Rappler Talk Entertainment: BL and queer media with ‘Hanging Out’ star Jox Gonzales and director Petersen Vargas

MANILA, Philippines – If you’ve been on Twitter recently, you might have noticed that a certain acronym has been at the center of people’s conversations, particularly on Friday nights. BL, short for Boys’ Love, refers to a genre that portrays just that – romance between two boys.

Fueling the BL craze recently is a Thai series called 2gether: The Series, which airs a new episode every Friday on YouTube – and stars two impossibly good-looking men as the main couple. The show has been making people swoon these past few weeks, but because it only comes out once a week, Filipino audiences have been looking for more queer content to fill in the BL gaps.

Enter Hanging Out, the Filipino gay web series that released 6 episodes in December 2016, and has left its most dedicated fans wanting for more over 3 years later. Like 2gether: The Series, Hanging Out sent viewers screaming every time some sort of tension is teased between the romantic leads, Adrian and David. But just to be clear: Hanging Out is not a BL show.

So what exactly is BL? How is it different from, and similar to other stories that put the spotlight on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people? What is it like to tell those stories, and to hold the hearts of an underrepresented community in your hands?

In this interview, we navigate those questions with Hanging Out’s director/co-creator Petersen Vargas, and actor Jox Gonzales, who played Adrian on the show. Watch as we talk about BL shows and queer representation, and stay tuned to catch them answer the million-dollar question: will there be a Hanging Out season 2?

Catch the conversation by bookmarking this page or heading to fb.com/rapplerdotcom on Thursday, April 30 at 8 pm. – Rappler.com