ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 analyzes sharing gender imagination in East Asia. This chapter explains that the fandom for East Asian popular culture is mostly comprised of female fans over males, and thus the representation of “masculinity” in the contents is directly subject to the female audience’s feedback. The fandom for East Asian cultural products has been increasing on a global scale through gaining more audiences in support of their cultural resources, such as Japan’s animation (manga) and the Korean Wave’s celebrity-oriented music, drama, and movies. Thus, the scale of East Asian pop culture is not only limited to the region, but on a global scale through the Internet-related digital platforms. This chapter aims to find characteristics of imagined gender identities portrayed in East Asian pop culture, and ultimately to map out the possibilities for East Asian pop culture to reshape the existing fabric of cultural identity on gender and race.
