Why you'll see more and more LGBT characters on Asian screens

Television, cinema, and online streaming services in Asia are set to have a QMQ8F=fnH5yn2zsK6c%xv*FeBD$(D$Qn8q*WsPf)5DoDYg5&%xlot more LGBT content, Taiwan-based media entrepreneur Jay Lin told those gathered at the Content Asia Summit in Singapore last week.

RGu9^RDJ2kl6t*p$tDDeqw8bZy56ZJZ%PWpGh@esTBC+9mkzLcWecent and future productions across Taiwan, Thailand, India, and Japan show LGBT content is ever-more popular with the region’s viewers.

"LGBT content has already gone from what was once niche to()wZhbJL7occNA8^TE@qD6pR3nJWp5D33SM7F5NVHx9lG_L#Na now a part of the mainstream” Lin said.

He noted, for exjaiB)Im5C7LRa%MJQKWUFk9H30o3NqY1DxMVIdxuU1&(dlgmG%ample, more than half of the nominations for Best Picture at this years Academy Awards featured an LGBT component.

"This is aspirational for Asia, but there are certain territories where the media content landscape has maQ&6J=Fp+DzwEyLi%4gOv%6MavB8Syeo8Hy0++JUfWPG$%Sb(*mde significant progress in the past several years.”

“Boy Love” or male same-sex romances in Japan and Thailand are booming, Lin noted. The trailer for Thai movie Theory of Love got 1.5 millE8%u_8AATPtS5Ag3Rp2qYSsUZh$tc#REo@87DjH!q0bQR7kzzBion views in one week.

LGBT content is increasingly appearing in television series in IndiaqQ&zM&EUeY=&k&njwcVAsfy3qIe%DNoA2kTJ4TrdpKDS@DvJL# and movies in Taiwan, Lin also explained.

Taiwan in May this year became the first country inwxXtd-XHuJkRPGdZ^2vu2itMXGc@pN(h^SM0^fq92R%T8L7S#s Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. India, meanwhile, decriminalized gay sex.

Both Thailand and Japan, meanwhile, have also seen significant steps towary0nr9_uwkG6lRYlQXQr1j0IkWcE0$Od2MM))&*AW&WEDSuuB0eds equal marriage and other LGBT rights.

Lin also introduced GagaOOLala, Asia’s first LGBT online streammm5rfazO5jg9NPH3NLecEEdJ+URVuvAT=1DCTKrrSafEjwH*@Zing service now making productions available to one third of the world’s population.

He also introduced production house GOL Studios, which has projects on the go across the world from South Korea to the US, Myanmar to GermXD2Q$Drba3JvVhZSPyg_Tf6cuBW&V2=UXiy+@KZnavJ9(u5J#Aany.

Content Asia Summit 2019 bought together the region’s movers and shakers in medWPB2LB2*Mxff9hK#CwvD(g6lX(wOcVP0jV%MUXsuKY8@^yCAbyia production and broadcasting industries.