Taiwan’s LGBTQ streamer Gagaolala has launched worldwide – variety
3 min read
Gagaolala, an LGBTQ-centric streaming platform, officially launched worldwide on Friday in all regions except China and North Korea.
The streamer is supported by Taiwan-based Portico Media, one of the founders of the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival. It was launched a week before the one-year anniversary of Taiwan becoming the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
GagaOOLala is now available worldwide for 99 6.99 a month worldwide. While all films are currently equipped with English and Chinese subtitles, the agency monitors the popularity of the content in various regions as other languages remain pending. It debuted in the United States with about 300 titles; It has about 1000 films in Taiwan.
Although a bit of a player compared to other giants in the global streaming war, Portico Media CEO Jay Lin says he thinks his platform has a niche.
“Of course there are LGBT-centric services in Europe and the United States, but they are almost exclusively Western. There are very few Asian titles, and if there are, they are more Asian American, or from a U.S.-centric or Western-centric perspective, “he noted.” This is the first time any OT service has been available worldwide with such a high concentration of Asian content. “
Gagaowalala has started producing its own source in recent years. These include the Taiwanese film “The Teacher”, which won the Golden Horse Award at Winnie the Pooh for Best Supporting Actress of all time, “Handsome Stewardess”, the first Singapore series starring a lesbian couple, and “Sodom’s Cat”, one of the first Asians. Queer films to portray the image of homosexual Bellelli.
Most of Gagaolala’s content has not been distributed in the United States or Europe. The platform is providing about 30 titles for free viewing for viewers on the COVID-19 epidemic, including “Summary from the Green Planet”, winner of the Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Award.
Most of the site’s current traffic is in the “boys love” genre – straight to lesbian content with women. There are plans to continue the sector with more content in the future, but he acknowledged that the question would arise as to whether they could spread the image of young, simple women to other types of images.
“When we were researching for potential partners, we were surprised to find that there are millions of people and social media groups around the world who are in love with boys, not just in Asia. It’s a new kind that will continue to grow,” Lin said.
Key headlines published by GagaoAllala in the following months include the supernatural BL trilogy “Ghost Lover,” the gay French thriller “7 Minutes” and a Thai-Taiwanese co-producer gay love story “Presence is still perfect.” Directed by Thai director Anusorn Soisa-Engim, its small-scale theater in Thailand abruptly closed in early March due to the novel Coronavirus, which closed cinemas just days after its debut.
“It was a kind of catastrophic situation for us in Bangkok, but fortunately we are now able to take this film directly to the world,” says Lin.
Gagawawala is now in its fourth year, and has gradually expanded from Taiwan to Southeast Asia and then to South Asia. In urban areas where there are overlapping communities of Asian and LGBTQ communities, such as the Northern California Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York, the target is now focused on larger, English-speaking areas.
The group has so far been barred from entering the largest and most obvious market for Chinese-language content: China. The country’s strict censorship externally bans homosexual content, as well as Google, which relies on Gagaolala’s app.
But the soldiers on the platform are on. Lin says: “I hope we will be able to create interesting collaborations, co-productions and stories that are not unique to one country or one region. This is a long-term goal, although there is no real map of how to get there. “
