“We see ourselves on screen”: Queer film reception and tomboy identity formation in contemporary China

Abstract This article examines how tomboy-identifying individuals from second-tier Chinese cities negotiate identity, family pressure, queer film reception, and coping practices. It combines semi-structured interviews with 11 participants and contextual semiotic analysis of frequently referenced queer films, drawing on queer theory, gender performativity, symbolic interactionism, and resilience. In this sample, tomboy identity was a context-specific position rather than a synonym for lesbian identity. It was shaped by masculine gender expression, same-sex desire, T/P role expectations, family obligation, and social legibility. The study identifies three overlapping coping orientations: strategic compliance, parallel adaptation, and protective resistance. Participants used films including Yes or No (Saratswadee Wongsompetch, 2010), The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016), Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013), and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019) as symbolic and emotional resources. These films helped them process family pressure and imagine alternative relationships, even as they criticised stereotyped and commercialised queer representation. Derived inductively from participants’ reception narratives, the Tomboy Identity Negotiation and Coping Narrative Model conceptualises identity negotiation as a cyclical process linking family pressure, coping practices, film reception, audience interpretation, and resilient meaning-making.