Queer screens with Chinese characteristics? Reimagining queer Chinese screen studies in the twenty-first century

This introductory essay briefly reviews existing academic understandings and sociocultural imbrications of queer representations of and research on contemporary Chinese-language media and culture. We propose to conceptualize ‘queer Chinese screen studies’ as a critical field of inquiry to interrogate the limitations of identity-politics-based and media-text-focused Chinese cinema studies and queer cinema studies. We emphasize the proliferated forms and intersections of queerness, Chineseness, and screen cultures situated in specific historical, social, cultural, and industrial contexts in the twenty-first century. The seven articles included in this special issue uncover the multiple forms of presence, interconnection, and significance concerning identity-norm-contesting practices, performances, embodiments, and desires, made possible through the production, distribution, regulation, adaptation, mediation, and convergence of queer Chinese screens in the new millennium. These articles make a strong case for a queer Chinese screen studies that acknowledges the complexities and ambivalences of contemporary Chinese screen cultures as constantly oscillating between and negotiating with both queerness and normativities. © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.