Hello Dear Reader,
I am but a simple girl, a simple girl who loves girls and especially girls loving other girls. I would love nothing more than to tell you all about queer media and the various form it takes, thus here I am at your disposal to direct you to things I deeply love. Our group affords me the chance to talk about any type of queer media but my favorite by far is the women’s version of Boys’ Love: Girls’ Love.
Girls’ Love is a genre of media focusing on close relationships between girls and women. Traditionally, Girls’ Love and Boys’ Love refers to Japanese works of media because the terms originate from Japanese media. Boys’ Love was first used in a magazine as a Japenese version of the English words (ボーイズ ラブ, bōizu rabu) to give a distinct name to the the variety of works focusing on gay male relationships. Eventually, publishers of magazines focusing on close women’s relationships picked up on the term and started to use Girls’ Love (ガールズラブ, gāruzu rabu) as their version.
Both terms have become genres in their own right that have far outgrown their Japanese origin. Japan continues to produce plenty of BL and GL, but as such stories became very popular in the surrounding world other producers of gay media have started to label their work BL/GL as well. There isn’t a clear line between BL/GL and other gay media, as early BL literature fans (though they wouldn’t have had that term yet) would use specific terms to describe Japanese authors and Oscar Wilde in the same breath, but fans tend to use the word to describe media from countries where the term is commonly used and not western productions.
The white lily is a common symbol of the Girl’s Love genre
Types of Girls’ Love
Before we get in depth with the history of Girls’ Love, we should take a moment to appreciate how varied Girls’ Love can be in content. GL’s focus on close relationships is not limited to romance or sex, GL can be about any sort of intimacy. It also isn’t necessarily about children, girls is used here along the line of a “girl’s night” except it is about their love for each other. A lot of stories that are not written specifically to be GL will often contain GL tropes as a theme. This includes sitcom-esque stories of girls getting through daily life, stories of girls playing sports together, coming of age stories that focus on groups of girls, dramatic stories that focus mainly on girls, and pretty much any other story that features a homosocial environment or an especially right knit group of girls.
The History of Girls’ Love
Girls’ Love also exists across many types of media. The first medium to have stories labeled as GL was comics, but there are a number of novels that fit the bill before the term was made and is considered something of a progenitor or a distinct genre depending on how you ask. These stories were called “Class S” stories.
Class S Stories and how they lead to modern GL
Yoshiya Nobuko, a prominent author of the original Class S genre who wrote “Flower Tales” and is the inspiration for a lot of modern Girls’ Love
Class S describes a genre of stories that focus on emotionally intense and physically platonic relationships, usually between two students at an all-girl school. Class S stories always end with separation because of a contemporary belief that same-sex love was normal and temporary before you found your place in society in a heterosexual marriage. They were very popular at the beginning of the 20th century but were eventually banned, along with male-female romance, in girl’s magazines by the government in 1936. While the ban didn’t last terribly long, Class S literature had waned in popularity as schools were no longer forced to be single sex and the social phenomenon became rarer outside of fiction.
Class S fiction did eventually make a comeback by inspiring classic lesbian novels in Japan such as The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us (Maria-sama ga Miteru ) and other modern works starting close to the turn of the 21st Century. The legacy of Class S fiction is mixed, it has either contributed or reflected a prevailing attitude in some people that queerness is phase that is fine for a bit but negative as a life direction. People also criticize that such depictions of lesbian love as completely chaste may create a false impression that queer people aren’t allowed to be shown as sexual the same way that heteronormative romances often are. Others praise it as being a way for the lesbian author to show intimate relationships between girls in a time where more overt depictions certainly would have been banned even more quickly than Class S was at the time.
Personally, I really enjoy such stories. While I think queer people should be sexually liberated, focusing on an intimate friendship can focus a different kind of intimacy that isn’t typically given the spotlight. Especially because the cusp between friendship and romance is such a common subject for romance! Having a story really home in on that area of uncertainty and tension can be an interesting subject to base a story around.
The Dark Age of GL
The next major change for lesbian media was the so-called “Dark Age” of the 70’s and 80’s. It was called this by Yuri Shimai magazine, one of the earliest magazines focused on the GL genre, because there were very few works and most of them focused on tragedy. Lesbian media was making a comeback in the Japanese comics world very slowly, but it was in a position similar to American cinema at points: showing gay characters with a happy ending was not socially acceptable. In America, there were times when films could not show happy gay characters or the media would be censored from releasing at all, admittedly I am less familiar with this era in part because American media has enough examples of tragic gay lives that I don’t usually enjoy media where that’s the sole focus. Japan did not have such laws and there are several theories as to the cause of this phenomenon, but what brought it about this was the first major type of lesbian story besides Class S.
GL enters the Mainstream
This era saw several important works of mainstream media that center relationships between girls and are considered genre classics. The most well known are Revolutionary Girl Utena and Sailor Moon, these series marked a turning point where relationships between girls were important in major hit animations that weren’t specifically written to exclusively be romance stories. There was definitely plenty of romance in them as major factors, but the plot hinged on so much more than just relationships and these gay characters were allowed to be heroines in their stories. The change is significant not just because of the popularity, but also because lesbian representation was allowed to leave the realm of tragedy.
GL continues to grow and expand
In the early 21st century publishers noticed growing a growing trend of interest in media about homosociality and homosexuality and started publishing magazines centered on them, which is where the term Girls’ Love finally came about. From that point Girls’ Love has continued to expand as a genre. While romances focused stories were the norm for awhile, in this period the settings and themes began to broaden to the point that there are quite a number of series focusing on things besides the romance itself or allowing the romance to develop naturally alongside other events.
GL in the modern day and beyond
As GL series grow and diversified they also became even more mainstream in terms of readership. GL stories grew to be part of pretty much every genre and even major Japanese comics publishers have begun to publish GL content in the US as well. With the three biggest publishers working to create media for a specific niche, it is impossible to deny that GL has become a hit.
Why should you care?
The are plenty of reasons to love good stories, but here are few more specific reasons to enjoy what Girls’ Love has to offer.
A wikipedia example manga. It illustrates some stuff that’s very common in the Girls’ Love genre: Girls palling around together and focusing on their antics.
They are Filled with female protagonists
Girls’ Love is about more than just romance, it is about all sorts of close relationships that girls hold with each other. Personally, I love a good romance myself and usually want my Girls’ Love to have some explicit romance, but the variety present in Girls’ Love means that stories don’t always center on the romance part if that isn’t your favorite genre. Want a sports series with extremely close friendships and a little romance, or how about a post-apocalyptic world where two girls explore the ruins and think about the past? Basically, if you like a genre of story and want a story in that genre filled with girls, Girls’ Love has you covered.
They have Characters that are full of life
The focus on intercharacter relationships mean a lot of characters get fleshed out. After all, how can you write a story about characters without knowing the characters? This is more of an anecdotal observation on my part, but the character writing in these stories tend to be really great whether they are going for light and breezy
They go a ton of places that US queer media often doesn’t
This has to do with what I said about genre before, a lot of US media about LGBT people tends to be in very realistic settings. There may be drama or elevated reality, but settings such as fantasy or historical fiction have a lot less entries that focus on queer people specifically. Girls’ Love does not have this focus on realism and you can find stories in pretty much any genre that feature lesbian women in love with each other.
They offer a type of relationship seen less often in US media
Girls’ Love can often focus less on the sexual and relationship aspects of love. I love that LGBT media in the US is so sexually liberated and grounded so that we can see queer people’s lives on screen without creators feeling held back, but sometimes focusing on love between friends and powerful love between girls who don’t “make it official” can fulfill a need for seeing aspects of relationships that you can’t by focusing on explicit romance. Sometimes you just need to see some girls start a band together while blush as they bump into and process their feelings for each other but not worry about all the complications a realistic romance brings.
Future Programming
Now that I have thoroughly explained what Girls’ Love is and why you should care, let’s get into the future. Future Programming will center on Girls’ Love media analysis, analysis of the context of said media (things along the line of this article), and also discussions that bring a Girls’ Love lens to popular media. My next diary is going to be about Girls’ Love anime Demon Girl Next Door. The only way to watch it right now is Hidive streaming service, which is unfortunately not free.
I’ll list a few examples of other possible topics I am considering and include a poll for your thoughts, definitely comment if you have anything you’d like to see! I don’t know if I will be able to take requests, but I am here to talk about Girls’ Love regardless and I will take any suggestions under consideration.
Subtext and Undertone Analysis ex: Wicked, The subtext of Elphie and Glinda
This would be an example of applying a Girls’ Love lens to US media. Since Girls’ Love has less explicit romance, a story about two girls growing close and finding their way in the world as the two heroines of the story is actually very in line with the Girls’ Love genre. This type of article would be diving into the subtext and possible hidden meaning of their interactions. I would rather wait until the second movie comes out for this specific diary, but other articles about subtext are always on the table, I am also open to requests if there is something you think has underappreciated gay subtext.
Classic Girls’ Love Analysis of content and context ex: The Historical and modern relevancy of The Virgin Mary Watches over Us
This flavor of diary would have be a mix of media analysis, looking at the context a work was published in, and looking at any ripple effects it might have created. Shows that could be used for this type of diary are Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us, and anything else that’s a decade or older and of great relevancy.
Deep Analysis of Hit Shows and Personal Faves ex: Demon Girl Next Door Deftly mixes sitcom, fantasy, and comedy tropes Into the Perfect show to Brighten your Day
This is when we throw history to the wind and go all-in at looking at the content of a show. Well, understanding media may require a little historical context, so not completely to the wind, but if your main desire is to hear about media you may not know or get someone’s thoughts on it.
Conclusion
That’s all for now, folks. I hope you enjoy learning about the intersection of history and gay media as much as I do, I hope you learned about a few tidbits or pieces of media you didn’t and had fun. Thanks for reading and stay safe out there ‘til next time.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/…
en.wikipedia.org/…
BoysLove group publishes stories every Tuesday at 1 pm Eastern / 10 am Pacific. We are looking for authors to join us. Please contact Krotor if you want to write stories for our group!
Watch these videos below before upcoming stories about them so you can avoid spoilers and participate in discussions in the comments section.
When possible, we include links where you can watch the videos for free (click here to read our story all about how and where to watch Boys’ Love content).
BL series and movies in upcoming stories
| Story date |
Series or Movie |
Episodes |
Where to watch |
| Feb 18 |
My Engineer (2020) |
13 |
Youtube playlists |
| Mar 11 |
Until We Meet Again (2019) |
17 |
Viki or Youtube playlists
|
