The production of girls’ love narrative in Couple of Mirrors (2021) - through transmedia storytelling in contemporary China - research article

Aug 24, 2026

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Scholarly discussion of girls’ love (GL) narrative production in mainland China has been limited since the 2010s. This article studies Couple of Mirrors (CM, 2021) as a multimedia storyworld spanning a webtoon, a novel, and a web series. It examines multilevel state regulation of queer content across formats, and applies Henry Jenkins’ transmedia storytelling framework to contrast CM with mainstream BL transmedia stories. Textual and paratextual analysis of producers and fans shows GL elements shaped by market preferences, heteropatriarchal ideologies, and governmental censorship.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

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Introduction

The GL market and media context in mainland China

Couple of Mirrors (CM) as a transmedia case study

Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal [homepage: ](homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccon20)[www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccon20](homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccon20) The production of girls’ love narrative in Couple of Mirrors (2021) through transmedia ﬆorytelling in contemporary China Wenqian Zhang & Peng Qiao To cite this article: Wenqian Zhang & Peng Qiao (2024) The production of girls’ love narrative in Couple of Mirrors (2021) through transmedia storytelling in contemporary China, Continuum, 38:5, 676-690, DOI: 10. 1080/10304312 .2024.2385664 To link to this article: [https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2024.2385664](https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2024.2385664) © 2024 The Author(s) . Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. | Published online: 29 Jul 2024. | | | --- | --- | | | Submit your article to this journal | | | Article views: 2047 | | | View related articles | | View Crossmark data | | Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at [https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccon20](https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccon20) CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 2024, VOL. 38, NO. 5, 676–690 [https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2024.2385664](https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2024.2385664) |
The production of girls’ love narrative in Couple of Mirrors (2021) through transmedia storytelling in contemporary China
Wenqian Zhanga and Peng Qiaob
a Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK; bSchool of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK | | | --- | --- | | ABSTRACT
There has been a relative dearth of scholarly discussions surrounding the production of girls’ love (GL) narratives in mainland China since the 2010s. This article offers an illustrative case study of a successful GL multimedia storyworld, Couple of Mirrors (CM), which unfolds across awebtoon, a novel, and a web series. First, this article scrutinizes the multilevel state regulation on queer content creation in different media formats. Second, we draw on Henry Jenkins’ canonical conceptualisation of“transmedia storytelling” to delineate the ways that the production of CM differs from the mainstream BL transmedia stories. Through a textual and paratextual analysis of official producers’ and fans’ participation, we argue that CM’s transmedia storytelling creates explicit GL elements through negotiation between market preferences, heteropatriarchal ideologies, and governmental censorship. In doing so, we show that CM represents a successful non-heteronormative cultural commodity within the mainland Chinese media market. | ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 13 March 2023 Accepted 21 July 2024
KEYWORDS
Couple of Mirrors (CM); girls’love (GL); gender and sexuality; transmedia storytelling; compensatory relationship; audience participation | | Introduction
This article examines the creation and consumption of girls’ love (GL) narrative in mainland China media market in the post-2010 years, when an abundance of queer Chinese media and pop cultural content has been produced due to the rapid expansion of digital media and the influence of transnational queer culture. Among these non-heteronormative cultural commodities, boys’ love (BL, or danmei耽美; male same-sex romance) novels and drama adaptations have achieved continuous popularity and attracted mainstream attention. However, Chinese GL literature has remained at a lower level of visibility (Zhao and Ng 2022, 303), and its drama adaptations have remained largely non-existent. Against this backdrop, this article investigates the GL product Couple of Mirrors (Shuang Jing双镜, 2021, hereafter CM), which was released as a webtoon (a type of digital comic that can be read vertically by scrolling down on a smartphone or computer), a novel and a live-action w

FAQs

What is the central subject of the article?

The article analyzes how girls’ love (GL) narrative is produced through the transmedia storyworld of Couple of Mirrors (2021), released as a webtoon, a novel, and a live-action web series.

How does the article frame transmedia storytelling?

It uses Henry Jenkins’ conceptualization of transmedia storytelling to explain how CM’s production differs from mainstream BL transmedia stories.

What factors shape the GL elements in Couple of Mirrors?

The study argues that explicit GL elements emerge through negotiation among market preferences, heteropatriarchal ideologies, and governmental censorship, supported by textual and paratextual analysis of producers and fans.

Aug 24, 2026

Upload by Eliana