#normalization of love

OMG what a great ask and it turns out I have lots of thoughts. Who knew? *sarcasm* 

Love of Siam, ITSAY, Thailand & the HEA Gay

First of all I agree with you in so many ways. 

Yes I have seen Love of Siam (2007) and it totally destroyed me. That old school queer cinema amorphous ending is hard for me to take. We were given nothing but that (or death) for so many YEARS in queer cinema, it was always the same message: 

“yeah, but society is the way it is, so sucks to be you.” 

I totally get that this was mainly queer writers and directors working out their damage as a result of a homophobic world’s pressures and expectations, but I’m exhausted by it. I want us to get positive, happy, life affirming narratives. 

I also get the argument that in many ways ITSAY solves for Love of Siam’s damage by putting its characters through a similar narrative arc but ending them up together, and I will watch it in order to get there some day. I just gotta work myself up to struggling through the first half of that old familiar journey of DOOM. 

I mean they even parrot the famous last scene. “I can’t be your boyfriend” to “Be my boyfriend.”

I agree with you that Love of Siam is Thailand’s first tentative step towards BL and it’s certainly a seed child for more queer affirming and realistic Thai BL like ITSAY. But I think it was critically acclaimed and accepted at the time, and still is because of its so called “realistic approach.” But IMHO what is actually going on is a homophobic society’s (and film critic’s) way of saying “well, we liked it because we find its messaging acceptable.” By plauditing Love of Siam, in part, they were doing their own messaging: “This film is correct in that the gays can’t be happy because they are gay. Love doesn’t conquer all.” 

I would argue that if Love of Siam had ended with an HEA for the boys it would not have been as acclaimed. Partly because the culture at the time couldn’t stand a more positive queer message, and partly because any narrative that ends happily is automatically critically disenfranchised for various reasons. I will die on that tiny hill. 

I’ve spent my whole life (and career) fighting for HEA narratives in the critical, academic, and pop culture sphere.  

I desperately want to see normalization of a positive outcome for the queer life journey. That is why I’m such a proponent of gay romance, and Thai BL especially, but more than anything else Happy Ever Afters for queer couples. 

I think queer HEA is a vital component of cultural shift towards acceptance. One of the most powerful things fictional narratives can do is represent us in positive happy centrally-focused universally palatable ways. At their foundational level, these narratives give out hope. (And yes they have many flaws, but this isn’t one of them.)

But I believe modern Thai BL owes more (tonally) to Love Sick and SOTUS than Love of Siam. And yes, absolutely Love Sick probably wouldn’t have happened without Love of Siam but it is fundamentally different, as is what came after. 

What Thailand did with Love Sick in 2014 is to go soapy and cheesy with the coming out experience. Yes it still has that touch of genuine teen angst, but Love Sick pivoted into full on HEA and charming whimsey and I love it for that. SOTUS kind of cemented the deal that what Thai audiences wanted (and the rest of the world from Thailand) was upbeat BL. Fortunately for me, they leaned into it. 

That bifurcation I talk about with Japan? Thailand chose the cheerful sun dappled path.  And I am grateful they left narrative arcs like Love of Siam behind. 

I genuinely love the fluffy escapist stuff that comes after 2016 better (I use both those terms affectionately). I really enjoy the light-hearted cheese of what amounts to Thai’s gay romcoms. It makes me happiest when there’s very little angst and what’s there is trivial (Oxygen, how I love thee). I don’t want to be reminded in any way of how dark and unhappy the queer life experience can be. I get that enough from real life. The fact that ITSAY goes there, but then rectifies it, still means I’m on the narrative path of going there first. 

For me the two great joys of modern Thai BL are 

how unlike reality it is 

how unremittingly happy the messaging of a future of unity and acceptance 

Well that question made me think about my whole damn life philosophy. 

What a morning this has been.

*queer hugs for everyone*