Keep Silent, Keep Sinful: Mainstream Newspapers’ Representation of Gay Men and Lesbians in Contemporary China

Abstract

From a critical discourse analysis of all gay-related news reports in five mainstream Beijing newspapers between 2010 and 2015, this article distils four dominant categories of images of gays and lesbians represented by the news media: gays as crime victims because of their presumed inherent weakness, as violent subjects, as enemies of traditional values and as a source of social instability. This means that despite legal and official recognition of homosexuality in China, it is still tainted with sin and perversion in the mainstream public discourse. The way in which the Chinese news media and journalists construct the image of the homosexual person notably differs from that in the West. Newspapers treat gay men and lesbians separately, with the former deemed socially destabilising elements of violence and promiscuity and the latter seen as closer to ‘normal’ heterosexuals in the way they think and act. In addition, Chinese news reports almost completely silence gay people who are rarely interviewed, and the few who are see only their expressions of shame or regret published. This article discusses and interprets such discursive strategies within the specific sociocultural context of Chinese society.