Sammyboy RSS Feed
17-10-2014, 02:30 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
Thai television soaps under fire for plotlines depicting rape as romantic
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 16 October, 2014, 5:20pm
UPDATED : Friday, 17 October, 2014, 2:51am
Associated Press in Bangkok
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/10/16/01a67cfc5a685825db0c677482610e8c_0.jpg?itok=VaXjZs x0
Thai railway police look after children in a female-only car, introduced after the rape and murder of a teen traveller. Photo: AP
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/10/16/thairape.jpg?itok=a61fwPZ2
A special train for children and women only, guarded by policewomen, was designated in Thailand after a 13-year-old girl's rape. Photo: AP
In a famous scene from Thailand’s award-winning soap opera The Power of Shadows, the handsome protagonist gets drunk and rapes the leading lady. He later begs her forgiveness, and the producers say they will live happily ever after in the sequel.
Boy Meets Girl, Boy Rapes Girl, Boy Marries Girl. The premise is so common in Thailand’s popular primetime melodramas that it could be called a national twist on the universal romantic plotline. But calls for change are growing.
The recent rape and murder of a girl on an overnight train in Thailand has focused national outrage on messages in popular culture that trivialise — and some say even encourage — rape.
Even the powerful general who took over the country in a coup this year had to apologise after suggesting that women who wear bikinis on the beach are vulnerable to sexual assault.
Many in the soap opera industry continue to defend sexual violence, in part, as a key to high ratings in a fiercely competitive industry that draws more than 18 million viewers a night to network television, nearly a quarter of Thailand’s population. Award-winning director Sitthiwat Tappan even describes some rape scenes as a sort of public service.
"There might be a scene where a woman is dressed sexy, and she walks past a man who has been drinking, and it shows on his face that he’s aroused and wants her," Sitthiwat said. "In the end, she succumbs to the physical power of the man.
"Scenes like this try to teach society that women should not travel alone or wear revealing clothes," the director said. "And men shouldn’t drink."
https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2014/10/16/prisoner_of_love_ap.jpg?itok=8HkLLjsI
Yossinee Nanakorn, producer of one of Thailand’s best-known soaps Prisoner of Love, said rape scenes are sometimes essential to plotlines. Photo: AP
But rapists are seldom punished in TV melodramas, and their victims rarely talk about it. That much, at least, is reflected in real life.
Last year, the Public Health Ministry said its hotlines received 31,866 calls from victims of rape or sexual assault. But police that year filed only 3,300 rape cases, and made just 2,245 arrests. Even the hotline number is believed to be far lower than the actual number of assaults in this Southeast Asian country of 67 million.
Public concern about rape in Thai society grew this summer, after a 13-year-old girl was raped on an overnight train, then suffocated and thrown out the window. A 22-year-old train employee has been convicted of the attack and sentenced to death, and the rail authority has introduced a women-and-children-only sleeper carriage with policewomen as guards.
An online petition asking soap operas to stop romanticising rape has attracted more than 30,000 signatures.
As a result of the petition, the national broadcasting commission has organised roundtable discussions that bring directors and screenwriters together with health and human rights experts to discuss the messages soap operas deliver.
In a poll of more than 2,000 youths conducted by Thailand’s Assumption University in 2008, more than 20 per cent of 13- to-19-year olds said rape scenes were their favourite part of TV shows. The same percentage of teenagers said they found rape to be a normal and acceptable act in society.
Yossinee Nanakorn, producer of one of Thailand’s best-known soaps Prisoner of Love, said rape scenes are sometimes essential to plotlines.
"Soap operas are all about conflict. Without conflict there’s no story," she said. "We try to avoid rape scenes, but if it helps drive the story then we keep it."
The idea that some forms of sexual violence are acceptable is reflected even in the Thai language.
The word "blum," which translates roughly as "wrestling," is how Thais describe non-consensual sex that a man initiates to make a woman fall in love with him. It is considered different from "khom-kheun", the criminal act of rape.
"Blum" is what transpires in The Power of Shadows, says Arunosha Bhanupan, producer of the soap, which aired in 2012 and recorded the highest ratings in the history of its network.
"In theatrical terms, it was an act of love ... because they were in love," the producer said, referring to the scene where the lead actor grabs the heroine and rapes her after she slaps him and screams, "Let me go!"
That is one type of soap-opera rape scene: the seduction of a "good girl". Thai soaps also have "bad girls", for whom rape is depicted as punishment for behaviour deemed immoral, like dressing provocatively and promiscuity.
For some actresses, the reality of rape has exposed the flaws in how it is dramatised on television.
Up-and-coming star Pimthong Washirakom played a "bad girl" in the series The Rising Sun who is raped by a police detective after he locks her in his office.
As the cameras rolled, the 22-year-old’s thoughts drifted to the child whose body was thrown from the train.
"I felt like the girl in the news," she said. "I thought of the 13-year-old girl, and tears started running down my face."
Her crying, and violent portions of the rape scene, were edited out of the episode, which ran last month. The cuts drew complaints from some of the cast and crew, but Pimthong supported them.
"Sometimes, viewers don’t have the right judgment and might imitate what they see," she said. "Our society is deteriorating every day, so we have to cut certain scenes off. Kids are definitely watching this show. Why would we let them watch a rape scene?"
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?192182-Thai-television-soaps-under-fire-for-plotlines-depicting-rape-as-romantic&goto=newpost).
Thai television soaps under fire for plotlines depicting rape as romantic
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 16 October, 2014, 5:20pm
UPDATED : Friday, 17 October, 2014, 2:51am
Associated Press in Bangkok
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/10/16/01a67cfc5a685825db0c677482610e8c_0.jpg?itok=VaXjZs x0
Thai railway police look after children in a female-only car, introduced after the rape and murder of a teen traveller. Photo: AP
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/10/16/thairape.jpg?itok=a61fwPZ2
A special train for children and women only, guarded by policewomen, was designated in Thailand after a 13-year-old girl's rape. Photo: AP
In a famous scene from Thailand’s award-winning soap opera The Power of Shadows, the handsome protagonist gets drunk and rapes the leading lady. He later begs her forgiveness, and the producers say they will live happily ever after in the sequel.
Boy Meets Girl, Boy Rapes Girl, Boy Marries Girl. The premise is so common in Thailand’s popular primetime melodramas that it could be called a national twist on the universal romantic plotline. But calls for change are growing.
The recent rape and murder of a girl on an overnight train in Thailand has focused national outrage on messages in popular culture that trivialise — and some say even encourage — rape.
Even the powerful general who took over the country in a coup this year had to apologise after suggesting that women who wear bikinis on the beach are vulnerable to sexual assault.
Many in the soap opera industry continue to defend sexual violence, in part, as a key to high ratings in a fiercely competitive industry that draws more than 18 million viewers a night to network television, nearly a quarter of Thailand’s population. Award-winning director Sitthiwat Tappan even describes some rape scenes as a sort of public service.
"There might be a scene where a woman is dressed sexy, and she walks past a man who has been drinking, and it shows on his face that he’s aroused and wants her," Sitthiwat said. "In the end, she succumbs to the physical power of the man.
"Scenes like this try to teach society that women should not travel alone or wear revealing clothes," the director said. "And men shouldn’t drink."
https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2014/10/16/prisoner_of_love_ap.jpg?itok=8HkLLjsI
Yossinee Nanakorn, producer of one of Thailand’s best-known soaps Prisoner of Love, said rape scenes are sometimes essential to plotlines. Photo: AP
But rapists are seldom punished in TV melodramas, and their victims rarely talk about it. That much, at least, is reflected in real life.
Last year, the Public Health Ministry said its hotlines received 31,866 calls from victims of rape or sexual assault. But police that year filed only 3,300 rape cases, and made just 2,245 arrests. Even the hotline number is believed to be far lower than the actual number of assaults in this Southeast Asian country of 67 million.
Public concern about rape in Thai society grew this summer, after a 13-year-old girl was raped on an overnight train, then suffocated and thrown out the window. A 22-year-old train employee has been convicted of the attack and sentenced to death, and the rail authority has introduced a women-and-children-only sleeper carriage with policewomen as guards.
An online petition asking soap operas to stop romanticising rape has attracted more than 30,000 signatures.
As a result of the petition, the national broadcasting commission has organised roundtable discussions that bring directors and screenwriters together with health and human rights experts to discuss the messages soap operas deliver.
In a poll of more than 2,000 youths conducted by Thailand’s Assumption University in 2008, more than 20 per cent of 13- to-19-year olds said rape scenes were their favourite part of TV shows. The same percentage of teenagers said they found rape to be a normal and acceptable act in society.
Yossinee Nanakorn, producer of one of Thailand’s best-known soaps Prisoner of Love, said rape scenes are sometimes essential to plotlines.
"Soap operas are all about conflict. Without conflict there’s no story," she said. "We try to avoid rape scenes, but if it helps drive the story then we keep it."
The idea that some forms of sexual violence are acceptable is reflected even in the Thai language.
The word "blum," which translates roughly as "wrestling," is how Thais describe non-consensual sex that a man initiates to make a woman fall in love with him. It is considered different from "khom-kheun", the criminal act of rape.
"Blum" is what transpires in The Power of Shadows, says Arunosha Bhanupan, producer of the soap, which aired in 2012 and recorded the highest ratings in the history of its network.
"In theatrical terms, it was an act of love ... because they were in love," the producer said, referring to the scene where the lead actor grabs the heroine and rapes her after she slaps him and screams, "Let me go!"
That is one type of soap-opera rape scene: the seduction of a "good girl". Thai soaps also have "bad girls", for whom rape is depicted as punishment for behaviour deemed immoral, like dressing provocatively and promiscuity.
For some actresses, the reality of rape has exposed the flaws in how it is dramatised on television.
Up-and-coming star Pimthong Washirakom played a "bad girl" in the series The Rising Sun who is raped by a police detective after he locks her in his office.
As the cameras rolled, the 22-year-old’s thoughts drifted to the child whose body was thrown from the train.
"I felt like the girl in the news," she said. "I thought of the 13-year-old girl, and tears started running down my face."
Her crying, and violent portions of the rape scene, were edited out of the episode, which ran last month. The cuts drew complaints from some of the cast and crew, but Pimthong supported them.
"Sometimes, viewers don’t have the right judgment and might imitate what they see," she said. "Our society is deteriorating every day, so we have to cut certain scenes off. Kids are definitely watching this show. Why would we let them watch a rape scene?"
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?192182-Thai-television-soaps-under-fire-for-plotlines-depicting-rape-as-romantic&goto=newpost).