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waitmyturtles · 9 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY) Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, in a long post, I work my way through Nadao Bangkok’s cinematic motherlode: ITSAY. Thanks to everyone for your patience with this post: I did major due diligence with it, with the absolutely TREMENDOUS help of @telomeke, @lurkingshan, @wen-kexing-apologist, and @bengiyo to ensure I had facts and analysis correct. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to these dear friends for holding me down and offering your sharp eyes.]

To dive into a topic as complicated, as beautiful, as reflective, as impactful as a macro-analysis of I Told Sunset About You is to take on...a lot. As I’ve discussed with @lurkingshan, from a filmmaking perspective, as so many of us who have watched ITSAY know -- it occupies the top spot of Thai BLs by way of pure cinematic quality. (If you follow my late-night liveblogs, you’ll know that this was the first show -- not even Bad Buddy did this to me -- where I needed to stop multitasking, to just sit and watch the episodes. No drama has done that for me in the years since I became a multitasking mom.)

As with 2gether and Still 2gether last week, this watch of ITSAY is a definite milestone on the OGMMTVC list, and I really thank @shortpplfedup, @bengiyo, @wen-kexing-apologist, @lurkingshan, @telomeke, and others in advance for what we’ve talked about in direct conversation regarding ITSAY, its many influential tentacles, and the influences that the show itself may have come from.

I’d like to touch upon a couple of frames to structure this piece, but the caveat here is that by no way will I consider myself an ITSAY expert, because there’s a tremendous fandom that knows much more about the Nadao Bangkok studio, about PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, about the director and screenwriter, Boss Naruebet, and much more. I will have a substantial postscript to capture loose notes and learnings that didn’t make it into the main analysis.

Inspired in part by direct conversations with @telomeke and @lurkingshan, I’d like to dive into the following:

1) From a question that @lurkingshan posed to me: what shows from the start of the OGMMTVC watchlist -- and, more broadly, what art out there -- do I think spoke to ITSAY and its development, 2) The important story of Chinese migration to locations like Phuket, Penang (in Malaysia), and other locations on the Malay Peninsula, and how Chinese and Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan cultures flavored ITSAY’s storytelling, 3) A discussion of internal and external homophobia on Teh’s experience, and how his conversation with Hoon encapsulated our understanding of homophobia, filial piety, and socioeconomic pressures in Teh’s particular life, timeline, and culture,

and more, I’m sure. Let’s boogie.

I warned some folks prior to this review that my thoughts on what may have spoken to ITSAY may turn some people off, so I offer this as a flare to y’all in advance. Acknowledging that episodes three and four of ITSAY were as emotional as anything I had ever seen in Asian BLs, Teh was just such a PERFECTLY written character. (The ITSAY supporting documentary episodes state that the show was in part inspired by Billkin’s and PP’s personal lives, and I know there’s fanon that the show was meant to deeply depict their personal stories with each other. I don’t have primary source material to point to regarding this, so I’ll leave it alone, with the understanding that there are interpretations of the show that read between the lines to bring that lens in. I acknowledge the existence of the theories, but will not dive into that here.)

So, in regards to Teh, as I chatted with @lurkingshan as I was watching the series, I just kept thinking to myself... hello, Fuse.

CHAOS BOYS! (Fire Boys? No, no, chaos boys, ha.)

This is where I think my analytical read might get a little controversial with folks, because to compare Make It Right to ITSAY -- from a LOOKS perspective, CERTAINLY from a storyline and narrative structure perspective -- no, it’s not there, not by a long shot.

But when I wonder about what ENERGIES and inspirations opened the door for Boss Narubet to WRITE the way that he wrote, and to DIRECT the way that he directed, Teh’s ENTIRE EMOTIONAL PROCESS AND BREAKDOWNS, his back-and-forth, his hesitations -- I saw chaos, and when I think of chaos, I think of Fuse.

I think of Fuse, and how Fuse was held back, particularly in Make It Right 2, regarding Fuse’s CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ASSUMPTION that he couldn’t break up with his girlfriend, all while being in a nascent give-and-take, back-and-forth relationship with Tee. And how that ASSUMPTION held BACK the full expression of commitment, honesty, and trust that Fuse and Tee ended up having at the end of MIR2. Fuse was being rather unsophisticated while he was struggling with this, and he was bringing Tee along, frustratingly, for that ride.

Something that you said to me also really resonated, @bengiyo, in conversation with @lurkingshan, about comparing TeeFuse and TehOh, in that Fuse and Teh weren’t necessarily SPARKLING or GIFTED presences. As you two both pointed out to me: Teh had to work much, much harder than Oh-aew for the talents that Teh achieved, and somehow, chaotically, he managed to lose his grip on those talents and achievements as he gave up his hard-earned opportunities for the sake of the overall-better-off Oh-aew. MESSY, BRO.

Besides MIR/MIR2, there’s somewhere else where I saw chaos. @bengiyo, you pointed out to me that you felt that you saw more of Thai queer cinema in ITSAY than in BL. I don’t think ITSAY *doesn’t* speak to BL and vice versa (I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that, considering what Nadao Bangkok achieved with this show), but when I think of chaos -- and of the structures of storytelling that allowed us to get such an in-depth experience of Teh -- I also think of 2019′s Dew the Movie, and to a different extent, the before-its-time show in 2019′s He’s Coming To Me.

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have:

a) multiple chaotic leads (including actual ghosts and dudes who see ghosts), b) overarching cultural backgrounds rooted in extremely specific Asian cultures and/or practices and/or time periods, and c) interplays of emotional revelations vis à vis those specific cultural backgrounds.

- Fuse introduced to us, way back in 2016 and 2017, an internal holding back of an emotional engagement with Tee that was rooted in internal homophobia by way of his negotiation with what Fuse’s girlfriend expected of him, and what HE expected of HIMSELF regarding HAVING a girlfriend, while falling in love with a young man.

- Dew featured two young men in chaos, in 1990s rural Thailand, one of whom (Dew) who had previously lived in a different city where, likely, his sexual orientation would not have been met with such dystopic scrutiny as it did in the movie. The movie made clear that Dew wanted a solid relationship with Phop, but with both Dew’s and Phop’s families and cultural expectations holding them back, they both met untimely and unfortunate ends that hammered, in extremes, the perils, in cinema, of being gay and out in an incredibly restrictive and old-fashioned Asian society.

- HCTM featured a young man (Thun) who could see ghosts, along with the ghost that he ends up falling in love with (Med). The revelation of Thun’s being able to see Med is deeply connected to Thun’s Thai-Chinese Buddhist practices, and how his family has engaged with spirituality over the course of his life. While the structure of the show has often been described as having a happy ending, I argue the opposite -- that the ending is left open-ended, as it so often is in some of P’Aof Noppharnach’s shows, with the assumed understanding on behalf of an Asian audience that Med will one day be reborn and will leave Thun’s side (unless he’s reborn into another person that knows Thun) (hello, Until We Meet Again).

So what do all of these shows/movies -- ITSAY, Make It Right/MIR2, Dew, and HCTM -- have in common?

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have the common background of an old-fashioned culture serving as a MAJOR anchor to their stories. Their stories are leveraged by the micro-level, individual-level interplay between their main characters and old-fashioned worlds, complete with old-fashioned notions, assumptions, and expectations. ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM negotiate boundaries with these cultural guardrails, and we see -- Teh at the end of episode 4, Thun on the rooftop in episode 5, Dew talking to his mother -- what those expectations and boundaries have done internally to our dear young men.

Make It Right’s Fuse, way back in 2016, internalized this slightly differently, without us seeing as deeply the WORLD in which he grew up. The directors and screenwriters New Siwaj and Cheewin Thanamin gave us a guy in school with a girlfriend. FUSE’S world, that we see, is a school world, so apropos for that time of Thai BLs, complete with very heterosexual expectations for a young man WITH a girlfriend. And Fuse struggles with his push-and-pull throughout the two seasons.

What I love about the OGMMTVC project is that by having watched these projects before ITSAY, I can somewhat predict what the journey of chaos, by way of internal revelation, will be for these characters.

However.

What ITSAY DESTROYED for me, as compared to these dramas and movies, was the high level of acting that Billkin leveraged to get Teh to the emotional levels that he reached. Teh, episode 4, and Thun, episode 5 = handshakes.

This is where ITSAY’s structure just brings ITSAY to the top of the cinematic list and runs away from everything else. I posted in my liveblogging that the ending of episode 3 blew me away with a subversion of the four-act structure of screenwriting. @bengiyo corrected me to say that it was, instead, a rare example of Thai BLs achieving a successful five-act structure.

Just -- fuck.

You combine this UTTERLY FUCKING BRILLIANT STORYTELLING STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE STRUCTURING PAR FUCKING EXCELLENCE, ALONG WITH BILLKIN’S PORTRAYAL OF TEH IN HEAT AND CHAOS, and I’m eating, fam. Five-star Michelin tasting menu-level.

But before I start that meal, there’s even more that ITSAY did to really hammer in what I’m referencing by way of the anchors of old-fashioned culture to this story, which, clearly, Boss and Nadao Bangkok value, in the show’s indirect commentary on Chinese culture and migration in Thailand, and what it meant for Teh and Oh-aew to grow up in Phuket and prepare to leave for Bangkok. (If you haven’t watched ITSAY, I highly recommend that you plan on watching the supplementary documentary material, because those docs give a ton of insight into the Thai-Malay-Chinese background of the show. As a SE Asian homey, those revelations gave me the wonderful warm and familiar vibes.)

Dear @telomeke (I don’t know what I’d do without you, friend!) helped me to understand, back in my HCTM days, that I inherently know more about Chinese migration, immigration, and culture into Southeast Asia than I previously gave myself credit for as a part-Malaysian, because many of the migratory patterns and cultural assimilations are similar between Thailand and Malaysia. I appreciated that confirmation, and had my inspector’s hat on during my watch and rewatch of ITSAY.

I’ve spoken with @lurkingshan and @neuroticbookworm about the impact of migration and diasporic existence, in that, I think, oftentimes, immigrants to another country often hold a more conservative view of the cultures they bring with them -- in order to hold onto the tenets of those cultures, and to keep those tenets from getting influenced or maybe even watered down by the new environment in which immigrants are living. (My example to Shan and NBW was that I find that South Asian immigrants are often MORE conservative than my relatives in my homelands -- so as to keep a tight grip on assimilation, or, say, moral/ethical weakening by way of Western culture.)

I think the background of Phuket and EVERYTHING it lent to the show...

- Teh’s mom selling Hokkien mee at a stall storefront and the boys eating it in Teh’s old-fashioned house, - The old-fashioned o-aew dessert shop, selling a Hokkien Chinese dessert, which is often preceded by a shot of the “Phuket Old Town” sign, - Teh’s mom’s traditional Chinese-Peranakan outfits, particularly when she’s celebrating Teh and Hoon’s successes, - The tight streets and alleys,

...all of it, visually and culturally, reminded us that the boys live in a world that was DEEPLY INFLUENCED by the way back when. I posit that Teh’s mom is the encapsulation of this kind of old-fashioned culture, from the architectural style of her Hokkien mee stall, to the clothes she wears, to the heavy decorations and rugs and furniture of her old-fashioned house -- to her old-fashioned notions of filial piety that both her sons will be successful and will help to take care of her as she ages. I posit that this old-fashioned mindset also likely led Teh to believe that Teh’s mom would not accept him for liking men, which I will delve into more in a bit.

I mentioned cultural assimilation earlier: I brought up Penang, Malaysia, earlier, because I’ve spent time in Penang -- and Penang was referenced by Boss in the ITSAY documentaries as being similar to Phuket by way of cultural structure. @telomeke educated me on the tin-trade-influenced links from Phuket to the Malaysian towns of Penang and Kuala Lumpur, all towns that experienced heavy immigration from China and feature the strong presence of Chinese-Malay-Peranakan cultures in their social fabrics. The Peranakan population developed when the first Chinese immigrants to these regions began marrying the local ethnic Thai and Malay residents, creating a brand-new culture, complete with unique foods, clothing, architecture, and much more.

Having not been to Phuket yet, I believe Boss. As well, I want to note -- very important to me as a part-Malaysian -- that Boss referenced Teh’s nickname as the Malay word for tea. @telomeke noted for me this distinction as one that’s notable for how ITSAY differentiates the culture within the show -- again, a culture that’s influenced by Chinese and Malay migratory history -- against the backdrop of Bangkok, where tea is not “teh,” but rather is called “cha,” the Thai word for tea. [The most famous “teh” drink of Malaysia is teh tarik, a sweet, creamy, and strong tea drink that you see everywhere in Malaysia. While o-aew is a distinctly Chinese-style dessert, teh tarik comes from Indian immigrants to Malaysia (and is usually drunk with roti canai, another Indian import to Malaysia)].

In other words: we are talking a TREMENDOUS, a TREMENDOUS amount of references to cultural mixing, development, and assimilation here, all INTENTIONALLY placed by Boss Narubet and his screenwriting team -- and all of this serving as a reflection against what Teh and Oh-aew will experience as being “different” in their futures in Bangkok, where this Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural differential will make them different when they get to college. (Not having seen I Promised You The Moon yet, I wonder if IPYTM sets up Teh and Oh-aew as potential country mice, à la Ji Hyun and Joon Pyo in The Eighth Sense.)

One more pertinent note of cultural intermixing by way of the historical Thai-Chinese-Malay linkages. @bengiyo was surprised that I didn’t initially exclaim at the presence of hijab- and songkok-clad Muslim women and men eating at Teh’s mom’s Hokkien mee stall; Teh and Oh-aew’s friend, Phillip, is also shown with his Muslim parents. It’s funny, @bengiyo, as I said to you: because I was watching ITSAY with such a trained eye towards spotting the Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural mixing, seeing Muslims on screen did NOT ring a bell of differentials because -- I expect to see them there, in those kinds of spaces, anyway. (In fact, seeing Muslims on Thai television is rare, which I will get into more in the postscript.)

So we have: MANY CULTURES MIXING OVER MANY GENERATIONS. Migratory patterns intertwining. Indications of physical and emotional movement. And even though, and even DESPITE, these cultures mixing, we ALSO HAVE an OVERARCHING message of old-fashioned customs and ways of living that dominate the lives of the children in the show -- ESPECIALLY Teh. Teh and Oh-aew -- literally, their NAMES reference places ELSEWHERE than Phuket and Thailand. Phuket’s old-fashioned roots. Teh’s mom SELLS a dish that comes from somewhere else (the Hokkien Chinese population mostly hails from Fujian, China, as its origin).

What happens with migration and immigration? Cultures collide and combine -- social mores and expectations change -- one’s standards of HOW TO LIVE ONE’S LIFE changes.

Teh and Oh-aew, during the entire series, are facing a moment in time where THEIR lives, THEIR cultures, THEIR micro-interactions WITH THEIR cultures, ARE GOING TO CHANGE, definitively, by way of their burgeoning same-sex relationship. Teh and Oh-aew are already different in Thailand by way of their cultural backgrounds, as I’ve established -- and now, with a potential public revelation of their relationship, will they be even more different. And their families -- especially Teh’s mom, but Oh-aew’s family as well -- are going to collide with the very PRESENT present vis à vis their boys and their love.

As this happens with migration and immigration, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN vis à vis Teh and Oh-aew’s queer revelations as well.

Boss focused on the aspects of Phuket that were anchors to the culture that Teh and Oh-aew were raised in -- an immigrant culture, a migrant culture from China, that has had a long hold over many, many towns and societies in Thailand. We didn’t see the modern 7-11s that we know are there in Phuket, serving the tourists of these towns.

And, just like the physical dystopia of Dew, and even vis à vis the spiritual practices built into He’s Coming To Me, the slice of Old Town Phuket that we SAW as that anchor was a HEAVY PRESENCE in Teh’s life -- it was PERFECTLY matched with the old-fashioned, conservative ANGER and DISAPPOINTMENT that we saw in Teh’s mom in episode 4, when Teh shares that he dropped out of university for Oh-aew. That anchor, to me, was meant to SMASH into, FEED into Teh’s overwhelming emotionality at his queer revelation, and at the revelation that serving his mother via filial piety would be automatically made more difficult, thus maximizing the impact of his internalized homophobia and his fear of recognizing his love and attraction for Oh-aew.

COUPLE THAT with the previous hints -- and then the SMASHING WRECKING BALL -- of the visual depths of Oh-aew’s own realizations earlier in episode 4, his own internally different place, the way he reveals himself to the world vis à vis the fast Instagram post of him wearing the red bra. And how Teh reacts to it. And how it sets off such an unreal chain of emotional unraveling for Teh, the SECOND of that episode, even before he goes to Bangkok to drop out.

WHOA.

THIS, TO ME WAS FUCKING STUNNING

and very important to me to see as a South/Southeast Asian. WHEW.

And, good lord. How Hoon comes in at the end for Teh. Hoon, the eldest son, the one who has very quietly borne the financial responsibility that his mom, Teh’s mom, too, has placed on Hoon’s shoulders, naturally, through generations of family custom. (Super duper thanks to @lurkingshan for talking me through this in detail with me.)

And Hoon gives his family, his little bro, Teh, comfort. How Hoon says, listen. Mom’s gonna be mad if and when you tell her about Oh-aew and your feelings for me. But guess what? She’s gonna come around. You’re a crybaby, Teh, but I’m here for you.

Hoon knows that Teh’s mom will come around -- because Hoon is also a part of the next generation of change, much like his Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan community before him -- as he brings his Japanese girlfriend home to his mother and brother. (THANK YOU, @wen-kexing-apologist, for pointing this out!)

Teh’s mom, too, will move. She will move from her old-fashioned mindset, to migrate to a new mindset, where she will accept her son. Teh needed to hear that, to know that that movement would be possible.

Just like the movement of the many swirling cultures around Teh and Oh-aew, the hustle of Bangkok before them, nipping at their lives like the ocean to the beach.

What ITSAY captured for me was a cinematic moment of movement on so many levels. It was a pulsating reflection of change. It was meant and designed to insidiously shock viewers out of complacency. Like a beanstalk climbing from the ground, the movement begot movement to these two young men beginning to address and empty themselves of the homophobia that kept them back, Teh especially.

GAH, THEIR MOVING PHYSICALITY, IT NEVER STOPPED -- the end of episode 2 on the boat, the end of episode 3 in Teh’s room, GAWD -- Teh’s ABSOLUTE HORMONAL DRUNKENNESS, Oh-aew’s STARE AFTER STARE AFTER STARE, Oh-aew’s SILENT DEVASTATION AT THE END OF EPISODE 3, the way Teh would nod and FLOP his head uncontrollably in desire, the nuzzles, the sniffs, the uncontrolled reaches -- GAH. It gives me the shivers.

It was a lot.

ITSAY was just -- y’all know it. It was fantastic. While HCTM was before its time, I feel that ITSAY was RIGHT ON TIME. It brought so many elements of this GORGEOUS, HISTORIC, culturally Southeast Asian experience into the intersection of the queer lens, as well as the *migratory* lens of the Southeast Asian region specifically. It showed us, from a micro-perspective, the very tremendous macro-level implications and pressures of filial piety, of internalized homophobia, of the huge socioeconomic expectations that families have on Asian students to succeed in education, and so much more. IT WAS *DEFINITIVELY INTERSECTIONAL*, MORE SO THAN ANY BL BEFORE ITS TIME.

Yet again, for me, just like Bad Buddy, just like Until We Meet Again, I have another show in my arsenal that makes me proud to be an Asian watching these shows -- and in ITSAY, I feel particularly proud that a slice of my own personal culture, as an Malaysian, made it in there, intentionally. I will FOREVER, and ever, be grateful to ITSAY for that.

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I’d like to offer this postscript as a means of making some quick points that @telomeke, @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, and @wen-kexing-apologist shared with me as I was writing this review -- and I thank them all deeply for reading drafts of this post before publication.

1) I was previously unaware of the history and current state of Islamic culture in Thailand until ITSAY and Be My Favorite included women wearing hijabs in their shows. This is an important slice of culture for me to know about, as I’m part-Malaysian, where Islam is the dominant religion. @telomeke shared with me that the majority Muslim population in Thailand is in southern Thailand (although, of course, Muslims live across Thailand), and that there have historically been separatist efforts in those southern provinces that have often led to violence.

There are many reasons why discrimination of Muslims exist in Thailand, as it does around the world, including references to the separatist efforts in the southern provinces. As well, ethnic Thais can trace their heritage back to various towns and communities within China, thus possibly making northern Thailand, with its proximity to China, potentially more lauded in Thai culture, and contributing even more to a perception that southern Thailand, with its Muslim population, as potentially “less desirable.” (And I want to take a second to note @telomeke‘s excellent point to me that “Chinese” as a catch-all word is often incomplete, as Han Chinese make up a sizable portion of Thailand’s population, but as we see in ITSAY, the Hokkien Chinese population also flourishes in certain parts of the country, and there are populations of Teochew and Hakka Chinese as well, as there are in Malaysia.)

All of this combined -- the geographic proximities to China, the places where various populations have settled, from the places that various populations of Thais track their heritages, plus global and/or popular misconceptions and stereotypes of “other” communities -- can contribute to discrimination of Muslims in Thailand. Of course, that is not a universal statement, as we do see Muslims beginning to show up in Thai drama art, which is heartening. To me, it strikes me as more realistic for the region to see Muslims on screen, but I don’t know Thailand well enough to say that for sure (that’s my Malaysian-side talking). I really want to thank @telomeke for taking me on SUCH a deep dive with insight into this part of Thai culture that I think is very necessary and fascinating. (Politics in Thailand is quite complicated at the moment, but at this very second, Thailand’s current Parliament speaker, from the Move Forward party, is Thai Muslim, with a Malay Muslim name -- Wan Muhamed Noor Matha. Very cool, but this is going to change soon, as Move Forward will make way for another political party to take control of the government.)

2) If you know me well enough, I cannot leave food well enough alone in our wonderful dramas (exhibit A: Moonlight Chicken and khao man gai, exhibit B: coffee/kopi in The Promise, lol), and I want to make sure that we were all aware back in 2020, and/or make you aware now, that Hokkien mee is a VERY regional dish, with styles unique to each town in which it is famous. @telomeke, I know you feel differently, but Hokkien mee from Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia is my.... it’s my heaven, my soul, my heart, HA!

Here’s some linkies to get you educated. And also! Oh-aew prefers his Hokkien mee with rice vermicelli noodles, instead of the usual, thicker egg noodles. You know what I like to do if I see that a stall has the two styles of noodles available: I like to get them mixed together. Hokkien mee, Hokkien prawn mee noodle soup, curry laksa -- I like the best of both worlds of noodles in my bowl. YUM.

Phuket Hokkien mee KL Hokkien mee Penang Hokkien mee (this one is the prawn noodle soup, not the fried noodles -- omfg so good) Singapore Hokkien mee (note the lighter color -- and the m’fing mix of thick and thin noodles, hell yeah!)

(If you made it this far in the ITSAY review, I have an easter egg for you. Guess what the Malay name is for rice vermicelli noodles? Bee hoon or mee hoon.

Hoon and Teh, two Malay names: thin noodles and tea. What Teh’s mom serves at her stall, and what Teh and Oh-aew represent, symbolically, by names and their noodle preferences, as a pairing. AND! @telomeke gave me one more easter egg! Teh O is a popular way to order tea in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s black tea with sugar, no milk. Another pairing reference. ITSAY never stopped with all the layered references!)

[WHEW! What a ride. Thanks to all y’all who held me down during my losing-it liveblogging of ITSAY. More to come when I get to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.

Next week, I’ll release my review of YYY into the wild -- listen, honestly. Yes, chaos, confusion, all of it. But I am not writing this show totally off. There was definitely stuff in it to chew on. And: POPPY RATCHAPONG. And Pee Peerawich. The acting was actually stacked on this show. There’s stuff! More soon.

And I also finished Manner of Death, so that review will drop in two weeks. I LOVE MAXTUL. UNABASHEDLY. Yes, I know I’m years late, yes, I know Tul is retired, sobs. Let me live my 2021 dreams! These guys are so good together, and MoD was fuckin’ great.

I have so much good stuff on the way: I’m fully in my ATOTS rewatch, and I’ve added 55:15 Never Too Late, very specifically its BL storyline. I may not give 55:15 a full review because I’ll fast-watch the rest of it, but: Khao, come to me, boo-boo! I have an INSANE August ahead of me as I’ll be moving in a month (GAH), but hopefully this schedule won’t fall back too much.

Status of the listy! Hit me up if you have feedback!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 17) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review coming) 20) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review coming) 21) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (watching) 23) Lovely Writer (2021) 24) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

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waitmyturtles · 7 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Last Twilight In Phuket and I Promised You The Moon Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I conclude my thoughts on Nadao Bangkok's trio of shows, from I Told Sunset About You, to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.]

Whew! I needed to take a quick break from the OGMMTVC slate of reviews to live life: I moved domiciles, and took myself on a therapeutic journey of rewatching the very long and intense series that is Until We Meet Again (I therapize in weird ways, fam), but anyway! Ya girl is BACK on her bullshit, and I am finally reviewing (heads-up, dear @shortpplfedup!) the utterly wonderful Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You the Moon, ending the Nadao Bangkok section of this project that started with I Told Sunset About You.

Just to take a quick 10,000-foot-look at these three shows together: repeating myself from my ITSAY review, we know that ITSAY, LTIP, and IPYTM are on the OGMMTVC list as THE prestige BLs of Thailand -- the BL dramas that likely cost the most money to make, and that took the most solid cinematic turn of any of the BLs on this list. And they are centered and cemented by the mindblowing performances of PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, who were both up for the very remarkable challenge of making theater-level content in two short series and one special episode. (For my tastes? We don't see this level of acting again until Bad Buddy -- but I'm a BBS girlie and thus very biased. But anyway!)

Forgive me as I pen this review a little differently from my previous ones where I lay out an outline, because the dominant thought I have about LTIP and IPYTM was that I will forever respect Nadao Bangkok for going in totally different directions with each piece in the ITSAY framework.

I spent a great amount of time in my ITSAY review celebrating the show's very intentional conversation about place by way of Phuket, and how the history of immigration and the demographic landscape of Phuket so very deeply influenced the layers of meaning in that show (and I thank the WONDERFUL @telomeke once more for spending so much time with me talking about this!).

As we needed a bridge from Phuket to Bangkok: I just love that Boss Naruebet, the main screenwriter and director for both ITSAY and Last Twilight in Phuket, took the time to create a singular episode in LTIP about place, and centering place for the sake of our two beloved leads, Teh and Oh-aew, in order to hammer home ever more deeply what Phuket meant to them, to Boss, and what Phuket should mean to us as the viewers.

Besides the gorgeous celebration of the spaces that meant so much to Teh and Oh-aew -- of course, what we also saw in LTIP was how time can change places. How the boys couldn't get to their special beach spot anymore because the entrance was boarded up. How their tutoring school had closed.

And that theme of change -- and the ache of change -- is, of course, what takes us right to the doorstep of I Promised You The Moon.

But before I go to Bangkok to unwind on IPYTM, I have one last thought on LTIP. In my ITSAY review, I felt the need to unwind and celebrate ITSAY's homage to Phuket as a melting pot, the meeting place of so many cultures (Thai, Chinese, Malay, Peranakan), because to me: Phuket, as a singular place, represented change at home, change from within the home and external to home. Teh's tremendous emotional outburst at the incredibly chaotic decision he made to give up his university spot for Oh-aew -- that devolvement happened literally inside of his home, a traditional Chinese-Peranakan home in multicultural Phuket.

Phuket itself represented a place where Teh could change himself, because the cultural fabric of the place of Phuket changed and changes with the nature of the people that live and breathe within Phuket. That's how immigration and migration change a place -- that's how time changes a place. I posited in my ITSAY review that that was exactly what Phuket was meant to represent as a place of home for Teh and Oh-aew: that a place that was historically and inherently built on change could sustain this very modern relationship between two young men, at least one of them (Teh) raised in an otherwise very traditional and old-fashioned Peranakan culture.

As LTIP unwound (gosh, the name cards of the places they visited, listing place names in English, just made me swoon), and we saw the boys SEEING the change of THEIR place happen before their eyes, I felt that what I was seeing was such an empathic metaphor for the steps of adulthood that they were both about to take. I totally remember taking IN the place where I grew up, one last time, before I hit the road for college. I think I was too young in that moment to put the following into words, but: I knew that the place I was leaving was never going to be the same.... in large part because the way I would see that place called home would change, as well as the place itself actually changing, and getting older itself.

From those steps of change, do we go to Bangkok and to I Promised You the Moon.

The most obvious structural change that separates IPYTM from ITSAY and LTIP is the change in the main screenwriter and director: Boss Naruebet is replaced by Meen Tossaphon.

Now -- oh man. I gotta get my thoughts together on IPYTM.

I. LOVED. I PROMISED YOU THE MOON. I. LOOOOOOOVED IT.

This is likely going to be controversial! There were many parts of IPYTM that I ended up loving more than ITSAY. Lemme get into it.

If you have been a regular around this blog, you might be able to surmise why I loved IPYTM. IPYTM did not beat around any bush -- it did not ignore the bullshit of everyday life in a relationship.

My very favorite BL of all time, What Did You Eat Yesterday?, deals with two middle-aged men in a long-established relationship. We meet them in the middle of their time together. We get all their origin material well within the series.

The wonderful @bengiyo often writes, in his Stray Thoughts posts and elsewhere, how refreshing it often is to see an established queer couple managing the quirks of their relationship as it happens. We so often watch shows that center relationships that start in a series with a queer revelation. The very high majority of our shows are about the chase, a confession, a fleeting sexual moment or two, that first kiss.

I think we were so lucky to get Teh and Oh-aew in their young adulthood, in their four years in university in IPYTM, to see a full life stage -- how AMAZING is that -- complete before our eyes.

But before I go on to talk about why I LOVED IPYTM, and why I think it's important for the OGMMTVC project, I want to explain why there were many parts of IPYTM that I liked more than ITSAY.

ITSAY had explosive emotional moments. They shook me so hardcore that I had to stop multitasking while watching the episodes, and nothing usually slows me down.

@neuroticbookworm and I have spoken, as two South Asians, about the nature of the depictions of these explosive emotional moments on the part of Teh in ITSAY. I've talked before (most recently in my review of The Love of Siam) about how important it is that Western viewers understand that while the interaction that Asian directors and screenwriters have had with Western and Western queer content is important and present (Jojo Tichakorn is revealing himself on this almost weekly as Only Friends airs) -- that there is a VERY long history of Asian content featuring non-happy endings and/or open-ended endings.

Why am I talking about non-HEAs with Teh? Because @neuroticbookworm and I both posit that ITSAY could have ended very authentically -- for the story itself, and for the region from which ITSAY comes -- if Teh and Oh-aew did not get together, especially considering the absolutely torturous emotional breakdowns that Teh was having about his attraction to and love for Oh-aew.

But they DID get together, and it was a triumph for prestige Asian queer content. ITSAY may very well have been talking to the heartbreaking ending of The Love of Siam.

I compare those emotional volcanoes to IPYTM's narrative process. We don't get those emotional volcanoes. Instead, we see a much more established couple (maybe not necessarily more mature, but at least established), two years into their relationship, about to start a new chapter in their lives as much as they can be together. And I think, without those emotional volcanoes: we were able, in IPYTM, to get more into tonally quieter, but still incredibly emotional and heart-wrenching details about Teh and Oh-aew's relationship that deserved time and the spotlight to work through -- such as Teh's slow falling for Jai.

To the point that their maturity is in question: give me a series about a developing relationship, and I will give you my heart. I want to see more and more shows about dudes working on their shit in a relationship. I want to see queer dudes experiencing the highs and lows of living a mundane life together, à la What Did You Eat Yesterday?

As we saw in ITSAY: Teh has a thing about change. Change is really, really, really hard for him. He had to change his mindset about the kind of person he was falling in love with in ITSAY. He was falling in love with a fellow young man, and it sent him off the rails.

Teh continues to be chaotic as fuck in IPYTM -- and that's all happening in the context of him watching, and being with Oh-aew, as Oh changes himself over time.

And: OH!!! MY. BOY. OH-AEW. CLAP EMOJIS. FIND YOURSELF! OMG. Oh-aew's trajectory in IPYTM stole my heart. Oh FOUND HIMSELF, AND found his community. The hair color change? The wardrobe change? The glistening legs? (PP KRIT.) The tattoo? Quitting acting -- which, of course, made Teh sooooo superior-feeling -- to find a career that he LIKED, and was GOOD AT?

Oh-aew was my boy in IPYTM. He was such a LIGHT against the continued darkness that Teh lived in. And Oh-aew knew it, and my god: Oh learned a lot about self-preservation in the time they had in college together.

As I wrote about in my Theory of Love review, I am a true sucker for behavioral change stories in dramas. Oh-aew gave me tons of that, in SUCH an empathic, well-lit way. Teh also gave us a change story, with the delightful essence of the kind of fucked-up chaos that only Teh, and Billkin as an actor, can muster.

Repeating myself from my ITSAY review: Teh, for me, is a reflection of my very favorite chaos boy, Fuse from Make It Right. In the second season of Make It Right, Fuse continues to date his girlfriend, Jean, while his attraction to his same-sex lover, Tee, continues to grow.

Teh watches Oh-aew change. Teh questions why Oh-aew got the teacup tattoo. Teh sees Oh-aew hang out with Oh's cadre of queer friends. Teh sees so much of LIFE happen through Oh-aew: that Oh is indicating a permanence to their relationship vis à vis the tattoo. Teh sees that Oh is comfortable in his own skin, in his growing, strong identity as a queer man. Oh-aew, to me, is truly reflective of the internal change that can happen when one leaves home, when one leaves a place to go to another place -- a tremendous journey.

Teh...... oh, Teh. Teh is not on that same journey. He goes to a more fucked-up place. He, idiotically, falls for Jai -- literally, verbally, visually, right in front of Oh-aew -- all while Teh increasingly becomes unmoored in his relationship with Oh.

Now, let me clarify something. I LOVE CHAOS BOYS. I needed @lurkingshan to check me as I was unwinding on Teh and Teh's cheating: Shan had to yell at me, "TURTLES, TEH WAS CHEATING!!!" lol.

Because! Because I actually sympathized with Teh a bit. Teh acted like a total fucking jackass, an idiot of the highest order. But I sympathized with him.

I sympathized with him because, unlike Oh-aew, Teh came from a more old-fashioned background. Of course, he learned early in IPYTM that his mother knew about his relationship with Oh-aew. That should have given Teh comfort to live his authentic life in Bangkok, and I think it did, to some extent. But, Teh was such a brilliantly written character as to have not actually be able to shed EVERYTHING about his past life, his past identity, his past values coming from an old-fashioned culture, in fast time.

That's what happens in fantasies, and it doesn't always happen that way in real life. Not to say that IPYTM is real life -- but I think Teh's path towards change and maturity reflected a different and difficult style of realistic growth that I am glad the show did not shy away from.

I understand that there are a lot of people that either don't like, or didn't watch, IPYTM because of the cheating plot. Let me just say, as an #old -- cheating happens.

Teh felt disconnected from Oh and Oh's change journey, his growth. Teh found an outlet for his misplaced emotional yearnings in Jai. Jai took total advantage of the moment to extract a performance out of Teh. Teh was used. Teh was dumb enough to not recognize this. And he jeopardized his relationship with Oh-aew. And to Oh-aew's damn credit, Oh said -- fuck THAT, and walked.

All of that? Waving my hand in a circle and clinching my fingers, all of that? REAL SHIT. Real talk. Man, do I LOVE IPYTM for going there.

I knew -- of course I knew, the gifs are everywhere -- that Teh and Oh-aew would get together by the end of IPYTM. But to see that their relationship NEEDED to take a very healthy break, and that Teh NEEDED to be faced with very real consequences of his unthoughtful, chaotic behavior, was a demonstration of accountability of the highest order in a drama that I heartily welcomed. It was mature AF, and it established Oh's boundaries and feelings in such a gorgeous, respectful way for a young queer man to represent. God. I'm clutching my hands. It gives me the same good feelings as Pharm setting his boundaries in UWMA.

I think, if this kind of growth story bores people (?) -- I unfortunately have to say that I think this is where more and more BLs are going, on this route, on the WDYEY route, on the Love In Translation route that my friends @lurkingshan, @bengiyo, and @neuroticbookworm are telling me about right now.

And to take this route in a prestige, cinematic BL. To take the route of demonstrating growth, maturity, accountability, and responsibility in a BL of the highest quality order, means a lot to me as an #old, who is fascinated by internal change over the course of time. Which.... is also the story of Phuket, the story of Bangkok, the story of the queer community in Bangkok, the story of the continued growing strength of the LGBTQ+ community in Thailand and globally.

And to tie this all together: in IPYTM, I did not question the ending. I LOVED THE ENDING. It was a happy ending for the romantics. It was an open-ended ending for the realists like myself. Oh-aew said: I don't know if things are gonna work, homeboy. But you're my man. You will be my man. (When Oh-aew wakes up in bed and sees a vision of Teh before they got together for the last time? Oh yes, I screamed. Asian family pain, baby.)

And Teh says: deal. And almost immediately commits another crime of chaos with that Instagram post. But, as I wrote in my notes as the show ended: he was now engaging in external chaos, not internal chaos. Teh will make the commitment to WORK on his chaos WITH Oh-aew, IN the context of a relationship. No more holding it in. If Teh takes risks, he'll take Oh-aew with him, together, because that's what being in a bonded relationship is about.

I felt unsettled when ITSAY ended. I felt that Teh's emotional peaks weren't fully resolved. I was so right about this when I went through IPYTM. And IPTYM closed that for me. IPYTM gave me the very authentic emotional journey and process of change that had been hinted at in ITSAY, the journey that, I think, could NOT have ended with ONLY ITSAY. IPYTM showed me that Teh was going to continue fucking up, because I knew it would happen with where he was in ITSAY. Man. And IPYTM sewed it up convincingly.

Nadao Bangkok, I think, took a HUGE risk to demonstrate this VERY sophisticated change journey in a prestige BL. And they did it of the highest order. It was a celebration of Bangkok, of finding your communities, of finding your friends, your love, yourself, and -- my head is spinning at how WELL it was filmed, and how well the story was told. I love ITSAY, but IPYTM will be my baby. I desperately want Thailand to go to this level again, and I believe they will.

[Alright! I am indeed back on my bullshit and crushing through 55:15 Never Too Late, for its macro BL storyline featuring Khaotung Thanawat and an EarthMix cameo.

Next week, we have my review of Not Me, which I personally loved, but I will not shy away from offering some quibbles about the quality of the storytelling.

A quick note on the list below, as I've made some additions! I've added a rewatch of The Eclipse, in part to compare issues-based series between TE and Not Me. And, on the high recommendation of @lurkingshan and @bengiyo, I am retracting a vow I made to never watch another MAME show again, and am adding Wedding Plan. Shan and Ben have remarked that this show represents a 180-degree turnaround from what I think of as MAME's basis of passive and aggressive bigotry in her work. Maybe she's learned that equity sells. In any case: I'm giving this show a shot to see if the turn is indeed an honest one.

But for now, the OGMMTVC weekly slate of reviews will pause for at least a couple weeks, as I rewatch Bad Buddy. I have a few ideas for a couple of pieces, as really: Bad Buddy is the reason I'm doing this project. To learn about the history of Thai BLs, the tropes, the styles, everything -- reaching the BBS rewatch is a touch of a culmination, as I undertook this project in large part to understand what Bad Buddy was built off of. I can't wait, I CANNOT WAIT, and I have been engaging with lots of friends over the past few weeks about our mutual love and respect for BBS, and I just can't wait to put some of our thoughts into reverent words.

Here's the status of the list; this list has been jacked by Tumblr's new web editor, so for a more up-to-date version, please click here!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review coming) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (watching) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch For the Sake of Re-Analyzing an Politics-Focused Show After Not Me 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) 43) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 44) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 45) Only Friends (2023)]

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