#tinngun

I've got a version of this that was getting up to 15 pages with just way too many details and links. Gonna try and just spew it out real quick here for y'all.

@telomeke tipped me off to looking at MSP through a political lens with their post about the Our Skyy MSP ep here. Basically, with some helpful discussions from @doublel27, I realized MSP shows a ton of shit about Thailand's soft-power model .

1.Let's kick it off with the gastrodiplomacy. In MSP Twi (Mark Pakin), a government representative, makes Por (Ford Allan), the band's main chef take over a food stall at the school. Instead of actual traditional food or the korean bbq Por loves to cook, they end up crafting a new dish altogether, sort of like what Thailand did with pad thai. Now you gotta know that Thailand is actually credited with inventing gastrodiplomacy in the early 2000s, and it was hella successful. You know that good Thai place near your house? Yeah, funded by the Thai government so that you like them more. Just off the top of my head, Mix, Pavel, and P'Dome (another writer/director who's depicted restaurant work) all have family members who took the government up on this policy and live or lived abroad working their restaurant.

2.Another fun instance is the analogy to studying abroad we get when Tinn negotiates with his parents to stay with a friend, for a week to study, leaving out that it's actually Gun he's going to study with at an apartment belonging to Twi's brother--who is, in fact, studying abroad! Studying abroad as a strategy to for royalty and politicians to gain language and cultural knowledge to build some advantages towards dealing with European powers goes way back to King Mongkut (aka Rama IV) in the 1850s. In the 1960s it laid out a National Economic and Social Development Plan that supported students heading over to the US for higher ed., but it's really kicked off in this century (pdf on the topic) being made much more accessible to a broader swath of the Thai population. The idea, as Tinn's dad explains, is that studying abroad is meant to make things better at home (Tinn's dad, of course, had a different idea about what 'better at home' entailed than what educational policy is hoping to encourage). Thais can build positive relationships with people outside their country and understand foreign cultures, technologies, and languages better to both implement them at home. But, one of the anxieties is that studying abroad might invite foreign influence...like, idk, maybe, gay rights?

3.We also get a nice beach trip thrown in, an essential considering Thailand's tourism industry that depends on its beautiful beaches (Gun: "The beach there is gorgeous. If I get to lay down and listen to the sound of waves with my lover..."). Thailand's tourism initiatives have been an even bigger win than the gastrodiplomacy. Thailand really launched this project in 1987 with the global Visit Thailand Year 1987, increasing its international tourism arrivals by 24%. Since then, Thailand has made itself a hub for international tourism, with constant growth of the market and dramatic yearly increases beginning in 2009. It's been such a boon for the country. It's no wonder Tinn's mom, the surrogate for the leadership of Thailand, doesn't even worry about Tinn going to the beach, despite her previous anxieties about him spending time away from the house. This kind of tourism is a great thing. And she even makes it seem like she's ready to hear about Tinn's boy crush! Thailand has been more than happy to have the pink dollars of the international lgbt population, becoming the first Asian country to launch a government-backed campaign for lgbt+ tourism in 2013, with its 'Go Thai, Be Free' campaign. But, just as soon as the door seemed open for Tinn to come out with her openness to Thai's outside friends, his mom assumes everyone is straight in her own home. There was long a sense of irony about Thailand's courting of the pink international dollar while leaving much of its own lgbt+ population at home unprotected without equal rights.

4.Okay, what about music? Like what korea did with kpop. No chance of gay there! When Sound joins the music club he presses the group toward perfection. He tries to craft their image with costumes and incessant practice, berating them for their casualness, their religious worship (of chinzhilla), their community-oriented food traditions, time-splitting with studies and such, and, finally, kicking Gun out of the group. He's giving the kpop and jpop models of idol culture. The Thai entertainment industry has not historically been about that life, and when confronted with the option as they sought out a t-wave of their own music, they rejected it. At a recent anniversary concert, 4EVE's director?/boss?/idk what his actual title is? talked about a conversation he had early on with one of the girls where she asked if she was allowed to date, deciding that they shouldn't have to play by those conservative rules just because it's been a successful norm elsewhere. You see the parallel to Chinzhilla's no-dating rule, I hope.

5.But what about gay dating? Boys Love is kind of the whole crux in MSP. And, to the shock of pretty much everyone in the world, Thailand's biggest tool for soft power outside of its tourism has become boys kissing each other on computer screens. BL's economic power within the country and beyond has been one of the most effective leveraging tools for arguments about lgbt rights. And we see the boys leveraging that, too, with their music video productions. This also leads to being able to cross some friend lines, just like the initial BL wave in the mid-2010s helped bring about a 98% positive response to a civil partnership bill that passed in 2018. In both cases, they're not quite official, but it's something. If they can just win Hot Wave then gay dating's gonna happen! But they lose Hot Wave and, right after, homophobia (which we didn't even realize existed here!!!) comes crashing in to burst this big BL bubble. Because there's an allegory going on here about gay marriage rights, which at the time of MSP's air date, had only a couple years before been a bill that stalled and went dead in parliament. And enduring that loss can be felt again and again in MSP, but no more emphatically than the Hot Wave loss. Luckily, it's also about persisting despite the losses--and punching homophobes. (And persist Thai lgbt adovocates did!)

And there’s this thing that happens when they get to express their crush out in the open. The joy just radiates! Yes, it’s partly just that they’re simps for their man, but for my queer heart there’s an extra layer I read into it. Cuz it’s not just about their man specifically. It’s the joy of being yourself out in the open, of letting your gay affections and effeminate disposition be free and unrestrained without shame.

So much of guilt occurs for queer folks around being ‘too much,’ and for queer folks socialized as boys, that ‘too much’ is around how expressive and emotional you’re allowed to be privately and publicly, especially regarding happiness, excitement, sadness, and affection (anger’s unfortunately chill though). Caring is for sissies. For these fruity semes, all of whom have a kind of masculine physical stature that more easily conceals (but not entirely) their effeminate dispositions to those not sensitive to it, confessing their feelings opens the flood gates to all the big loving feelings and gestures they’ve been repressing. They are given permission to be themselves. It’s more profound than just their love for the person.

Queer joy might be a cliche at this point, but I can’t think of a better phrase to describe what pours out of them. When they realize queer expression is a legitimate option, they can understand how they fit into the world without having to pretend. The communication of their love opened the door, but it seems clear that even if that relationship ended, the door wouldn’t shut. (DO NOT TAKE THEIR BOYS AWAY FROM THEM THO!) being out in the open with how much they care feels too good, too true. They’ve discovered how to stop betraying their own queer impulses.

Move on to the next one. Juliet is yearning for love.