Masculinity in crisis? Reticent / han-xu politics against danmei and male effeminacy

This article examines the tension between public gender expressions and official regulations in mainland China. Utilizing a critical discourse analysis, we investigate a transition in state-initiated criticism and censorship against the danmei genre and male effeminacy. Focusing on the pandemic period, we use official regulations and state media feature articles as data, ‘reticent / han-xu’ pol- itics as a grounding theoretical basis, and statements from mainstream media platforms as second- ary resources. We argue that han-xu politics functions as the Chinese party-state’s strategic response to a perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’. They first invisibilize and marginalize soft masculin- ities, and if this is not effective, then suppress and prohibit cultural forms that violate hegemonic masculinity, which works to perpetuate the hetero-patriarchal social-familial system.