Yaoi entertainment media, a popular form of homosexual romantic narrative, shares a common taboo with LGBTQ entertainment media from the perspective of traditional social values. Even in Thailand, often referred to as a "gay paradise," Y-entertainment media faced similar challenges. Thai Y-entertainment media originated in the 1990s, influenced by the Japanese Boys Love (BL) . Television series, or “Y-Serie”, have achieved significant growth since the late 2010s. However, in the initial period, Y-entertainment media struggled as an underground culture. During the 2000s, Y-entertainment media faced severe suppression, with the censorship of Yaoi manga becoming a public scandal. Dispite this, few studies have examined the context of how Thai society suppressed Y-entertainment media and why this repression was eventually relaxed in the 2010s. This study employed historical research to analyze documents that appeared in public during the 1990s-2010s, including newspapers, manga magazines, and internet sources, to clarify changes in the censorship of Y-entertainment media in Thailand.

The findings reveal that while Thai society began to tolerate gay and lesbian identities in the late 1990s, the mid-2000s suppression of Yaoi manga arose from concerns over erotic content rather than homosexuality alone. Anather factor was the media format at that time. Yaoi manga was perceived as a foreign (Japanese) culture, invoking nationalist sentiments. Relaxation of censorship since the 2010s coincided with the transition of Y-entertainment media from manga to novels and eventually to TV series. This shift was likely supported by fandom advocacy, evolving media industry dynamics, and broader political and economic changes.

Authors:
Krittaphol Viphaveekul, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

About the Presenter(s)
Krittaphol Viphaveekul, Researcher, institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Japanese-Thai Publishing-Animation-BL studies

Additional website of interest
http://www.ias.chula.ac.th/en/personnel/krittaphol-viphaveekul-ph-d/?pt=40

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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