In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. But as hopeful and auspicious as the outcome was, the process wasn’t easy at all. As a musician, party organizer, and poet, I run in Taipei’s vibrant queer circles. But outside of that subculture, the country is very traditionalist. In the 2018 referendum on the issue, 68% of Taiwanese people voted against same-sex marriage. The majority who were opposed tended to be wealthier, more ”educated”, more likely to be Christian or Catholic, and above all, older. The reasons why these elders voted against same-sex marriage are completely different than those of the Taiwanese Christians and Catholics — most people in Taiwan are Buddhists or Taoists who’ve probably never even heard about Sodom getting smited. So why did they cast their lot against same-sex marriage?

Cinema provides a useful lens through which to view the culture. Everyone in Taiwan knows Ang Lee's Oscar-nominated classic, The Wedding Banquet (1993), a romantic comedy about a gay landlord who has a sham marriage with a female tenant to satisfy his parents. The story mostly revolves around the clash between homosexuality and traditional Chinese family values and relationships, especially the ways in which many East Asians don’t speak with their parents. We see a similar trope several decades later in the Best Picture-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), starring Michelle Yeoh. Both films deal with the individual’s self-expression juxtaposed with their perceived role according to traditional Chinese family values and the struggles that ensue. So, was the fear of some kind of LGBT invasion of the traditional Chinese family the reason so many elders voted against same-sex marriage? Not exactly.

Taiwan has developed its own unique cultural and religious scenes in the past couple of centuries. We have our own conception of family values, but the idea of “traditional Chinese family values” grew in influence after the Chinese Nationalist Party government moved in from China in 1949. So what were the traditional Taiwanese family values then? As an isolated island country, and one which few knew about until the last several decades, the idea of sticking together or being a part of something larger seemed more important than being an individual. This ethos of unity and cohesion is one of the reasons why the legalization of same-sex marriage faced stiff resistance. Another is that, for many older voters, the idea of same-sex marriage was still too new for them.

But it’s been nearly five years now, and there’s been a shift in attitudes among the elderly, one that’s reflected in the rise of queer movies over this time. More and more movies in Taiwan began including stories emphasizing the relationship of queer people and their grandparents, exploring themes about how love can conquer everything and has no borders, and discussing realistic problems before and after legalizing same-sex marriage. More than that, queer cinema took on an air of mainstream legitimacy. Folks no longer had to scour art houses or the dark corners of the Internet to find queer Taiwanese films or storylines. And these films helped convince people that LGBT love is no different than heterosexual love.

In 2020, a very different kind of queer movie came out that had audiences bursting into tears as they left theaters. Dear Tenant is a deeply moving and all too real story about what many LGBT people in Taiwan went through before legal protections. The movie follows Mr. Lin (played by Tzu-Yi Mo), a man who selflessly takes care of his diabetic landlord (Shu-Fang Chen) and her grandson (Run-yin Bai). As the plot develops, we find out the landlord’s son had previously died in a tragic accident, that he and Lin were a couple, and that Lin had promised that he would take care of his boyfriend’s relatives. At one point, Lin finds himself in an interrogation room, a suspect in the death of another character. The police find his relationship with his landlord and her grandson strange, and his explanation dubious, to which Lin responds, “If I were a woman and continuing to take care of my husband’s family after he died, would you be asking me the same questions now?”

Even though, in the end, Lin’s landlord, whose health is terminally declining, finally accepts him as a full-fledged member of her family and agrees to let him legally adopt her grandson, the film never shies away from the public perception of homosexuality. The gay identity is always depicted as unusual — a hurdle that Lin must overcome at every turn, even as we come to love and root for him. That may be why the film managed to speak to a broad audience and touch so many people. The reaction to Dear Tenant saw audiences processing their feelings in real time and reconsidering their preconceived notions about LGBT people.

Fast forward two years and another queer film became a blockbuster hit not only in Taiwan, but went on to become the seventh most viewed non-English movie on Netflix — Marry My Dead Body (2022). The story features a homophobic cop (played by Greg Han Hsu) who accidentally becomes engaged to a gay ghost. Although he initially tries to fight it, after spending time together, he decides to help the ghost achieve his wish (yes, just like “Casper''), so that he can finally reincarnate. There’s so much going on in this movie, between Asian family dynamics, queer love, Taiwanese cultural scenarios, the genre-bending directing of Wei-Hao Cheng, and the comedic absurdity of it all. The background of Taiwanese traditional religion looms large over everything, which resonated with viewers and led to the film’s enormous box office success. In fact, Marry My Dead Body raked in over 360 million New Taiwan dollars (over $11 million USD), making it the seventh highest-grossing local film in Taiwanese History.

As outlandish and even wacky a tale as Marry My Dead Body might seem to outsiders, it tapped into something deep in our culture. When I was a young boy, I told my parents I wasn’t attracted to girls. Their immediate reaction was to take me to the local Taoist temple and tell one of the older volunteer ladies (commonly called “aunties”) of my situation. After a couple of minutes of solemn contemplation, the auntie confidently told my parents that I had been a womanizer in my last life — that I promised a fine young lady I would marry her and build a family together only to skip out. Distraught, this woman I supposedly “abandoned” jumped into the river and killed herself. Now, the auntie insisted, her spirit had come back to turn me into a woman as revenge. I thought it was all rather funny and odd. Years later as a young man in a gay bar, a new friend was telling everyone exactly the same story. Maybe that’s why the film spoke to so many people.

From redefining family values and love in Dear Tenant to embracing both diversity and tradition in Marry My Dead Body, these movies touched audiences with their poignant portrayals of queer relationships within the context of Taiwanese society. Again, in Taiwan, unity is a very strong cultural concept. The fact that these two films are milestones in the same-sex marriage era portends that queer movies in Taiwan are not only heading in a whole new direction, it also marks the progress in society and shows that real Taiwanese family values aren’t about homophobia, but love and togetherness.

We made history by becoming the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. By embracing our past with an eye toward the future, we can be prepared for more diverse and exciting times to come. The push to change attitudes and win hearts is still an ongoing struggle, but we Taiwanese have a way of adapting to the new as long as it embraces the old. The growing success of queer cinema in Taiwan isn’t a fad, it’s a reflection of actual cultural change.

Published July 1, 2024