so there’s a distinction between a “BL drama” and a “drama based on a BL novel,” one that we tend to collapse in English but is much more distinct in Chinese. BL novels are called 耽美 danmei, and adaptations of BL novels (e.g. 《镇魂》 Zhen Hun / Guardian，《陈情令》 Chen Qing Ling / The Untamed， 《山河令》 Shan He Ling / Word of Honor) are what would more accurately be called 耽改 dangai – “adapted from” or “changed from danmei.”
the problem isn’t that the source novel is danmei; the censorship board has zero problems with the original source being gay as hell (well, not zero). what the censorship board has problems with is if the adaptation is explicitly queer.
generally speaking, the audience for a TV show is going to be many, many times that of the audience for a webnovel, so if you’re a homophobic authoritarian regime, you’re going to crack down on the adaptations that are getting billions of views first before making your way back to the source. Over the past few years, increasingly severe restrictions have been placed on what webnovels can explicitly write about, to the point where MDZS and SVSSS have been locked on JJWXC (i.e. you can’t even buy them anymore, they’re functionally banned). If you ever see someone making a comment about “nothing below the neck,” that is a reference to some of the restrictions put in place by censorship (i.e. authors cannot write about any sexy things below the neck)
I think Anglophone fandom has a tendency to make light of censorship in China, which is… well, I don’t think people really understand how sophisticated and all-encompassing it is. The censorship board aren’t composed solely of dumb machines that need to be tricked with a quick ‘no homo’–there are many more factors at play, from the Chinese history and culture of homosociality (Anglophone viewers thought CQL was undeniably queer; a great deal of Chinese viewers were completely sold on the bromance. and because CQL is dangai, not danmei, you can’t say that those viewers are wrong–that is absolutely a legitimate interpretation of CQL), to state-sanctioned queerbaiting (I feel like someone out there must be writing a dissertation about about 炒CP as a marketing tool).
it’s not as simple as “this is danmei, and therefore must be banned.” there is gray area and room for negotiation; there is an insidious amount of nuance and intelligence involved in the particular kind of homophobic censorship enacted by the authoritarian regime (e.g. if you keep your gays, you have to bury them by the end of the show). there is an unquestionable but undeniable amount of money being exchanged in the process, both under and over the table
tl;dr Chinese censorship is not a joke, even if Anglophone fandom tries to make it out to be
