MOUTH + EYES

Melodrama

I.

Elsaesser touches on a couple different definitions of melodrama, so let's start with the first: a more classic understanding of the word.

He writes that,

In its dictionary sense, melodrama is a dramatic narrative in which musical accompaniment marks the emotional effects. This is still perhaps the most useful definition, because it allows melodramatic elements to be seen as constituents of a system of punctuation, giving expressive colour and chromatic contrast to the storyline, by orchestrating the emotional ups and downs of the intrigue." (pg. 172)

In terms of an example of this, we might think about about "melodramatic" moments in soap operas or maybe even lakorns, where dramatic scenes are paired with intense music.

If you've even seen To Sir, With Love or a number of other Thai lakorns, you know exactly what I'm talking about- there's so many moments through out the show that are key examples of this.

It might seem counterintuitive to think about the word "melodrama" paired with the word "music," but this actually comes from the original definition of the word.

Historically, in the eighteenth century, melodramas referred to "Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action." However, the definition of the word has expanded since then.

II.

Thinking about how the film industry has changed over time, Elsaesser proposes a second way to define the term:

Considered as an expressive code, melodrama might therefore be described as a particular form of dramatic mise-en-scène, characterized by a dynamic use of spatial and musical categories... [that] allow for complex aesthetic patterns. (pg. 173)

He notes that with the advent of sound, films switched from having a live piano accompaniment as the only thing punctuating the emotional highs-and-lows of the story to spoken words/dialogue.

Elsaesser theorizes that because early directors had to develop "an extremely subtle and yet precise language...of lighting, staging, decor, [etc]" (pg. 173) to compensate for things (i.e. tension, tonality) that could only be expressed through words, a switch was made when sound was introduced.

He argues that, just as speech in the modern film world "loses some of its semantic importance in favor of its material aspects as sound [i.e. diction]," then conversely "lighting, composition, and decor increase their semantic and syntactic contributions to the aesthetic effect. They become fundamental and integral elements in the construction of meaning. This is the justification for giving critical importance to the mise-en-scène over intellectual content or story value" (pg. 173-4).

Thanks for staying with me, because I know that these pieces of theory might seem a little overwhelming.

But essentially, what Elsaesser is trying to say is that around the 50s-60s, key aspects of the American family melodrama were not only expressed through dialogue/sound, but also through stuff such as set design, color, and frame composition. Minor elements of a film were used to call attention to a character's mental and emotional state of mind.

All that Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and Far From Heaven

Source: Criterion

Douglas Sirk was a famous director of melodramas, including well-known works such as Written on the Wind (1956) and Imitation of Life (1959) I'll use one of his films, All that Heaven Allows- as well as its various adaptions (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Far From Heaven)- to provide examples of Elsaesser's theory.

All that Heaven Allows (1955) follows the story of Cary, a widow who falls in love with her much younger arborist, Ron. Their relationship very much is a forbidden romance, especially since the two have an age gap and come from different social classes (coupled by the fact that Ron was previously a contractor that Cary hired).

Members of Cary's community- including her friends and her adult children- disapprove of their relationship, which is met with a lot of backlash. In the end, however, Cary decides not to let other people determine how she lives her life- choosing to end up with Ron.

Stills that highlight Sirk's use of color (Source: film_magic)

Sirk's directorial style is characterized by an extreme attention to aspects of filmmaking such as color theory and mise-en-scène. All that Heaven Allows is not an exception- like Elsaesser suggests, the film translates melodrama and emotional tension into even the smallest details.

For instance, during one seemingly minor scene, Cary's children gift her a TV, intending for it to keep her "company" instead of Ron. As the gift is revealed, the camera zooms closer and closer to the screen, eventually focusing on Cary's distorted reflection.

Daniel Lehman has a much more extensive deep-dive into this scene, but I'll touch on some of his key ideas here.

The particular framing of the shot, with "the placement of Ned and the TV man on either side of the television, while Cary is seen only as a reflection within, suggests her removal from their world as a whole. She does not fit in with them anymore; it seems as if she no longer cares to, either. She is observing her own detachment from the socialite crowd that she was once so content to be a part of."

Even smaller aspects of the scene, such as the colors used in the background and the movement of the camera (which creates a "revelatory" shot), add to its impact.

Lehman notes that,

"This is not because of some technical trickery by the filmmaker. Rather, the scene is shot in such a way to earn this response from the viewer all on its own. We know Cary’s character well enough to know what she is thinking and what her next action will be, all without any verbal hints, and are enraptured by her inner turmoil displaying itself onscreen."

This fits closely with Elsaesser's idea that a melodrama's mise-en-scène (lighting, montage, visual rhythm, decor, style of acting, and music) help "translate...character into action" and "action into gesture and dynamic space" (pg. 176)

The television scene- although a minor moment- becomes almost the turning point of the film as it prompts Cary to reflect on her decision to leave Ron behind. Later, it helps spur her to give their relationship another try (thus moving character into action).

Before I move on from All that Heaven Allows, I think one other interesting observation is that this focus on mise-en-scène may (in part) be due to the Hays Code.

The Hays Code, which lasted in the US from 1934 to 1968, imposted self-censorship regulations over major motion pictures. Under the code, everything from profanity to showing a man and a woman sleeping in the same bed could be cut from a film.

Source: Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections

Correspondence between the film's team and the Motion Picture Association of America shows the extent of which aspects of All that Heaven Allows were picked over.

Contrary to what you might expect, Elsaesser actually argues that (at times) restraints on what directors could talk about or cover actually allowed for more sophisticated melodramas. Directors began to explore a "conscious use of style-as-meaning" (pg. 175), which was a distinct improvement.

After All that Heaven Allow's release, the film was adapted two more times- once in 1974 by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and again in 2002 by Todd Haynes.

Posters for Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Far From Heaven

Fassbinder's adaption, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, increases the age gap between the characters and changes several other factors. By having Emmi, a 60 year old German woman, fall in love with a much younger Moroccan migrant worker, Ali, Fassbinder is able to ruminate on differences such as race and immigration status.

Emmi's friends, co-workers, and neighbors all discriminate against Ali, and disapprove of their relationship.

However, Emmi isn't the most accepting person herself. On the wall of her apartment hangs an entire rack of medals earned by her deceased husband, who was a soldier in the Nazi military.

The presence of these medals constantly looms over the film as a whole. It seems almost inevitable that, since Emmi still supports some Nazi ideals, their relationship is already doomed to last.

Like with the TV, the appearance of one piece of decor and/or mise-en-scène is highly revealing of characters' "emotional and psychological predicaments" (pg. 174).

Similarly to Fassbinder, Haynes' 2002 film Far from Heaven, expands on the melodramatic potential of All that Heaven Allows- this time exploring topics related to sexuality, class, and gender roles.

While working on the movie, Haynes noted that,

"While the look and style of those '50s melodramas are anything but realistic, there's something almost spookily accurate about the emotional truths of those films. They are hyperreal, that's why we call them melodramas. Because they are about the kinds of things that are close to our private, personal lives, like falling out of love with somebody.” 

Melodramas may get a bad rep as "over-the-top" or "unrealistic," but, as a genre, it's more than that. It's fundamentally centered around these inner truths- characters' thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Melodramatic Potential

It might not be surprising to hear that all three films I've discussed above were either produced by queer directors (Fassbender, Haynes) and/or starred queer actors (Rock Hudson as Ron All that Heaven Allows, although the extent to which he was "out" at the time is complicated).

I think that as almost a sub-genre, queer melodrama (or really any melodrama connected to or about a marginalized group) is particularly strong.

These types of films have something to say. Actors and directors who have already experienced discrimination can tell some of the most powerful stories- they already know what it's like to live through some of these moments, or to exist on the margins. And melodramas are the perfect format- they often comment on or are critical of social, cultural, and political issues.

Thus, it's not a coincidence that the Thai films and shows I'll talk about next also position queerness next to the intersection of class, poverty, and disability.

These works, which take on the "roughness" of life compared to the more smooth, glassy world of most BLs, are uniquely suited to analyzing using this theory.

Moonlight Chicken

Moonlight Chicken has two qualities that make it ideal for looking at it through the lens of melodrama.

According to Elsaesser, in order to create "style-as-meaning," the best melodramas require "a highly self-conscious stylist" (pg. 175).

Compared to other directors in the industry, P'Aof has sometimes been cited as an "auteur" filmmaker, one who has a specific sort of "style, vision, and thematic focus" across his body of work.

I should note that I think some credit is also due here to the show's cinematographer, Rath Roongrueangtantisook, who had a massive impact on the show's lighting. P'Aof and Rath have collaborated on almost all of P'Aofs most well-known works (Ticket to Heaven, Last Twilight, etc), and they really compliment each other in terms of visual style and environmental storytelling.

Based on attention to color that P'Aof has paid in other works where he hasn't collaborated with Rath (such as Bad Buddy), as well as different connections between color and politics (as observed by @telomeke), it's likely that he had specific involvement in and intent behind choosing the color scheme that he did for the series. So I'll mainly move forward with P'Aof's collection of work and vision as the focus, but I'll credit/include Rath whenever possible.

(I should note that although Elsaesser's paper relies on the concept of auteur theory, I'm not always the biggest fan of it. I think often in filmmaking it's more collaborative than that- for instance, P'Aof and Rath could have brainstormed ideas together, and that's where the idea for the color scheme could've come from. It's possible that Rath and/or other people involved in the production could've had a significant impact on some of things discussed below. I think it's important to acknowledge that as well, since determining who did what and if auteur theory fits can be kind of tricky).

Like Sirk, the use of color throughout Moonlight Chicken becomes particularly important. P'Aof extends color not only into the character's outfits and surroundings, but also into lighting- including when the characters step outside the realm of the restaurant. The streets at night are constantly awash in colors of reddish-orange and blue.

In general, directors and filmmakers do pay a lot of attention to aspects of color and mise-en-scène- the set designers in The Next Prince, for instance, subtly alter the color scheme and design of Khanin's bedroom after he returns back home from Emmaly in order to indicate how although he's grown, some parts of his life are still the same.

But I typically find P'Aof's work to be more highly stylized than that of most other BL directors. A few other examples of (similarly) highly stylized Thai queer works include Flat Girls, Gelboys, and Clairebell.

I think another component of Moonlight Chicken- as well as the works listed above- is that they aren't afraid to extensively touch on topics such as poverty, injustice, and disability.

Something that I've noticed about a subset of BLs/GLs (and really various romance shows/films in general) is that they sometimes dilute extreme angst and/or hardship in shows. Conflicts are resolved easier, without the messiness and angstiness of what would happen in real life. In addition, sometimes works choose not to cover certain "messy" topics- instead smoothing things over (i.e. the wealth gap between rich and poor characters, and how that would substantially impact a relationship- rather than just one or two scenes that showcase it).

I don't mean to be too hard on media like this, as I know many people (including me) watch shows as an escape, so a complex breakdown of the systemic issues linked to poverty isn't always a good fit in shows (especially in what's supposed to be a lighthearted romantic drama). Rather, I think what I'm trying to say is that when the main focus of the story is on romance, aspects of the plot that would provide the most melodrama are occasionally toned down (or result a positive outcome, such as the villain apologizing and being forgiven). And since melodramas often have things to say about social, cultural, and political issues, this is an area may get "cut."

On the contrary, I feel like P'Aof isn't afraid to touch on these topics. I think this willingness to embrace serious issues (i.e. homophobia and religion in Ticket to Heaven), speaks to how his dramas always seem to carry with them unique "emotional truths"- they have something to say about intergenerational relationships, economic policy, disability, etc.

For me, this melodramatic potential- which is at the heart of P'Aof's work- translates into everything, including aspects of mise-en-scène. For P'Aof, "color, lighting, and decor...[become] absolutely "fundamental and integral elements in the construction of meaning" (pg. 173).

To return to discussing Moonlight Chicken more in-depth, one example of this idea is the collage of pictures hanging on the back wall of Wen's apartment. Like with the medals in Ali: Fear that Heaven Allows, it looms in the background far before being acknowledged by the main characters. Once you realize that Wen is still hanging onto photos of his ex, conflict between Wen and Jim seems inevitable.

This brings me to one of my favorite shots from the show, and possibly one of my favorite reveals of all time.

In episode 5, Li Ming heads into Heart's room to help comfort him after a particularly upsetting argument with his parents.

As Li Ming hugs him, the camera mostly faces the characters' front or side profiles, but then a switch happens. The camera suddenly begins to shoot from behind them, altering the viewers' point-of-view. Now we can see what P'Aof was so careful to have hidden from us- a mound of sticky notes covering the wall of Heart's room.

They're notes from his parents, who refuse to learn sign language. Writing is one of the only ways that he can communicate with them.

There's some other telling aspects of mise-en-scène, too. Against the back wall is a picture of himself as a kid, alone. There's a keyboard that he is either is no longer able to use, or that he might have trouble using.

Attached to the wall is a sign-language poster, and a word cloud filled with words such as "interaction," "language," "body," "people," "social." From looking at this side of his room, it's clear how isolated Heart feels, and how desperately he wants to connect with his parents.

P'Aof was careful not to reveal this part of Heart's room until after this particular moment- he wanted to underscore the severity of the divide between Heart and his parents. If it wasn't clear earlier, it becomes clear now that the conflict between them can't easily be solved.

In this scene, the only warm light comes from Li Ming's corner. In the mirror shot, it's revealed that the light forms a line that connects to Heart's head, visually representing the relationship between the both of them.

On top of that, Rath and P'Aof switch from a more balanced color palette to one drenched in shades of blue.

Rath is really fantastic at things like this- as @respectthepetty notes, he often uses lighting to hint at the emotional atmosphere of the scene, rather than just the characters' wardrobe. This is something that's characteristic of his work- you can see more examples of this in non-P'Aof productions here.

This use of color extends into the argument scene. Heart's mother's face is constantly shaded in darkness, as blue turns into black. One of the only light sources in the room comes from the staircase- Heart's only method of escape.

There's a lot more to say about lighting and framing in this scene- @telomeke notes that by using isolated close-ups of Heart and his parents, P'Aof almost makes it feel like they're talking into the void.

When we finally get a wide shot, it reveals that there's a blue accent wall next to the staircase, which stands in direct contrast to the white colors of the kitchen. By positioning Heart's parents on one half of the divide (and/or only slightly past it), P'Aof emphasizes the separation between all of the family members.

Something else of note is how in episode 1, when we visited Heart's family's house for the second time, the environment was lit completely differently. It still has a blue tinge, which speaks to Heart's feelings of sadness, but the color isn't quite as intense. There's a gloominess, a seriousness to this conversation that's reflected in the lighting- the atmosphere in the room feels depressing.

There's a lot of ways to interpret this color change. First, it allows the viewers to possibly come to conclusions about Heart- that because he isn't able to speak up and because he's sitting next to his parents (thus seeming like a unit), he agrees with their views and is similarly mean. These expectations are subverted when we learn more about Heart and his family's situation.

Second, when Li Ming visits the house for the first time, we return back to the blue/yellow color scheme. Throughout the show, one of the core themes is opposites- characters like Jim and Wen as well as Jim and Li Ming are positioned as direct opposites from each other (@respectthepetty). Thus, contrasting colors like blue and yellow/orange often stand in for or represent different characters.

When Li Ming first enters the house and tries to drop off the delivery at night, these blue/yellow colors are prominent. In the morning, they're suppressed by Heart's parents. Night is a freeing time for so many of the characters in the series- Heart and Li Ming, for instance, are only able to venture out on the motorcycle to explore at night.

In the morning during the argument scene, Jim is the only "warmth" in the room- the only one wearing a brightly colored shirt. Jim attempts to support Li Ming's side of the story, but ultimately fails to exonerate him since there's no evidence. The power imbalance between Jim and Heart's family means that Li Ming will never be able to "win"- he'll always have to give into their demands. This overbearing, oppressive feeling strips the room of almost any warmth.

In contrast, at night (and while the parents aren't home), Heart and Li Ming feel more free- they're more able to show aspects of their personality and be themselves.

Lastly, one could argue that this difference in lighting indicates how the show's domestic conflict hasn't quite reached its peak. There's a growing feeling of tension, as well as a sense of distance between the characters- almost like a facade of a "perfect family" that Heart's parents are trying to put on. We often get more saturated colors such as blue and yellow during moments of proximity or extreme melodrama (I'll come back to this idea later).

In comparison to Heart's house, Jim's house is more brightly lit and warm. It has less of an oppressive, overbearing feel. The blue/yellow colors here (as well as framing), are used to represent the "oppositeness" of the characters, as well as the divide between them.

So much could be said about color in P'Aof's and Rath's work(s)- enough for another extensive post- but I wanted to point this out because these examples are somewhat similar to how Sirk utilizes color in his films.

During the television scene in All that Heaven Allows, Sirk brings back the color red to indicate themes of conflict and desire. For both directors, color takes on additional social-political meaning within the context of the story- @telomeke touches on how the yellow/red colors in Moonlight Chicken can be connected to the ideology of different political parties, as well as issues related to class.

In addition, you might notice that Sirk plays with lighting a little; twisting the color of Cary's reflection in the tv screen. The golden glow of the family gathering fades when she studies herself in the reflection, which is such a beautiful detail.

Haynes once observed that,

"What’s beautiful about Sirk['s work] is that every frame is a complementary palette. Every single scene, regardless if it’s happy or sad, plays with an interaction of warm and cool colors. It’s so powerful."

Similarly, aside from conflict-driven scenes, P'Aof consistently embraces a warm-cool color palette. Like with Sirk, this allows the feeling of melodrama to linger within the visual language of the work itself- a constant reminder of how everything within the series is bittersweet. Just as the color scheme of the series is in flux, so too is its "emotional temperature" (pg. 181).

Aside from color, another similarity between All that Heaven Allows and Moonlight Chicken the "revelatory" nature of certain scenes. Like the television scene, the sticky-note scene is a revelatory moment that allows us to gain more insight into the characters' minds (and thus imagine what Li Ming and Heart might be thinking and feeling).

The notes on the wall also translate character into action, as they're both the explanation and the impetus for what Heart has done (and what he might do next). In this way, objects are given additional, more complex meanings.

This is one of P'Aof's strengths as a director. @waitmyturtles observes that P'Aof has "a genius of showing many facets to the same [person]...he [often] critically shies away from singular or dualistic interpretations of his dear characters." So many moments throughout Moonlight Chicken are key examples of this- they prompt different reevaluations of the same characters.

For instance, the presence of the keyboard in Heart's room raises questions- why does he have it? Is he hanging onto something that he already had before he became deaf? (I can relate, as although I'm not deaf, I too hold onto things that I used to be able to use pre-disability lol.) Was music previously one of his passions, making dealing with aspects of disability even more challenging?

Or is it more likely that he acquired it more recently? During episode 4, when Heart and Li Ming visited the church, a piano player was present. Is it possible that Heart bought the keyboard after the visit, in order to see if he could similarly sense/feel the vibrations produced by playing music- this time experimenting on his own?

Or did P'Aof intend it as more of a callback/reference to the visit itself (and the impact that it, as well as his relationship with Li Ming, has had on him)?

Since the keyboard isn't revealed until episode 5, any of these interpretations are possible. Such an object refuses only one specific perspective.

Before I move on to covering some of P'Aof's other works, one last thing of note is how the sticky note scene happens towards the end of episode 5. At the beginning of the episode, we spent some time with Wen, exploring his past relationship as well as re-living moments where he put photos of him and his ex up on the wall.

By bookending the episode between these two scenes, P'Aof is also drawing parallels between Wen and Heart, and the way they feel stuck in both relationships. It's a clever use of storytelling that, on top of all of these smaller details, makes me love this episode even more.

P'Aof and the Family Melodrama

Less so with A Tale of Thousand Stars, but more so with Bad Buddy, Last Twilight, and Ticket to Heaven, a recurring theme in P'Aof's work has been conflict within families.

Elsaesser writes that the family melodrama:

"more often records the failure of the protagonist to act in a way that could shape events and influence the emotional environment, let alone change the stifling social milieu. The world is closed, and the characters are acted upon. Melodrama confers on them a negative identity through suffering... (pg. 177)

Characters like Jim and Heart are shaped by their experiences with disability and poverty. The systemic nature of so many problems discussed in the show, such the impact of economic policies on restaurant owners (see @waitmyturtles' amazing post for more details), means that the main characters will "fail" to fully solve these issues.

In addition, Elsaesser observes that, in the domestic melodrama,

"the social pressures are such, the frame of respectability so sharply defined that the range of 'strong' actions is limited. The tellingly impotent gesture, the social gaffe, the hysterical outburst replaces any more directly liberating or self-annihilating action... The dramatic configuration, the pattern of the plot, makes [the characters]...constantly look inwards, at themselves and others...In Sirk, of course, they are locked into a universe of real and metaphoric mirrors" (pg. 177)

We can see these patterns play out in P'Aof's work, as well. In Last Twilight and Moonlight Chicken, the characters are so boxed-in and restricted that even leaving the house becomes an act of resistance. (Note how, post-argument, Heart runs back up to his room instead of exiting the house/going out the front door).

The face-to-face confrontations in Moonlight Chicken evoke introspection- when is it time to move on? Can generational differences and/or differences in wealth stand in the way of a relationship? Are Jim and Wen fundamentally "too different" to be together?

Aside from the sticky note scene, mirrors also surface in episode two of Ticket to Heaven during a moment where the main character, Tanrak, feels stuck and detached from the rest of his community. As much as mirrors are revealing in P'Aof's work, they can also feel endlessly restrictive.

This mirror scene also fits in with what Elsaesser calls the "intensified symbolism of everyday actions" (pg. 178). This is where the significance of an ordinary gesture, such as Jim and Li Ming both tickling their partners' chin (observed by @telomeke), becomes heightened (thus signifying the similarities between both of them in an intergenerational gesture).

In addition, aspects of a melodrama's setting and decor help reveal characters' emotional and psychological turmoil, as I've touched on earlier.

As much as Moonlight Chicken really maps onto the way Elsaesser conceptualizes the category of a melodrama, there's one interesting way it does not.

Some directors, such as Fassbinder, embrace plots which have almost circular endings and/or pattern(s). For instance, at the end of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, we discover that Ali has been sent to the hospital. The doctor diagnoses him with a stomach ulcer, which he notes is common among foreign workers due to the high levels of stress that they experience.

The ulcer can be removed, but because Ali must continue working (both him and Emmi are working class- not rich by any means), it seems inevitable that the ulcer will return, and Ali will have to go through the same thing over and over again.

If not cyclical, sometimes melodramas have neutral or slightly negative endings, mimicking the reality of life.

P'Aof's works, on the other hand, pretty much always have happy endings where the characters end up together. Aside from embracing aspects of queer joy/perseverance, this is one way that his series borrow from the anti-melodramatic format of some BLs.

Curiously, though, one could also observe that the predicament P'Aof in is very similar to Sirk's.

In the past, Sirk talked about being constrained by the Hays Code and the studio system, noting that:

“At least I was allowed to work on the material—so that I restructured to some extent some of the rather impossible scripts of the films I had to direct. Of course, I had to go by the rules, avoid experiments, stick to family fare, have ‘happy endings,’ and so on. Universal didn’t interfere with either my camera work or my cutting—which meant a lot to me.”

One could argue that, to a certain extent, GMMTV works and BLs/GLs are also limited by the need for a happy ending. Series require funding, so it's more ideal for the company if the characters end up together. Thus, Moonlight Chicken ends optimistically, even if a slightly different ending might've been more "realistic."

However, film scholar Laura Mulvey also observes that, although "All That Heaven Allows...[has] a happy ending, its 'happiness' is twisted with more than a touch of Sirkian irony."

Somewhat similarly, throughout his works P'Aof sometimes avoids a truly "perfect" ending. For instance, Jim still perseveres by starting a food truck business, but he loses his restaurant. In the final episode of many of his shows, his characters often initially don't get everything they want.

I think Moonlight Chicken, as well as other works such as Gelboys and Clairebell, are so fascinating for this reason- they straddle different genres, conventions, and expectations. In some ways, Moonlight Chicken has more in common to 50s melodramas such as All that Heaven Allows than it does to shows like My Love Mix-Up!, which is kind of crazy to think about.

Before I end the post, there's one more observation about melodramas that I think might be interesting to bring up.

For Haynes,

"the most amazing melodramas are the ones where when a person makes a tiny step toward fulfilling a desire that their social role is built to discourage, they end up hurting everybody else. It’s like a chess game of pain, a ricochet effect where everybody gets hurt but there’s nobody to blame.”

In P'Aof's works, these bullets frequently ricochet, impacting everyone- Heart receiving a minor injury after leaving the house becomes a slight against his parents for "not asking for permission," Tanrak accidentally being locked outside with Barth becomes inexcusable for "not calling for help" and "not following the rules." A minor act of rebellion unintentionally hurts everyone around them, as "family members" (parents, church leaders) are filled with stress and concern.

In these types of melodramas, the smallest actions and the tiniest objects- sticky notes, pressed flowers, a keyboard, a bag of roti- become stand-ins for larger, more all-consuming problems.

If, as Sirk, Fassbender, and Haynes all note, “You can’t make films about things, you can only make films with things," then objects have the potential to become deeply revealing elements of a story.

End Notes

Thanks for reading! This post was super film-theory driven, so it was kind of fun to write- it was nice to revisit stuff that I learned a while ago when I was in uni.

Hopefully I explained Elsaesser's ideas well- I tried to make them as easy to understand as possible, but since I don't have a proofreader I have no one to cross-check that with lol.

Elsaesser is really coming at this from an American '50s and '60s media perspective, but I thought that his ideas were unexpectedly a good fit for P'Aof's works- it maps onto them super well. Because I'm extending his theory a bit not everything might fit/be applicable (he's thinking mostly about Western media), but I thought that it might be interesting to try since cross-cultural connections have happened.

In addition, there's an interesting connection between lakorns and the idea of melodrama. The Drama Wiki notes lakorns' similarities to Hispanic telenovelas in that they prioritize emotional involvement over "following the story rationally." I feel like some of these older American melodramas are the same in that emotions become a key component (almost the purpose) of the story. This is another reason why I feel like it might be applicable to extend Elsaesser's theory, as P'Aof is probably familiar with different elements/structural patterns of lakorns and lakorn-series hybrids.

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Despite having been an anime and manga fan for most of my life, I have only been to two anime conventions prior to going to Fanime last weekend (and one of them was as a panelist, though it has been over a decade and I can no longer remember what for). Part of it is because I have always been Your Most Employed Oomf and prone to saving my vacation time for international travel with friends and family. But the other part of it, if I'm being honest, is because of shame.

In another life, I wrote about being a person motivated by shame, who hides the things she loves so that it is easier to maintain a normie persona for over forty hours at her job each week, who never tells her coworkers exactly why she's going to St. Louis or Los Angeles or that she once rescheduled her honeymoon so that she could watch the League of Legends esports world championship in Shanghai, because then she'd have to explain the entire concept of esports to people who are at least ten years older than her and/or have multiple children and have never heard of, much less ever accessed, Twitch.

Well, seven years later (and it has been almost exactly seven years since I wrote that blog post), I still have not changed. I am still that girl, motivated by shame and the desire to "pass" as normal. Though I have a sticker of Hoshi-sensei from Onna no Sono no Hoshi on my phone (which people routinely mistake for BTS merch), and though I have a "Let's Go to the Family Restaurant" keychain on my work bag (which people never notice or ask questions about), I still lie when asked about my interests. What do I do in my free time? "Oh, movies," I say with a smile. "And I cook." Not, I read approximately ten hours of BL manga a week, probably, and if I'm lucky, sometimes I write about it.

Recently I have been thinking about this a lot, because recently I have been trying to make peace with another revelation about myself: I am not One of the True Perverts.

By this I do not mean sexual perversions (though I am mind-numbingly boring in that area as well). I mean that I do not love things vehemently, depravedly, abnormally, the way a True Pervert does. Instead, I am apprehensive in my enthusiasm for things, a cormorant who furtively dives into the water before reemerging to, motionless, spread its wings in the sun, as if to say, nothing to see here. To be clear, I am not (as the kids might say) a tourist or a larper. When I love something, I am genuine and effusive in my praise for it. For better or worse, my tastes have always been too idiosyncratic to ever risk me becoming a bandwagon fan. But I live in fear of being consumed by something. I do not ever want to seem perverted by my love, derailed from some nebulous path that is cousin to "respectability" and a relative of "sanity." I fear the abyss, over or into which the true fan—the True Pervert—jumps.

The end result is that I am always in awe of my fandom compatriots who do throw themselves headfirst into the abyss. I'm jealous of friends who have favorite idols, series, pairings, authors, dynamics; who have, for lack of a better word, A Personal Aesthetic; who can easily list their influences and formative experiences and pinpoint when and how they first fell in love with [x], whatever [x] is; those friends whom you associate with that One Thing and their love of that One Thing is cleanly obvious. From my chilly vantage point, they are the SS+ heroes, whereas I am the lonely F-ranker who can only love things like a normie, a side character whose soul has a limited capacity for true love, who perhaps does not even have a soul with which to love, and thus does not love anything at all.

The point is, at Fanime, I was surrounded by the True Perverts. They were my friend and her long-time cosplay friends, who not only invest hours into costume design and makeup and wigs and prop construction, but also travel with boxes of costumes and book themselves for eight photoshoot sessions in a single day. They were the couples in detailed handmade outfits interpreting characters from series that have long fallen out of mainstream attention. They sold and bought body pillows of the lads from LADS. They traded stickers, and fan goods, and tips on which artist was selling unusual merch, and memories, and in-jokes, and a deep, vast understanding of characters from games I had never even heard of, much less played. In some cases, they were the True Perverts that Drank the Miku Feet Juice, and on that, I have nothing at all to say.

When asked if I had fun at Fanime, I kept saying that I had a great time, only it was just a little overwhelming. At some weeks distance, I think that statement was a lie designed to protect myself. In fact, at Fanime, what I felt was an abstract loneliness. I had learned in my many years of fandom life to be too self-sufficient, internalized too strongly the admonition to not seek validation from others.

What I have sacrificed, in return, is an openness to belonging.

Belonging is not the same as blending in, or getting along, or making friends-for-the-time-being, all of which I consider my strengths. I have friends (she says, well aware that having to say such a statement out loud makes it automatically suspect) and have never considered myself friendless or a loner—but to have many personal friends is not the same as community.

In fact, in some ways, to belong to a community is diametrically opposed to being enmeshed in a personal network of friends. It requires both an allegiance to and a responsibility for and an ownership over perfect strangers. Belonging is not about a total erasure of discomfort, alienation, or resentment; community is not and was never meant to be utopia. But it is a recognition that tolerating others in your community—and receiving that tolerance from others in turn—is important in the face of some grand cause, which can sometimes be simply belonging itself.

This may be controversial, but I believe community should be in service to some greater cause, and as a result, it is a disservice to be "in community" with everything you like. To create belonging is no small undertaking, and is an obligation that should be taken seriously. It's okay to not treat your fandoms or your hobbies like your community (which is not the same as saying it's okay to be rude!), if you don't feel like they are in service of a cause, or a cause that is important to you. I find it enormously difficult to believe in bestseller charts or streaming numbers or awards or rankings as a grand cause. This is probably why I didn't survive for long in kpop fandom (and also perpetually find myself cheering for the worst team in every league).

And this is probably why I have not found it important to find community in anime or manga. I have been lucky enough to have friends, and to have found belonging in other ways, and to carve even in my fandoms little gatherings of fellow sickos who dive into the same waters and sit on the same logs and spread their wings beside me, enjoying the same sun. I haven't discovered a grand cause worthy of devotion. But then again, I haven't needed to.

At Fanime I thought for the first time, what would I need to be in community here? Who would that be community be with? And what could we be possibly be in service of?

In Fai's post about their experience at Manga Ichiba, they wrote about how their experience of kinship with other anime fans has changed:

Fandom now is bigger and more varied than ever. Anime is mainstream. When I first started going to anime conventions as a young adult, the most exciting feeling I had was kinship. I could be confident that everyone near me knew the same jokes, watched same shows, heard the same songs, and these were all things we couldn’t easily share with other people in our lives. Cons still give me that feeling, but fandom is pop culture now, and monoculture is dead; it’s become too vast for a one size fits all to actually work as perfectly as it did before. I can’t turn to the person sitting next to me and talk about the best anime ever made (Fullmetal Alchemist) because they may not even know what that is (ouch); they might be only into Gacha Games, or Vtubers, or TCGs, or Danmei, or Webtoons, or they might have only watched Demonslayer. And you know what? I haven’t watched Demonslayer. That puts me at an extreme disadvantage. On the bus to Manga Ichiba, I knew that the people sitting around us all liked doujinshi. That was the same kinship I used to get in AA, when it was hard to get official merch of any kind of your favorite anime unless you went to a con. If you read my post about prepping for Manga Ichiba, you’ll know that in the midst of my busiest drawing time I decided to take a week off in order to go to Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest, an official convention for the MMO video game. The kinship was overflowing there.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Rian Phin's video essays on fashion, not because I am particularly interested in fashion but because it's clear her mind moves a hundred miles a minute tying together art and philosphy and the search for both in our daily lives in a way that is catnip to me. In one about the different interpretations of Y2K fashion, she talks about how it's easy to assume that people wearing mainstream costume-y interpretations of trends don't care about authenticity, but we must recognize that there is psychological safety in numbers and in the comfort of being clearly legible to others. It is disheartening to not be understood, so to interpret a trend differently, even if that different is "more realistically" or "more authentically" or "more deeply researched", is a risk that you have to be willing to take. In doing so, you signal that it is important to you to find others with those small overlapping circles of interest. There is social value in being seen and understood, not just seen.

I am going to state the obvious: Being an anime or manga fan (and, similarly, being a fan of BL) is not at all like being into fashion. You participate in fashion, whether or not you want to be, simply by wearing clothes, but being an anime or manga fan is largely a cryptic fandom. The choice to identify as such is wholly intentional; you cannot accidentally demonstrate interest in being an anime or manga fan (though you could be a fan of an individual anime or manga without the rest of the identity attaching on). Thus, when faced with an opportunity to gather as a group, I think many of us (especially older fans like me) have not left the early mentality of wanting to embrace everything and everyone, of thinking about ourselves as belonging to the same community of nerds, even though we have long outgrown that as a useful mode of organization. I think spaces like Fanime still inherit this old-school purpose of being a public place where you could be, above all, seen and understood as an anime or manga fan. It is a no-judgment zone, a show-and-tell lovefest where all your interests are accepted, all your faves valid, All Perverts Welcome.

But to do so in an age where we have access to so many anime and so many manga (and so much bl and so much danmei!), we end up flattening our fetishes. Our safety in numbers is safety in the easily legible, and our commitment to tolerate each other is a genial kowtowing to the Intellectual Property, because that's the only way to communicate. Oh, you like Dark Souls? I also like Video Game. Oh, you like SVSSS? I also like Danmei. Oh, you like Chiikawa? I also like Cute Things. Oh, you like Umamusume? I also like Horse Yuri. When we left the conventions paces and walked the streets of San Jose, we were an undifferentiated smoothie of cosplay and fursuits and itabags and anime merch. We are all Perverts of the Same Kind, and in being so, we are no perverts at all.

Well, all this is an overly long prologue. I went to Fanime, my first anime convention in decades, not because I suddenly wanted to experience the community of my fellow anime and manga fans, but because I wanted to be a part of the inaugural Manga Ichiba, the first ever dedicated doujinshi market in the United States.

And it probably comes as no surprise that at Manga Ichiba, I was delightfully shocked into feeling the sense of community I didn't realize I was looking for. What I found at Manga Ichiba was this unapologetic expression of the subversive, the risky signaling of the in-group that Rian Phin espoused, the rejection of the need to buy everything simply because it is There and part of the General Anime Intellectual Property, replaced by the passionate drive to only participate in the very specific thing that made you a True Pervert. Weeks out from the event, I can't stop thinking about all the True Perverts I met at Manga Ichiba: the one artist during the Saturday morning session of Manga Ichiba who was selling, of all things, a Boogiepop Phantom doujinshi and was excited when I approached their table to talk to them about the 2001 anime, the free pamphlet encouraging you to watch all 100+ episodes of the slowest and most body-count-heavy space opera ever written (Legend of Galactic Heroes), all the variety of original comics I saw that ranged from demoted MyReadingManga incest tags to short, plotless adventures with longtime OCs that, understandably, no one recognized.

None of these were profitable ventures, and they were not trying to be. They were little lighthouses on lonely shores, shining a beacon out into the darkness, hoping to be seen and understood, and we were all boats paddling furiously towards each artist's table. You could not be there in that space as a lover of manga and not feel a kind of a protectiveness, an anxiety over the precarity of the event's existence, but also somehow a delirious hope that it might go on forever and ever, spreading all over the United States.

Comic Market, still (?) the largest doujinshi convention in the Japan and thus the world, is famous for its motto that "there are no 'customers' at the Comic Market." In the eyes of Comiket, we are all simply participants. While the circles provide works and concepts, the general attendees participate as readers and supporters of the creative works.

I love this conception of the doujinshi market, because firstly, I love the Weird, the works where you can feel the creator's soul moving like the spirit of God over their work of art, where something is so imbued with the individuality of its maker that you know it is off-putting to someone. To encourage this kind of art, the reader cannot be a "customer," to be serviced and pandered to. Instead, the artist and the reader must be co-conspirators, participants in a crime of self-expression. And at Manga Ichiba, I was a participant in many crimes.

But Comiket's explanation of the doujinshi holy trinity does not end there. The doujinshi market is where "creativity," "collection," and "community"—that is, interaction among participants—meet. And importantly, the reader participates not just through their purchasing of doujinshi but also in their "interaction."

What does it mean to be a non-artist participant outside of simply buying? Comiket seems to posit that there is an obligation unique to the reader that extends long after money and doujinshi have exchanged hands. In other words, it's not the buying that makes a reader part of the community. It is the reader's interaction with the doujinshi.

Nowadays we favor the term "BL" over "yaoi," but a part of me has always been drawn to the playfulness of "yaoi" as a word, even more so when I realized that it was a self-deprecating in-joke based on one artist's friends reading an original doujinshi she wrote literally titled "Yaoi" (夜追い). To me, this is the essence of yaoi, and with it, doujinshi: an exercise in whimsy, an act of bringing forth art and weirdness and selfhood into the world, but also something that can only spring into existence through community participation, through its creator offering it up for presentation, the readers recognizing its existence and commenting on it, and its placement in—or rejection from—the commercial world.

"Yaoi has been called 'masturbation fantasy,' but its pleasures are nevertheless meant to be shared," Patrick W. Galbraith wrote in "Moe Talk: Affective Communication among Female Fans of Yaoi in Japan." I have posited before that the yaoi/BL/slash fiction space is so unique but also prolific with its very specific tropes and formulations of narratives because the lines between authors and readers are so porous. BL creators tend to also heavily consume BL, both amateur and professional, and often inspired to create by comments from their readers, even citing suggestions or overwhelming responses from their readers as inspiration for their work, while readers often become inspired to create their own work.

I think, then, if we are to have a community, our readers must read, and let others—not just the authors, but also other readers—know what they have read, how it made them feel. Not in a product review way, or like a customer reviewing a restaurant on Google, no matter how glowing such a review may be. But in a way that reflects the reader's own self-expression, that reaches deep into the reader herself, and leaves her a little vulnerable. Yes, that's why I ended up writing a post blurbing every doujinshi I bought at Manga Ichiba. And it worked! It was a labor of love in every way, and writing it made me feel like I was giving back to the authors in a way separate from money, like I was helping Manga Ichiba in its journey to continuation and proliferation, like I was actually contributing, opening myself up to be seen and understood.