Popular queerness on Vietnamese prime-time television: gender ambiguity, compliance and compromises

The past two decades have seen a boom of queer media in many Asian countries, and Vietnam is not outside of this wave. This article examines the queer representations of three entertainers featured in three recent popular Vietnamese reality shows: Gil Lê in Sisters Who Make Waves, BB Trần in Brothers Defeat Thousands of Obstacles, and Pháp Kiều in Brothers Say Hi!. These entertainers serve as fascinating case studies for exploring what this paper proposes as non-confrontational ‘popular queerness’ and strategies of resistance through gender ambiguity and fluidity manifested by their playful self-representations, interactions with fellow contestants, and musical stage performances. Employing the conceptual framework of ‘cisnormativity’ and ‘heteronormativity’ (cis-heteronormativity) which explains persistent marginalization of LGBTQ+ people, the paper critically discusses the three entertainers’ queer discursive, bodily, and stylistic self-presentations. It argues that the reality shows provide an enabling space for queer visibility and have the potential to facilitate discussions of queer identities, even though they remain partly constrained by cis-heteronormative norms.