https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/30/world/asia/the-boyfriend-netflix.html
"Japan is the only country among the world’s wealthiest democracies that has
not legalized same-sex unions. Few celebrities are openly gay. Conservative
groups oppose legislative efforts to protect the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
But now, Netflix is introducing the country’s first same-sex dating reality
series.
Over 10 episodes of “The Boyfriend,” which will be available in 190 countries
beginning on July 9, a group of nine men gather in a luxury beach house outside
Tokyo. The format evokes Japan’s most popular romantic reality show, “Terrace
House,” with its assembly of clean cut and exceedingly polite cast members,
overseen by a panel of jovial commentators.
The vibe is wholesome and mostly chaste. The men, who range in age from 22 to
36, operate a coffee truck during the day and cook dinner at night, with
occasional forays outside for dates. One of the biggest (among very few)
conflicts of the series revolves around the cost of buying raw chicken to make
protein shakes for a club dancer who is trying to maintain his physique. Sex
rarely comes up, and friendship and self-improvement feature as prominently as
romance.
In Japan, the handful of openly gay and transgender performers who regularly
appear on television are typically flamboyant, effeminate comic foils who are
shoehorned into exaggerated stereotypes. With “The Boyfriend,” Dai Ota, the
executive producer, said he wanted to “portray same-sex relationships as they
really are.”
Mr. Ota, who was also a producer of “Terrace House,” which was made by Fuji TV
and licensed and distributed globally by Netflix, said he had avoided “the
approach of ‘let’s include people who cause problems.’”
“The Boyfriend,” he said, represents diversity in another way — with cast
members of South Korean, Taiwanese and multiethnic heritages."
Via
What Could Go Right?: It Ain’t Over till It’s Over
https://theprogressnetwork.org/2024-elections-liberal-democracy/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
