scene. Jim sees that Li Ming CAN understand how complicated the world is around him. Jim SEES that Li Ming is a CRITICAL THINKER.

Jim has been a solo parent for so long. He’s worried about his kid. They’re poor. His kid’s gay. Jim’s worried about his kid being poor and gay. Jim expresses it, at first, in an old-fashioned, shouting, angry way. Jim accidentally outs Li Ming to Jam.

And then. The two guys -- the guys -- sit with each other, rest and wash in the process of mourning an important member in the community. Jim tries to hear Li Ming at Li Ming’s level. And Jim finds that he can hear. 

And maybe, even, Jim is beginning to learn that he can transcend those old-fashioned values -- those UNSPOKEN CULTURAL RULES that still bind much of Li Ming’s behavior towards his mother -- to be a model for Li Ming, AND TO HIMSELF, to live a hopefully more fulfilling life. (I think that might be what’s happening, in part, with the cancellation of the diner’s lease at the end of the episode -- but the preview for the finale has me wondering if I’m right.)

8) I don’t know how much I have left, but I took these screenshots to also talk about Jim’s internalized homophobia. I think I’ve covered it already in my Li Ming analysis, but come AWN, just look at this SASS BUCKET OVER HERE:

I took these to confirm that Jim was “just being a dad” (ugh) in the moment of him yelling at Li Ming, but I think Jim redeemed himself with that night chat with Li Ming. So I’m just gonna leave these screenshots here BECAUSE COULD WEN/MIX BE ANY MORE SASSY?

I’m already missing these guys. I need Our Skyy 2 REALLY SOON. 

I’m gonna need a lot of sleep tonight to manage tomorrow.

[alcalavicci]

Yeesh, Sam, let Al feel useful!

[forkaround]

why does hindi not have more than one word for magic!? Do you know how unintimidating someone sounds when they are a jadoogar? And the freaking movie won't leave my head. He was an Alien why was he called Jadoo? That means magic. ugh!.

I'm at Mantrik now but I will likely change it to Witch / Wizard / Magician or something. Mantrik doesn't feel like anything. Thought that could be a good thing and allow me to define them however I want.

[forkaround]

Because of this, I check lgbtq percentage in India. It's 17% bitch! 17% of a billion is a shit ton. I was worried for NO REASON!

“but aces are only 1% of the population!”

okay, do you have a friend who:

has green eyes (2% of the world’s population)

has red hair (1-2% of the world’s population)

regularly watches anime (~3.5% of the world’s population)

is vegan (.5-3% of the world’s population)

has a phd (1.1% of the world’s population that has been to university)

knows how to code (.5% of the world’s population)

can dunk a basketball on a regulation sized hoop (1% of the world population)

lives in california (.5% of the world’s population)

the chances are pretty damn good you know someone in an above group. i’ll admit, the numbers aren’t perfect. but just think about it. what are the odds you know someone who is ace?

especially when more and more people are realizing they’re aspec due to more visibility

[lurkingshan]

Hey Shan!!

So, while starting my exploring indian queer media project, I'm also currently working on catching upto several of the japanese qls I've missed out on in the past 3-4 months or so (a list you have indirectly heavily contributed to). But, I'm completely lost as to which shows I should start with, and I also don't have the time to watch them all. So, you're picking them for me instead!

Could you choose any 4 of the shows from your Japanese QL corner for me? I will watch what you tell me to, no further questions asked, I trust your judgement fully.

Thank you!!!

It would be my pleasure, bestie! Of the shows I've been tracking in JQL Corner since late January, here are the four I think are most worth watching (completed shows only):

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. Run, do not walk! I'm not sure if you've seen season 1, but if not definitely start there. Don't be intimidated by the episode count, they are only 15 mins each, so the whole show across both seasons is only 7.5 hours. You can access the files here with excellent subtitles from @furritsubs.

Perfect Propose. A simple story about childhood friends who reunite while one of them is suffering intense burnout and exhaustion due to a toxic work environment. This one is a short and sweet six episodes and you can access it on Gaga.

Ossan's Love Returns. It's a sequel but you don't have to watch the earlier seasons, it gives you all the info you need to follow the story. This show is fucking hilarious, has an amazing cast, some interesting and thought-provoking storylines, and one of my favorite drama couples. You can watch it on Gaga or, preferably, using these files with much better subs from @isaksbestpillow.

Love is Better the Second Time Around. Another six episode shortie, this time a second chance romance between adults who meet again after a bad ending in their teen years. Great characters in this one and a more mature than usual approach to intimacy. You can watch it on Gaga.

[rhianna]

Beast and Man in India by John Lockwood Kipling 

AuthorKipling, John Lockwood, 1837-1911 TitleBeast and Man in India A Popular Sketch of Indian Animals in their Relations with the People LanguageEnglish LoC ClassDS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia LoC ClassQL: Science: Zoology SubjectAnimals -- Folklore SubjectIndia -- Social life and customs SubjectHuman-animal relationships -- India SubjectDomestic animals -- India CategoryText EBook-No.40708 Release DateSep 9, 2012 Copyright StatusPublic domain in the USA.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40708

[spaceexp]

ISRO - PSLV-C48/RISAT-2BR1 launch success

ISRO - Indian Space Research Organisation logo. Dec.12, 2019

PSLV-C48 Liftoff

ISRO’s PSLV-C48 mission, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in “QL” configuration launched RISAT-2BR1 and 9 small satellites from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, on 11 December 2019, at 09:55 UTC (15:25 IST). PSLV-C48 is the second mission of PSLV-QL, a new variant of PSLV with 4 XL strap-on boosters. India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its fiftieth flight (PSLV-C48), successfully launched RISAT-2BR1, an earth observation satellite, along with nine commercial satellites of Israel, Italy, Japan and USA from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.

PSLV-QL launches RISAT-2BR1 and 9 small satellites

PSLV-C48 lifted-off at 1525Hrs (IST) on December 11, 2019 from the First Launch Pad of SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. PSLV-C48 was the 75th launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. This is the 2nd flight of PSLV in 'QL' configuration (with 4 solid strap-on motors).

PSLV-QL

About 16 minutes and 23 seconds after lift-off, RISAT-2BR1 was injected into an orbit of 576 km at an inclination of 37 degree to the equator.

RISAT-2BR1 separation

RISAT-2BR1 is a radar imaging earth observation satellite weighing about 628 kg. The satellite will provide services in the field of Agriculture, Forestry and Disaster Management. The mission life of RISAT-2BR1 is 5 years.

RISAT-2BR1 satellite

9 Commercial satellites were also successfully injected into designated orbit. These satellites were launched under commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Indian Space Research Organisation )ISRO): https://www.isro.gov.in/ Images, Video, Text, Credits: ISRO/SciNews. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

[wandering-along-g]

If you guys would like a fun but thought provoking documentary about being gay in India, I would recommend Gay India Matrimony. It had a lot of conversations about what it means to be queer, the institution of marriage and why people want or don't want marriage equality. It was screened at my university so I'm not sure if it is freely available.

Queer Indian Media: A Compilation

A couple of days ago, @impala124 sent @lurkingshan an ask about the lack of discussion about Queer Indian Media in fandom spaces. I wrote about it here, @neuroticbookworm here, and @waitmyturtles here (both of them have excellent points, I highly recommend you read their posts!). It's become quite apparent that people are willing to watch and engage in discourse about queer Indian media, it's just that the lack of popularity and accessibility makes it harder for people to start. So, I've decided to make a list tracking all of the queer Indian media I know of, and hopefully also any meta/discourse about it, which is an idea I've had floating in my head for months now.

This list is by no means comprehensive, so if you have recs, send them my way! Text me on DM, send an ask, tag me in your posts, whatever. And though it's not possible for me to watch everything on the list, I will be slowly going through as many of these as I can and writing about them, as well as hopefully finding more stuff and easier to access versions for the ones that are harder to access right now. This post is going to be a slow work in progress, but I'm hoping to update it regularly. So, if you'd like me to keep you updated, let me know through the tags/replies and I will tag you in future posts!

I've tagged the people who've recommended certain shows alongside each show. Everything on here is available online. The hyperlinked titles lead you to the media itself, meaning that it's available for free online with subtitles. Other details will be mentioned separately.

Disclaimer: The media I have watched/read have recommendation ratings (which will not always reflect my enjoyment of something, rather are based on how much I'd recommend it). While I did lightly screen everything on here, the criteria was 'has a trailer or otherwise showing queerness to be a central theme in the story' and 'is available online', so take that into account if you decide to pick something up, and definitely watch trailers and/or skim the wikipedia pages beforehand.

Movies

Fire | English | @neuroticbookworm 

Recommendation rating: 8.5/10 A 1996 movie surrounding a lesbian couple packed with commentary on religion, class, purity culture and more. Quick Pitch + Historical Context

Kapoor & Sons | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm

Available on Netflix, Prime, and paid on Youtube and Apple TV

Kaathal-The Core | Malyalam | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on Prime, also available grey without subtitles

Super Deluxe | Tamil | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on a paid streaming service called aha, grey on youtube

Dear Dad | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm 

Geeli Puchi (Ajeeb Dastaans) | Hindi | @blorbingqls @/neuroticbookworm 

Available on Netflix

Cobalt Blue @blorbingqls

Officially on Netflix, also available grey without subtitles

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga | Hindi | @fallsouthwinter @usertoxicyaoi @neuroticbookworm

Available officially on Netflix, so watch there if you can, but can also be found grey in two parts without subtitles

Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish | Bengali | @silverquillsideas @neuroticbookworm 

I believe it's available on prime, but you might need to do some digging. Also available grey on youtube without subtitles (the movie is in part Bengali, part English)

Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan | Hindi | @silverquillsideas @twig-tea @neuroticbookworm

Officially on Amazon, grey on youtube without subtitles

Maja Ma | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @silverquillsideas 

Available on Amazon Prime

Badhaai Do | Hindi

Officially on Netflix, available grey without subtitles

Loev | Hindi

Available on youtube with Spanish (I think?) subtitles

Margarita With A Straw | Hindi

I believe this is a cut version, it is officially on Netflix which is likely the uncut version

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui | Hindi | anon

Available grey without subtitles, officially on Netflix

Amar Prem Ki Prem Kahani | Hindi | @flowerbeasblog @aneechan

Officially on Jio Cinema, also available grey without subtitles

Time Out | Hindi

Available on Netflix

My Brother…Nikhil | Hindi

My Son Is Gay | Tamil

Hindi dub available on youtube without subtitles

Shows

Romil and Jugal | Hindi | @anixknowsnothin

You do need a vpn if you're outside India to watch it with the above link, it's also grey on youtube without subtitles

Recommendation rating: 8.5/10 India's modern gay remake of Bad Buddy, five years before Bad Buddy Random thoughts

The Married Woman | Hindi | @a-not-knowing-bisexual-wizard

Dev DD Season 2 | Hindi

Legitimately no clue whether this and the prev are grey or official

Made in Heaven | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @non-beingnary @neuroticbookworm

Available on Prime

All About Section 377, Still About Section 377 | Hindi

The Story Tales S2 | Gujrati

Insomnia | Hindi

It's a streaming service I've never heard of before, not unlike Gaga, this is one of the darker shows on the list so please do check out the trailer beforehand

Amra 2GayTher | Bengali

Available on two streaming services here and here, both paid

Mini gls from @twig-tea (og post here)

Firsts S3 | @tinyreadinglifelight

Neverland

Maaya 2

Last two eps do not have subtitles but the story is followable

The ‘Other’ Love Story @/silverquillsideas 

Just Another Love Story

Books

Memory of Light

Recommendation Rating: 5/10 A historical book set during the colonial era, the lesbian romance is mostly a subplot that loses it's way towards the end. It's kind of a drag, but the history component is somewhat interesting.

Don't Let Him Know

Recommendation Rating: 7/10 with serious trigger warnings including rape. It's a brutally honest book designed to make the reader uncomfortable, so proceed with caution. I personally liked it quite a lot, but that's majorly because of how authentic the book felt.

Falling Into Place

Recommendation Rating: 7.75/10 A modern lesbian romance that follows similar beats to the typical thai bl/gl. A little underdeveloped in some places, but overall quite good.

My Magical Palace

Cobalt Blue

The Paths Of Marriage

Marriage Of A Thousand Lies