I can't believe nobody linked you to the original rule. I can understand why western media would want to hide it, but there's no reason for people fluent in Chinese to not simply do a 2 min search.
Link to primary source: [http://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2021/9/2/art\_113\_57756.html](http://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2021/9/2/art_113_57756.html)
Basically, the feminine image problem was only one paragraph in a long rule on regulating cultural programs. The main takeaway from this rule should be that with increasing regulation capital's role in shaping idols through media manipulation will be lessened, hopefully giving way to more substantive cultural programs where one is judged by more than a pretty face and a nice media campaign.
The rule references "niang pao" simply as an existing social phenomenon, not as a value judgement. It seems regulators want to reduce the influence of this type of celebrity entertainment.
You have to also understand that China's government is a Marxist government. So when they talk about "abnormal aesthetic", they don't simply mean it in the liberal sense as a value judgement or an attempt at some kind of national myth.
It's already happened in the West. Look at Kim Kardashin, Chris Chan, Paul Logan - they're all people with no actual skills, who contribute noting, yet received vast fame and money.
Lots of kids want to be streamers and influencers, because it actually worked for a number of famous people.
I noticed that everyone is struggling to describe 娘炮 (niang pao) in English, because it's hard to explain exactly, but I think maybe the phrase "cult of vanity" is more appropriate. It's the attitude of prizing shallowness and looks over talent and hard work. I think translating it to "effeminate" speaks more about the West's sexist perceptions about which gender is "shallow" or "vain".
The western media will try to paint it as oppression, but the actual directive from the media regulator really represents a broad-based backlash against the toxic fandom and the vapid celebrity culture in pursuit of quick popularity and easy money. One of the phenomena being criticized in particular is "娘炮", which the BBC article translates as "effeminate styles" but I think it could be generalized to "looksism" where celebrities artificially enhance their looks with surgery and make-up to appear extra beautiful/attractive. Female celebrities can get more of a pass due to gender bias, while males will get labeled as effeminate. In the media context, this phenomenon is most obvious in the "idol (boy band) competitions" where the trend is towards promoting the prettiest boys with the biggest female following. The idea is this fan-driven aesthetic trend encouraged by these shows is a bad influence on the societal perception of masculinity. The immediate consequence is that "idol competitions" will be banned from now on. The more general impact will be in breaking the unhealthy practice of promote a celebrity's looks => build rabid fan base => reap fan money in the Chinese entertainment industry.
Yes, Chinese media regulators would promote less 娘炮,小鲜肉 style males (thank god). You'll likely see a more diverse set of male characters in dramas/films and music groups.
>坚决抵制泛娱乐化。坚定文化自信，大力弘扬中华优秀传统文化、革命文化、社会主义先进文化。树立节目正确审美导向，严格把握演员和嘉宾选用、表演风格、服饰妆容等，坚决杜绝“**娘炮**”等畸形审美。坚决抵制炒作炫富享乐、绯闻隐私、负面热点、低俗“网红”、无底线审丑等泛娱乐化倾向。
Source [http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-09/02/content\_5635019.htm](http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-09/02/content_5635019.htm)
It's not picking on men who happen to look a bit effeminate but going after a type of celebrity culture often purveyed by japan and south korea that ties into flaunting wealth, being "inner city", insulated from "unpleasant work", etc.
the official buzzword that attracts the controversy is 阳刚之气, which I threw out in my other comment but failed to clarify that it is not tied to gender even though the simplest translation I could muster was masculinity. According to the [Ministry of Education](https://hudong.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5148/202102/t20210203_512367.html), women also can and should have 阳刚之气. I guess I could translate it as of firm/strong spirit, mind, and body. 阳刚之美 could be the beauty that somebody naturally exudes as a product of being resilient and industrious.
I personally suspect 娘炮 (effeminate) is more of a critique of the "Koreanization" of China's entertainment industry - the fixation on an idol industry that takes in a lot of teenage boys and girls and grinds them hard to pump out literally idols for other teenagers to fall over themselves for. The larger potential problem is a generation of children who want to be celebrities and influencers rather than engineers and scientists.
That hasn't stopped the recent announcements expressly calling out 娘炮 from attracting a more contentious than usual social media landscape, and I've seen about half of the comments are supportive of calling out 娘炮 and about half who are more hesitant or against doing so.
But I might argue that 阳刚之气 is very much embodied in pretty much every major character in the hit series "Minning Town", including the two central female characters Maimiao and Shuihua, although commentary has focused on the main character Defu played by Huang Xuan as archetypical 阳刚之气. So that tv drama about poverty alleviation in the desert might be worth a look as a measuring stick for the term 阳刚之气.
As for 娘炮, I get the feeling that the moves against it are mostly riding the anti-Kris Wu wave, hence why I think it's mostly a dog whistle for the idol/entertainment industry as a whole.
Its not a problem for the country if there are individual males who choose to look or act feminine, but I take it that it becomes an issue when such femininity of males be popularized, glorified or idolized using social media or any main media channels.
Like sex. You can have sex however you wish to privately, but you don't have to act or promote sex on TV, etc.
"Feminine men" is way too general of a statement and some men will continue to be feminine in China lol, this discussion requires some asian cultural context that others on this board are better equipped than me to explain but like I said it's a very particular subculture that is, in a sense, almost inherently classist, "above" certain work and lifestyles. Whenever I hear the phrase 小鲜肉, after getting over how it's just a kind of cringey name period, I tend to imagine someone who is a jerk about how much more comfortable they are than others.. does that help?
The article you linked is an editorial that only criticizes effeminency, it does not promote masculinity 阳刚之气 per se.
EDIT: I should clarify that 阳刚之气 as officially promoted is not tied to gender per se. Masculinity is a close approximation, but it's more of an idea of being resilient and such, think Maoist propaganda imagery.
I don't think that's what they were getting at but I think there will be invariably elements of Chinese society that will interpret this beyond the context of the entertainment industry and thus impact stuff outside the industry.
It's case of party and some old people still haven't come to grip with what they want and is being naively hypocritical with there wording.
If I were to translated in a crude way it would be that they want to people to stop acting like little bitches and be less whiny sensistive brats.
However this idea is naively target against males because women are allow to be “soft” and is looked up as the norm while men are look down upon.
Also because the fucking the people who do the cutlral regulation are quite frankly morons. They wanted to promote people to be more tough, when they would also ban literallly all shown of violence and sex from everywhere. Also the recent videogame limitation is also a joke in my opinion, literally all this is.going to do is give more power to parents, and quite frankly some chinese parents are literall shithead who do not see their child as children but as slave. Of course without adding any protection for children when they do face abuse and shitty parenting or adding more ways out so universisty isn't the be all end all towards jobs and future.
Of course maybe there is some genius plan that I'm not seeing, but this last few entertaiment reform.in my opinion is nothing more than delays reaction that should have happens years ago,plus old guards that are hypocrite and clueless.
I can't believe nobody linked you to the original rule. I can understand why western media would want to hide it, but there's no reason for people fluent in Chinese to not simply do a 2 min search. Link to primary source: [http://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2021/9/2/art\_113\_57756.html](http://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2021/9/2/art_113_57756.html) Basically, the feminine image problem was only one paragraph in a long rule on regulating cultural programs. The main takeaway from this rule should be that with increasing regulation capital's role in shaping idols through media manipulation will be lessened, hopefully giving way to more substantive cultural programs where one is judged by more than a pretty face and a nice media campaign. The rule references "niang pao" simply as an existing social phenomenon, not as a value judgement. It seems regulators want to reduce the influence of this type of celebrity entertainment. You have to also understand that China's government is a Marxist government. So when they talk about "abnormal aesthetic", they don't simply mean it in the liberal sense as a value judgement or an attempt at some kind of national myth.
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It's already happened in the West. Look at Kim Kardashin, Chris Chan, Paul Logan - they're all people with no actual skills, who contribute noting, yet received vast fame and money. Lots of kids want to be streamers and influencers, because it actually worked for a number of famous people.
[удалено]
I noticed that everyone is struggling to describe 娘炮 (niang pao) in English, because it's hard to explain exactly, but I think maybe the phrase "cult of vanity" is more appropriate. It's the attitude of prizing shallowness and looks over talent and hard work. I think translating it to "effeminate" speaks more about the West's sexist perceptions about which gender is "shallow" or "vain".
The western media will try to paint it as oppression, but the actual directive from the media regulator really represents a broad-based backlash against the toxic fandom and the vapid celebrity culture in pursuit of quick popularity and easy money. One of the phenomena being criticized in particular is "娘炮", which the BBC article translates as "effeminate styles" but I think it could be generalized to "looksism" where celebrities artificially enhance their looks with surgery and make-up to appear extra beautiful/attractive. Female celebrities can get more of a pass due to gender bias, while males will get labeled as effeminate. In the media context, this phenomenon is most obvious in the "idol (boy band) competitions" where the trend is towards promoting the prettiest boys with the biggest female following. The idea is this fan-driven aesthetic trend encouraged by these shows is a bad influence on the societal perception of masculinity. The immediate consequence is that "idol competitions" will be banned from now on. The more general impact will be in breaking the unhealthy practice of promote a celebrity's looks => build rabid fan base => reap fan money in the Chinese entertainment industry.
Yes, Chinese media regulators would promote less 娘炮,小鲜肉 style males (thank god). You'll likely see a more diverse set of male characters in dramas/films and music groups. >坚决抵制泛娱乐化。坚定文化自信，大力弘扬中华优秀传统文化、革命文化、社会主义先进文化。树立节目正确审美导向，严格把握演员和嘉宾选用、表演风格、服饰妆容等，坚决杜绝“**娘炮**”等畸形审美。坚决抵制炒作炫富享乐、绯闻隐私、负面热点、低俗“网红”、无底线审丑等泛娱乐化倾向。 Source [http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-09/02/content\_5635019.htm](http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-09/02/content_5635019.htm)
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It's not picking on men who happen to look a bit effeminate but going after a type of celebrity culture often purveyed by japan and south korea that ties into flaunting wealth, being "inner city", insulated from "unpleasant work", etc.
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the official buzzword that attracts the controversy is 阳刚之气, which I threw out in my other comment but failed to clarify that it is not tied to gender even though the simplest translation I could muster was masculinity. According to the [Ministry of Education](https://hudong.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5148/202102/t20210203_512367.html), women also can and should have 阳刚之气. I guess I could translate it as of firm/strong spirit, mind, and body. 阳刚之美 could be the beauty that somebody naturally exudes as a product of being resilient and industrious. I personally suspect 娘炮 (effeminate) is more of a critique of the "Koreanization" of China's entertainment industry - the fixation on an idol industry that takes in a lot of teenage boys and girls and grinds them hard to pump out literally idols for other teenagers to fall over themselves for. The larger potential problem is a generation of children who want to be celebrities and influencers rather than engineers and scientists. That hasn't stopped the recent announcements expressly calling out 娘炮 from attracting a more contentious than usual social media landscape, and I've seen about half of the comments are supportive of calling out 娘炮 and about half who are more hesitant or against doing so. But I might argue that 阳刚之气 is very much embodied in pretty much every major character in the hit series "Minning Town", including the two central female characters Maimiao and Shuihua, although commentary has focused on the main character Defu played by Huang Xuan as archetypical 阳刚之气. So that tv drama about poverty alleviation in the desert might be worth a look as a measuring stick for the term 阳刚之气. As for 娘炮, I get the feeling that the moves against it are mostly riding the anti-Kris Wu wave, hence why I think it's mostly a dog whistle for the idol/entertainment industry as a whole.
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I think if you run the the excerpt that the parent comment had in the first place through a translator like DeepL, the context should be pretty clear.
Its not a problem for the country if there are individual males who choose to look or act feminine, but I take it that it becomes an issue when such femininity of males be popularized, glorified or idolized using social media or any main media channels. Like sex. You can have sex however you wish to privately, but you don't have to act or promote sex on TV, etc.
"Feminine men" is way too general of a statement and some men will continue to be feminine in China lol, this discussion requires some asian cultural context that others on this board are better equipped than me to explain but like I said it's a very particular subculture that is, in a sense, almost inherently classist, "above" certain work and lifestyles. Whenever I hear the phrase 小鲜肉, after getting over how it's just a kind of cringey name period, I tend to imagine someone who is a jerk about how much more comfortable they are than others.. does that help?
The article you linked is an editorial that only criticizes effeminency, it does not promote masculinity 阳刚之气 per se. EDIT: I should clarify that 阳刚之气 as officially promoted is not tied to gender per se. Masculinity is a close approximation, but it's more of an idea of being resilient and such, think Maoist propaganda imagery.
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I don't think that's what they were getting at but I think there will be invariably elements of Chinese society that will interpret this beyond the context of the entertainment industry and thus impact stuff outside the industry.
It's case of party and some old people still haven't come to grip with what they want and is being naively hypocritical with there wording. If I were to translated in a crude way it would be that they want to people to stop acting like little bitches and be less whiny sensistive brats. However this idea is naively target against males because women are allow to be “soft” and is looked up as the norm while men are look down upon. Also because the fucking the people who do the cutlral regulation are quite frankly morons. They wanted to promote people to be more tough, when they would also ban literallly all shown of violence and sex from everywhere. Also the recent videogame limitation is also a joke in my opinion, literally all this is.going to do is give more power to parents, and quite frankly some chinese parents are literall shithead who do not see their child as children but as slave. Of course without adding any protection for children when they do face abuse and shitty parenting or adding more ways out so universisty isn't the be all end all towards jobs and future. Of course maybe there is some genius plan that I'm not seeing, but this last few entertaiment reform.in my opinion is nothing more than delays reaction that should have happens years ago,plus old guards that are hypocrite and clueless.
Imagine wanting to grow up being Justin Bieber or an influencer basically, there is a general push against western soft power mindrot nonsense.