Dr. Michelle H. S. Ho
Assistant Professor of Feminist and Queer Cultural Studies in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore. Her interests include gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and media and popular cultures in contemporary Asia.
Email: Michelle.ho@nus.edu.sg
Twitter: @michellehsho
Website: michellehsho.com
Dr. Wesley Lim
Lecturer in German Studies in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University in Canberra. His research focuses on the intersection of German Studies, Dance Studies, and Performance Studies.
Email: Wesley.Lim@anu.edu.au
Twitter: @WesleyGrafWald
The 2024 Paris Olympics relocated Olympic viewers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics from the Asia Pacific to Western Europe. Hosting the Games has social, political, and economic implications for the host city, as well as enormous environmental costs. However, other areas remain such as cultural critique of national, and masculine identities, particularly male athletes in expressive sports that are often perceived as feminine, such as figure skating, artistic swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics warrant analysis. Given the relatively recent “Asian turn” in sport, how can we understand the masculinity of elite male Asian athletes in sports often labeled as feminine?
The Asian turn
Since the 2000s, there has been an “Asian turn” in sport, which scholars Jung Woo Lee and Tien-Chin Tan characterize in terms of a rise in the Asia-Pacific region hosting global mega-sport events such as the Olympics, and expanding its sport industry through consumption and labor migration of athletes, and sending its elite athletes to compete as a sign of soft power and display of national identity.
Expanding this concept, we have discussed elsewhere that the Asian turn encompasses athletes of Asian descent, such as the case of Nathan Chen, a United States Chinese American skater and 2022 Beijing Olympics gold medalist in the men’s singles. This draws on broader definitions of “Asia” and “Asian” as beyond the border of specific nations and embracing the shifting cultures of diasporic populations.
Moreover, an Asian turn in sport also denotes increased fandom and representation of Asian athletes in the media, as we have shown with the case of Yuzuru Hanyu, an elite Japanese skater and two-time Olympic gold medalist in the men’s singles. Hanyu has been likened to an anime character, and his well-known love for Winnie the Pooh have appealed to a vast number of fans from all over the world—known as “Fanyus”—who attend all his performances and throw Pooh plush toys on the ice after he performs.
Masculinities and sport
For several decades, numerous scholars have studied the relationship between sport, male athletes, and masculinity, examining their hegemonic masculinity and plural forms of masculinities, drawing on sociologist R.W. Connell’s work. Despite this impressive body of work, little has been written on the masculinities of athletes in expressive sports, such as figure skating, artistic swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics, which are usually (stereotyped as being) dominated by women.
Take, for example, artistic swimming. The Paris Games marks the first time men are allowed to compete in artistic swimming; however, none have qualified. To encourage more boys and men to compete at the elite level, nations need to generate genuine interest in expressive sports. Currently, only a few countries like Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, the U.S., and Mainland China have male swimmers at top international competitions such as the world championships.
Towards the 2026 Winter Olympics
Looking forward to the 2026 Winter Olympics held in the Italian cities of Milano and Cortina d’Ampezzo, we believe the Asian turn has since become normalized in the skating world. Male Asian skaters will continue to emerge on top at major global competitions accompanied by their transnational fanbases and support teams. The popularity of figure skating among Asian fans and spectators will persist alongside the charisma of champions like Chen and Hanyu. With Hanyu recently retired and Chen taking a break from competitive skating to finish college, other skaters are poised to take their place on the podium, including Japanese skater Yuma Kagiyama and U.S. skater Ilia Malinin.
