BEIJING - Censors in China targeted effeminate male celebrities and television shows based on web novels on boys' love - a genre depicting blossoming romance between young men - last month as the government continued to deal with a so-called masculinity crisis in the country.
In a meeting on Sept 16, the National Radio and Television Administration urged broadcasters to boycott adaptations of boys' love novels. This came two weeks after censors ordered entertainment shows to firmly reject the "perverse aesthetics" of "niangpao", a derogatory term referring to effeminate behaviour in men.
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