동아시아 SF X BL 서사의 트랜스-휴머니즘적 상상력과 젠더⋅섹슈얼리티 실험

Abstract

This study is part of an attempt to grasp the popularization of BL (Boys’ Love) culture as a subculture trend, a kind of Trans-East Asian cultural phenomenon. Along with the changes in the contexts surrounding BL culture, BL culture moves its ground from exclusive enthusiast fandom community to more open and public popular culture market. With increasing popularity, BL is rapidly expanding its boundary and influence in terms of contents, genre, channel, and related industrial ecosystem. Among various aspect of genre expansion of BL, this study focuses on the ‘BL + X (or X + BL)’, the combination of BL with other genre elements. This study gives close attention to the combination of BL and SF. SF is gaining a whole new vitality and strength in line with the rise of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Recently, it is recognizable that the combination of these two genres has been frequent and vigorous. The vigorous combination of SF and BL seems to be due to the possibility of maximizing complementary synergy. In order to embrace BL, SF is dismantling the existing way of existence of ‘human’ and more boldly developing trans-humanistic imagination about the ‘not real but possible’ way of ‘human’ existence. Meanwhile, BL is more aggressively practicing the experiments about gender and sexuality in the world SF make possible, in which it is free from various existing norms (especially the gender norms). Erotic coupling between male figures (boys or men), the most essential element of BL culture, is bound to face various ethical challenges in real world. To avoid or neutralize these ethical challenges, BL combines with SF. This is because it enables the expansion of the ‘playground’ itself or the setting of a completely new version of it. In other words, the combination of SF and BL pushes the boundaries of subversive thinking inherent to the two genres to the very limit and enables a new imagination of humans and the world surrounding.