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Gay Sexuality in Singaporean Chinese Popular Culture

Where Have All the Boys Gone?

Division of English at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

In offering a selective survey of gay sexuality in Singaporean Chinese popular culture, particularly television, film, and theater, this article examines how the notion of the liminal functions as an effective critical trope to engage with a shifting presence/absence materiality of gayness in these representations. It also argues that this presence/absence is a consequence of the concentrically circular hierarchy of cultural production and consumption created by the Singapore media censorship model. The contradictions embedded in censorship practices and gay cultural representations ultimately emerge out of Singapore's desire to present itself as a culturally open and vibrant society in its bid to be part of the global capitalist network, while the country continues to hold onto its archaic antisodomy laws inherited from the British Indian Penal Code.

Key Words: gay sexuality • Singaporean Chinese • popular culture • censorship • television • film • theater

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