(SCMP) From hit movies to high-rating television series and reality shows,
xiao xian rou , or toy boy – mainland internet slang for young, good-looking male actors – are dominating Chinese screens.
Many now rank in the first tier of mainland stars and charge tens of millions of yuan for a single movie.
Experts say the “toy boy” era began because entertainment companies especially targeted female fans in their 20s.
Unlike male idols two decades ago, such as Hong Kong’s “four heavenly kings” – Andy Lau Tak-wah, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Leon Lai Ming and Aaron Kwok Fu-shing– who won people’s hearts not only through their looks but also through their acclaimed singing and acting skills, the talents of the current of top male stars have been widely panned.
“The success of ‘toy boy’ is ascribed to the reality that this society merely values beautiful faces,” said Professor Gu Jun, a sociologist from Shanghai University. “TV producers know that good-looking actors can attract an audience in three seconds, while other actors who are good at acting but don’t have charming faces can only attract an audience in three minutes.”
For the past couple of years, internet users have been using the phrase “xiao xian rou”to refer to their favourite young male stars. xiao means the stars are young, around 25 years old, xian refers to their handsome faces and lack of love affair scandals, and rou refers to their muscular bodies, giving the impression of health and vigour.
Bankable xiao xian rouinclude Lu Han, Kris Wu Yifan, Yang Yang, Li Yifeng, Zhang Yixing and Xu Weizhou. Except for Li, who was born in 1987, the others were all born in the 1990’s. Boy band TFBoys’ three members, aged 17 or 18, are also among the front runners, while Hong Kong singer and actor William Chan also has countless fans on the mainland.
A survey by Shanghai-based Lemon Film Media Company found that because TV series were nowadays viewed more online than on TV sets, the key to success was attracting young, female viewers, the Chinese-language Bloomberg Businessweek magazine reported.
Wang Bei, senior supervisor at the entertainment industry consultancy Beijing iMiner Data Technology, told the South China Morning Post that almost every movie and TV series had opted for xiao xian rou.
“In the past, historical or spy dramas preferred to use experienced actors who were not necessarily good-looking, but had proven performance capabilities,” Wang said. “But now there are also these young male actors appearing in these types of dramas and sometimes directors will even add characters or amend scripts for the sake of these stars as they can bring a spike in page views.”
Yang Ling, an associate professor at Xiamen University who has been studying the psychology of mainland fans for a long time, said the influence of South Korean culture had led people to prefer “gentle”, androgynous male stars, whereas many years ago they favoured entertainers with strong masculine features.
“Some actors who dress up androgynously and appear not typically male or female are quite magnetic to fans,” she said. “I’ve heard some fans describe their idols as ‘beautiful’ and ‘enchanting’, words usually used to describe women.”
A Lu fan once told her she felt he was like an “innocent and lovely” animal and she was eager to cradle him in her arms.
Lu, Wu and Zhang were former members of Korean-Chinese boy band EXO before they started to focus on the Chinese market.
Yang Ling said the social status of Chinese women was higher than ever due to the effects of the former one-child policy and they were more confident than their predecessors. Many impulsively wanted to protect men they views as cute and loveable, which was the reason toy boyhad become stars.
A 22-year-old Yang Yang fan , who asked to be referred to as Qiqi, was among tens of thousands who flocked to Beijing Workers’ Stadium last September to celebrate the actor’s 25th birthday.
“I grabbed a ticket on the internet and took a train from Changchun in Jilin, where I study, to Beijing to join the big party,” the Northeast Normal University student said. “The stadium was crowded with fans and it was such a crazy night, like a dream. When we all sang chorus with him, it was one of the most touching moments in my life.”
The huge popularity of such actors has kept them extremely busy, with some said to spend as little as 15 days working on a TV series, despite being paid the most.
Directors have complained they have to rely on stand-ins for their absent stars, with mainland media reporting that toy boy just shoot a series of facial expressions, which are transposed onto the stand-ins during the editing process.
Established stars such as actress Song Dandan and actor Chen Daoming have accused the toy boy of not respecting their profession.
Industry analyst Wang said the toy boy’s performing skills were generally substandard. “They should hone their skills, otherwise their careers won’t last long,” she said.
Source: South China Morning Post by Alice Yan
