What Can Gender Economics Learn From the Pinoy BL Genre of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic created significant disruptions in the usual economic and social routines, which required a lot of pre-pandemic affairs to be recalibrated, revisited, changed, and updated to fit the necessities of the "new normal." In the case of digital media, a surge of content arose largely due to its popularity, touching the themes of the pandemic centering on homosexual love and its relations to household affairs, family and personal relationships, and the professions. Dubbed as the "boys' love" (BL) genre, it portrays many of the facets of gender roles that are widely discussed in gender studies and research, while working under the lines of exposition in relation to the effects of the pandemic. We discuss some of the themes of the Filipino (or Pinoy) BL genre that have implications to gender economics in particular, and gender studies in general. Given the presented facets and dynamics of gender in this genre, we indicate some possible future work, research, and other areas for discourse and enrichment under the themes of LGBT.