With more than 800 titles in its catalog, GagaOOLala appears to be thriving in its mission to become “gay Netflix,” just a month shy of its second birthday. However, founder Jay Lin (林志杰) says there’s another component of Netflix to emulate — expanding the platform’s original content beyond Taiwan.
“Netflix’s strategy includes finding suitable topics in other countries and empowering local directors to find and tell the stories,” Lin told the Taipei Times.
Last month, GagaOOLala launched its Queer Asia series, an extension of its Queer Taiwan mini-documentaries, which looks at marriage equality as well as other less-explored topics such as drag queens, sexual services for disabled people and same-sex couples raising children. The Hong Kong and Philippines editions are already available for free on GagaOOLala, with Japan and Vietnam coming next.
Photo: PORTICO MEDIA
“We wanted to start with relatively LGBTQ-friendly countries,” Lin says. “We’re not going to go straight to [socially conservative countries] such as Brunei and Malaysia; that will cause us too much trouble.”
PROGRESSIVE SOFT POWER
With homosexuality still illegal in her country, Malaysian director Gan Li-ling (顏莉玲) can only dream of filming Queer Malaysia one day. She has to be discreet while screening her Queer Taiwan and Queer Hong Kong productions back home, mostly relying on invitations from LGBTQ-friendly schools, bookstores and coffee shops.
Photo: PORTICO MEDIA
“I’m always surprised by the variety of people who attend these screenings,” Gan says. “One can only imagine how desperate people are to openly discuss LGBTQ issues in Malaysia.”
Lin says GagaOOLala generates much interest in these conservative countries because as an Internet-streaming-only OTT (over-the-top) media platform, it is free from local censorship laws. Lin says there have been no problems with local governments since GagaOOLala keeps its advertising lowkey and social media-oriented, and also consults with LGBTQ leaders in each target country.
Despite suffering a setback during Saturday’s elections, when voters passed three referendums by anti-marriage equality groups, Taiwan’s progressiveness in LGBTQ issues is an important source of soft power that can potentially influence neighboring countries, Lin says. In addition to the Grand Council of Justice’s ruling for same-sex marriage to become legal by May next year, Lin says the LGBTQ community has relatively high representation in local productions, whether it be a “very gay” movie or inclusion of LGBTQ characters in mainstream productions.
“In many countries, you can’t even have a homosexual minor character,” Lin says.
Through Queer Asia, Lin hopes that people can look beyond their own countries to learn from the different successes and struggles of LGBTQ communities elsewhere. For example, while the LGBTQ community in Hong Kong is less visible and same-sex marriage is still illegal, its Court of Final Appeal ruled in June that immigration authorities should recognize existing same-sex marriages and civil partnerships when it comes to foreigners applying for spousal visas.
BEYOND TAIWAN
After completing the Queer Taiwan series, Gan turned her focus to Hong Kong. Like the Taiwan series, Queer Hong Kong began with an overview episode covering a number of personalities, moving on to the late lesbian pop star Ellen Joyce Loo (盧凱彤) and LGBTQ foreigners, contrasting between Western white-collar workers and Southeast Asian migrant laborers.
Gan says that on the surface, Hong Kong’s LGBTQ scene is pretty similar to Taiwan’s. But due to the lack of democracy in Hong Kong, LGBTQ rights is often not the first priority for social activists there. She also noted that interviews with Taiwanese take a lot longer because they often wear their hearts on their sleeves and speak from a personal angle, while Hong Kong activists are more deliberate and objective.
“The first episode paints a general picture of the scene with local Hong Kong activists, but as we delve into other ethnic groups, viewers start to see the huge contrasts that exist in the same city,” Gan says.
Japan is included because of its close ties with Taiwan, the popularity of its culture in Asia and as a tourist destination. Lin says that Japan is also ahead of Taiwan in certain ways — in 2011, Japan for the first time elected two openly gay male politicians to office.
Since many people are enamored with Japanese culture, Queer Japan looks at subcultures such as “boys love,” a homoerotic genre of manga and anime targeted at women.
As for the Philippines, Lin says it is contradictory — it’s the most Catholic country in Asia, but has a prolific LGBTQ film industry and has many popular LGBTQ celebrities. Meanwhile, Vietnam is an officially atheist country that lifted a same-sex marriage ban in 2015, although it still does not recognize such unions.
Before moving on to the rest of Asia, Lin plans to launch an international crowdsourcing platform for film talent to facilitate more original productions from different countries. His company is also trying to figure out how to bring these documentaries to more mainstream viewers, starting by putting some episodes on YouTube.
“We don’t just want to be an LGBTQ movie platform,” Lin says. “Although we’ll still focus on LGBTQ issues, we hope to get more general interest in these topics. It’s still hard to advertise as many mainstream media outlets are reluctant to offend their investors or business partners. And due to social media algorithms, people who don’t follow LGBTQ issues won’t receive our ads. How do we cross over to the silent majority?”
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and