ranchthoughts - Tumblr blog

ranchthoughts · 26 days ago

Text

A BL viewer's guide to Thai school uniforms

(This is an older one, originally posted at Reddit in 2022, but it should still be accurate. Hope you'll find it useful, as uniforms in Thai shows often provide context that international viewers might not recognize.)

To begin, here's a summary of the Thai school system. There are twelve years of basic education (after kindergarten): six years of primary school (prathom or P.1-6), and six years of secondary school (mathayom or M.1-6), the latter of which is divided into three lower and three upper years. The age range roughly corresponds to the US system, so the years P.1-6 will often be translated as grades 1-6 and M.1-6 as grades 7-12. Most stories set in school will take place during the upper secondary years, which is often translated as high school (though this is rather approximate as it spans three years rather than four). Students typically enter M.4 aged 15 going on 16, and graduate at the age of 18 (or nearing it).

School uniforms are almost universally compulsory, used by all but a few alternative schools (university will be discussed further below). They mostly follow a very distinctive form, which has barely changed since the end of World War II, as there's a default format that's mandated by law and followed by most schools (though schools may elect to specify their own style of uniform). There are official industrial standards that govern the material, thread count, etc. of student uniforms that can be sold, and an entire industry is built around them.

For boys, the (default style) uniform is mostly the same across all levels, and consists of a white short-sleeved button-up shirt, shorts (in either black, royal blue, navy, or khaki), a belt (brown or black), socks and shoes (brown with khaki shorts, white socks and black shoes otherwise). The shirt will have the letters of the school's abbreviated name embroidered at the right chest, in red for private schools, and navy for government schools. It's common for schools to also require student IDs or names be included likewise. In many schools, the upper-secondary uniform will also include the school insignia/logo as a metal badge pinned above the school's initials, or also embroidered.

The colours of the shorts typically reflect the school's status. Private schools will normally use blue or (less often) black, while government schools will use black or (less often) khaki, with very few exceptions. Navy is quite rare, mostly used by certain schools with historical royal connections. This colour-coding serves as a rather convenient tool for series creators to convey the social background of the characters. Blue shorts signify that they go to a private, presumably expensive school. Black is the default that tells the viewer that it's a regular, average school. Khaki shorts used to be the default long ago but have declined in use, and are now mostly seen as belonging to rural or temple schools (though there are also some famous schools that use them). You'll rarely see them in TV or film, unless the creators are purposely saying that the setting is rural, poor, or retro.

Let's look at some examples.

The school uniform in Bad Buddy is pretty much the bare minimum, with just the school's abbreviated name and no pin or ID. With black shorts and navy lettering, it's clearly meant to be a regular government school (though TBH the filming location doesn't really fit). The dot on the collar is a symbol used by some schools to indicate the year the student is in, based on the number of dots. One dot would mean they're in the first year of either lower or upper secondary, which might be differentiated based on colour, shape, or being on the left or right side. Here, Pran is clearly not 12/13 years old, so the year must be M.4.

In The Yearbook, the school uniform also includes the students' ID in Thai numerals below the school name, also quite a common thing. The navy lettering and the black shorts indicate that it's a government school, and the filming location and the teacher wearing the civil service uniform also hint that it's a rather provincial setting. The haircuts of the characters are also more realistic, as schools usually require a short tapered cut for boys.

The characters in 'Cause You're My Boy also attend a government school, in line with the working-class background. Mork is in upper-secondary, so his uniform as the school symbol embroidered above the lettering, while Gord and Morn's, who are in lower-secondary, don't.

Another example of a government school uniform with black shorts is found in Dew. This school also has the student's name embroidered over the shirt pocket. Dew's oversized shirt and long baggy shorts reflect the fashion trends of 1996, when this part of the story is set.

On the other hand, Hormones follows middle-/upper-middle- class kids at a private school. The uniform was directly copied from that of Assumption College Thonburi (ACT), where the series was filmed (so that its students could blend in as extras). As a private school, the lettering is in red, and the student IDs are in Hindu-Arabic numerals. As in the above example, the stars on the collar indicate the student's year (here, dots are used for lower-secondary and stars for upper). Also note the belt buckle with the school logo, which tends to be seen with fancier schools.

The uniforms in Love Sick are also copied from real life, though this was done not for production convenience, but to pay tribute to the source novel, which was inspired by student life at Assumption College (AC), one of the country's oldest boys' schools (AC and ACT both belong to a network of schools operated by the Catholic Church, hence their names). The novel's full title, Love Sick: The Chaotic Lives of Blue Shorts Guys, reflects its focus on the inside world of the school, of which it paints a semi-imaginary image that makes multiple references to actual teachers, locations and customs, stopping short only of referring to the school by name. This is toned down in the series, though the coat of arms and uniform are nearly direct copies of AC's, minus the belt buckle (which was a relatively recent addition and not part of the uniform when the novel was being written).

Notice how Noh's school badge is pinned on the corner of the shirt pocket just like baby Peak and Ohm's real-life AC uniform, which is unique to the school. (Beam is a junior of Peak and Ohm's by a year, and was probably in M.3 when the photo was taken, so didn't wear a badge.) The school also requires leather shoes, unlike most schools which allow either leather or canvas shoes (in which case almost everyone will wear canvas shoes).

As mentioned in my previous post, the current trend of students having their school uniform shorts modified to be very short probably originated with AC students, and spread more widely from the late 2000s. Naturally, the style is shown in Love Sick, though this is also generally well represented in BL media.

Make It Right, by the creators of Love Sick, used the same style for its student uniform, except the shoes (though pinning the badge at the shirt pocket didn't really make sense now that it wasn't meant to refer AC's real-life uniqueness). It's also a bit strange seeing student IDs running into the 60000s, as even the oldest real-life schools don't have numbers that high.

The use of blue-shorts school uniforms to signify wealthy characters/environments is a pretty common trope in BL (and also Thai series more generally). It's also seen in 7 Project, in a more typical appearance with the pin in the usual location, and the student's name over the shirt pocket.

In My Gear and Your Gown, the uniform (quite unusually for private schools) doesn't have any lettering other than the school's initials. It's most likely a cost-saving measure by the costume department, sacrificing a bit of realism to avoid the need to create individualized outfits for every character (though it does use leather shoes).

The uniform in My Dear Loser: Edge of 17 is rather confusing. It's clearly meant to be a private school, given the blue shorts, but this is contradicted by the navy lettering on the shirt. Looks like a mistake, unless it was a deliberate choice to introduce some sort of ambiguity (though this is unlikely, and even most Thai viewers probably won't notice anyway).

In Only Boo!, Moo originally goes to a private school with a blue-shorts uniform, but is sent away as punishment for neglecting his studies. His new uniform, with khaki shorts, emphasizes the provincial nature of the school.

Often, different-coloured uniforms will be used to contrast the characters' backgrounds. This goes back to The Love of Siam, where the blue shorts and leather shoes of Mew's school uniform reinforce its presentation as a Catholic school (and closely echoes AC, which also served as the school's filming location), while Tong's black-shorts uniform may have been a reference to Bangkok Christian College, a nearby school popularly seen as a rival of AC's. BCC is one of the better known private schools to use a uniform with black shorts, and The Love of Siam is one of the less common examples of this. (Note again the school badge, which isn't worn by some of the members of Mew's band, indicating that they're in lower-secondary.)

The colour contrast is also used in Love's Coming, though it doesn't really convey any significant background.

Somewhat amusingly, creators don't always try to be particularly creative with the school name abbreviations, and they will often be that of the production company's name. So here we have ม.ม. and ม.ม.ป. - MM and MMP for Mungmee Production. Above, there's จ.ท.ว. - GTV (GMMTV) in My Dear Loser, ค.ซ.ม. - CSM (Cosocomo) in Make It Right, and น.ด.บ. - NDB (Nadao Bangkok) for Hormones, the last of which is also the actual in-story name of the school.

I Told Sunset About You uses a very unusual colour pairing: Navy and Khaki. Oh-aew's school (and Teh's formerly) is private, while Teh's is the province's main government school. The colour choices are mainly aesthetic - while some main provincial schools do use khaki shorts (and private schools navy), they are quite uncommon. White shoes worn with the regular student uniform is also practically unheard of (they're usually for PE uniforms - more on these below).

Note also how the year-indicating dots above the school initials are differentiated by colour: navy for lower secondary, red for upper. So when Teh shows up at his old school wearing a uniform with three navy dots, that's him squeezing into his old uniform from M.3 to sneak into the school.

Sometimes actual existing schools serve as the setting of a work, and its uniform is used. For example, My Bromance (2014) is set at Wachirawit School in Chiang Mai and uses its uniform.

The Best Story likewise takes place at the Demonstration School of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. Demonstration or "Satit" schools are pretty much a class of their own. While they're technically government schools, they're operated by universities for their teacher training programmes, and have a higher degree of freedom in their operations. They also often have uniforms that don't follow the usual format, with no school name on the shirt. This is the case with Satit Suansunandha, which has its logo embroidered on the shirt pocket and pinned above the student's name instead.

Some Satit schools also use an unusual colour, charcoal grey, for their uniform shorts. This is seen with Praram's uniform in EN of Love: This Is Love Story, indicating that his school is attached to the university. Having just the student's name and no school initials isn't unusual in this case (though not having any logo at all kind of is).

On the other hand, the lack of any embroidered lettering at all, like in The Shipper, is very unusual. In real life this is unique to Triam Udom Suksa School, which is commonly regarded as the country's top school. GMMTV previously did this in The Gifted, which kind of made sense as it conveyed that the school was unique and special, but this isn't true for The Shipper, so the stylistic choice seems a bit lazy.

This is also the case with 55:15 Never Too Late. Even stranger is the uniform from Nanon's storyline, which has khaki shorts signifying a provincial setting but the top is just a plain shirt with no markings or pin at all. It looks rather like an error in the production process that they had to roll with due to some limitation.

Girls' uniforms are much more varied, as private schools follow a variety of different styles. The standard style is mostly only used by government schools. For the upper-secondary level, it's a white button-up shirt (or blouse? I'm not sure of the terminology) with short sleeves that are pleated at the cuff, a navy (or, uncommonly, black) skirt with three pairs of wide pleats at the front and back, a black belt, white socks and black strapped shoes. The shirt will have the same markings as the boys' uniform. We see Pa wearing this in Bad Buddy (and also Tarn in the ITSAY pic above). Note that they made a mistake with her collar dot, as she was in M.6 in this scene and should have had three dots instead of one. (The same mistake happens with the younger music club students in episode 10. I guess the costume department just created one style based on the main characters and forgot to factor in the others.)

I won't attempt to list examples of all girls' uniforms here, as they're harder to keep track of in BL, but if it's a high-school setting and you see a different style of uniform than the above, it should be quite safe to assume it's a private school (especially if it's long-sleeved, with a necktie, or a blue, red or other brightly coloured skirt, like in the 7 Project example above), or a Satit school.

International schools usually have a different style of uniform altogether. They may be variably coloured, use shorts or trousers, include neckties, and the shirts won't have the usual lettering but commonly feature the school logo. Girls' skirts will commonly have a plaid/tartan pattern. Bilingual schools - private schools featuring a bilingual curriculum, with mainly Thai students - will also often use this style of uniform to some extent. We see it in Brothers, where the setting is supposed to be an international school.

While schools may have a full uniform with blazers and all, they'd only be used on special occasions. If characters wear them on a regular basis, it probably signifies a fantasy setting, or one somewhat removed from real life. This is fully utilized in Great Men Academy, which is as fantasy as you can get with magical wish-granting unicorns.

A similar effect is achieved with sweater vests, as seen in Second Chance. However, this is to emulate the Japanese/Korean uniform style, giving the show something of a J-/K-drama aesthetic while moving it away from the grounded reality of Thailand.

Sometimes, as in Friend Forever, a novel style is created that doesn't really carry any inherent meaning but is presumably done mainly for aesthetic reasons.

In real life, the standard-style boys' uniform (with embroidered lettering) may also use trousers, but this is only done in Islamic schools and the vocational education system, which are pretty much outside the realm of BL stories, so you won't likely come across them. (Update: This is no longer true with the existence of Don't Touch My Gang, but it didn't feature regular uniform, only the workshop shirt, which is covered below.)

Apart from the standard school uniform, most schools will also have a PE uniform, used on days with PE (gym) class, typically once a week for upper-secondary students. These aren't legally regulated, so they come in a large variety of styles, though many government schools will follow the same basic style of a coloured polo shirt made with a woven fabric, usually with the school logo on the pocket. We see Teh wearing this (though with the school initials instead of a logo) in ITSAY, with his usual uniform shorts. Most schools will have students wear the PE top from home and change into the PE bottom (typically sweatpants) just for PE class. Don't expect to see school showers, though, as they're not done in Thailand. Different classes mostly have PE on different days, and in meticulously written shows like ITSAY, where everything fits into the calendar, you can tell the day of the week from the PE uniform (it's Monday if you see Teh in his blue PE top).

As mentioned above, white canvas shoes may be required for PE uniforms, as seen again in The Love of Siam. This is mostly a feature of girls' uniforms, though, as boys' uniforms will more often use the shoes that are already part of their regular uniform, but schools which normally use leather shoes are a natural exception. However, they will more typically have students wear white shoes from home together with the PE top rather than change shoes at school like Mew apparently does. The shirt style here, a custom-patterned polo shirt with a knitted fabric, is also common.

We see another example of the style in Dew. Except for shoe colour, PE uniforms are usually identical for boys and girls.

Since there aren't actual limitations to PE uniform designs even in real life, creators sometimes have a field day with them. In Make It Right, the PE uniform is quite obviously a piece of fan service. (There are real-life schools that do use shorts, though they're not quite that short.)

Another uniform you might encounter is the Territorial Defence Student uniform. In Thailand, men face military conscription at age 21, upon which they will have to draw a lottery to determine whether they must enlist for two years. But there's an alternative to that. By completing three years of military training as Territorial Defence Students (often referred to as ร.ด. - Ror Dor (R.D.)), which is offered to upper-secondary school students, one avoids the need to face the lottery completely. Naturally, most middle-class boys will take the training. It takes half a day a week for 20 weeks each year (which is half the school year), plus up to a week of field training around January-February. For the weekly training days, if the session is in the afternoon, school will typically have only morning classes.

The need to attend Ror Dor is probably the most universally hated aspect of high school life for Thai boys, not because of the training itself, which is hardly intensive at all, but because of the military haircut requirements. Naturally this is never portrayed realistically, and many works ignore the existence of Ror Dor altogether. What's kind of funny is that the above storyline concerns Tee needing a haircut to pass Ror Dor inspection, but none of the characters except Mork come anywhere close.

The Ror Dor uniform is a khaki green combat uniform, with the student's name on the right chest and the school patch on the right arm. The Thai numeral on the left collar indicates the student's year. Here, it's ๒ (2), indicating that they're in the second year of training, which means M.5. The green T-shirt worn underneath is often worn casually by some.

In stories that go down to the lower-secondary or primary years, you may also see the Boy Scout uniform. In most schools, participation is mandatory for students up to M.3, and takes place once a week. Here in The Love of Siam, we see young Tong in the Scout uniform, indicating that he's in primary school, while Eiw and Cake in My Only 12% are wearing the Senior Scout uniform (with the maroon shoulder boards) of lower-secondary students.

That's pretty much everything regarding school uniforms, I think. Onto university...

In Thailand, universities have uniforms for undergraduate students. Unlike school uniforms, which are very specific, university uniforms are more loosely defined. In most cases they will be a white dress shirt and black (or navy) slacks for males, with black dress shoes, and a necktie and a belt buckle bearing the university symbol. For females, it's usually a white shirt/blouse with the university symbol pin, a black (or navy) skirt, shoes, and also a belt buckle bearing the university symbol. Some universities will also have metal buttons with the university symbol that have to be attached to the shirt.

While most universities will have defined uniforms, in practice, the requirements vary across universities (and across faculties within the same university). Many require that uniforms be worn for attendance of all classes, but some don't, and expect them only on exam days or special occasions. Strictness and adherence also varies. Often, people won't bother with the belt buckle, sneakers may be allowed (or turned a blind eye to), and jeans may even be permissible. This gives creators more leeway in designing the costumes to a varied visual effect.

In the above scene from Bad Buddy, Pran's upright collar (GMMTV does seem to like these, though I don't quite recall seeing them in real life), Wai's short sleeves (some universities officially have them as a uniform option, some don't), Safe's jacket (which is totally normal, by the way - they do blast the aircon in some lecture halls) and Louis's workshop shirt (more on this below) combine to provide visual contrast. The costume design is also often used for characterization. In Love by Chance, the timid and deferential Pete always wears his necktie, while the brasher Ae is never seen with it, nor does his shirt ever seem to be tucked in. (Untucked shirts are also used for characterization with school uniforms, though it's pretty much the only option.)

Even where uniforms are more strictly enforced, the necktie is usually not worn outside of formal occasions. Some universities have a tradition of requiring them only for freshmen, and similarly female freshmen may be required to wear below-knee accordion-pleated skirts (and for some universities, white shoes) for the entire first year. All of this is shown in SOTUS, as the entire series revolves around these hazing traditions. As freshmen, M and May wear the full university uniform (May with pleated skirt), while the sophomores are seen wearing pencil/mini-skirts and jeans with no necktie. The necktie doesn't have a printed logo, though it's attached as a tie pin - some schools do this. (Quite a lot of series, however, don't bother with having any sort of logo on the tie or belt buckle at all, which is a bit unrealistic, but in some cases could be explained away by the above-mentioned variability in strictness.)

Also famously depicted in SOTUS is the workshop shirt/smock/overshirt, which isn't really an official uniform, but a protective garment meant for practical classes. In some schools, there's been considerable drama over their use, as students often use it as a cover for casual clothing instead of wearing the regular uniform, which the staff disapproves. As so many series show, it's indeed quite commonly seen as an engineering-school symbol.

And that's pretty much all I can think of. If you've made it this far, thanks and congratulations! :p Let me know if I've forgotten anything.

#bl meta

230 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 1 month ago

Text

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

#bl meta

103 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 1 month ago

Text

The Absence of India in Discussions on Queer Asian Media

So, yesterday @lurkingshan tagged me in an ask she got from @impala124 about the absence of India when we're talking about queer Asian media. I was intially just going to reblog it with my thought, but as it kept growing I figured it'd be best to just make my own post. Please read the ask linked above first so this makes sense.

*cracks knuckles* this is going to be the most fun I've had writing a post in ages. (For a little background, I'm a queer Indian, born and raised)

So, this is a very interesting question on a subject I've been rotating in my head for the past several months. There's a lot of different variables that contribute to the noticeable lack of discussion on Indian and South Asian queer media in general, so I'm just going to talk through the ones I've noticed a little randomly.

Talking about Asian media in general, it's well known that the mass popularity of kpop and anime has contributed massively to the increase in popularity of Asian media. If you've been in the Asian media fandom for any amount of time at all, you'll have noticed that media from Korea, Japan, and China gets by far the most attention from international audiences; all East Asian countries. There may be several reasons for this, but in particular, it's no secret that the fetishization of East Asians is a massive proponent in the popularity of media from these countries, while there's no such interest in South Asians. If we shift our focus to queer media specifically, media from these three countries is still extremely popular, with the addition of Thailand and the Philippines to some extent; both South East Asian countries. From what I've seen, there's very little international interest in media from South Asian countries (although, if we're talking about India specifically, I can't exactly say anything. Bollywood has not been good lately). If we talk about queer South Asian media, the scope of interest falls even further. If you'll notice, MyDramaList, one of the most commonly used websites for finding and tracking Asian shows only allows for East and South-East Asian shows. So, that's one reason—there's just not much international interest in Indian media in general. As Shan said in the initial post, it's partially because of a difference in priorities. Korea is notorious for using media to gain global standing, the role of the 'soft power' of Thai bls in the recent bills for equal marriage in Thailand has been widely discussed, the list goes on. Could racism also play a part in the massive gulf of interest in media from East Asian versus South Asian countries? Probably. But I'm not going to get into that too much.

Moving on, there's obviously a massive lack of queer media in India. I think this is greatly exacerbated by the fact that it's very hard to support the people making queer media beyond buying and/or streaming their work. The majority of people engaging with Indian queer media are queer Indians, and a lot of us have to do so in secret because of the society we live in. This means that creators that have to push through several obstacles to publish their work often receive little incentive to continue doing so because of the lack of engagement. Because of the lack of media, international fans are less likely to become interested in queer Indian media, and the cycle continues.

I will say though, contrary to what Shan said, I think Indian media, particularly anything that came out post 2019 might actually be on the easier end of the spectrum when it comes to access. This may simply be bias, so forgive me if I'm wrong here, but from what I've seen, a lot of queer Indian shows are in fact available on streaming sites, and at most you'd need a vpn to access them. I think the two main things that actually hold back queer Indian media from becoming more popular are a lack of noise and it's relatively lower quality.

The main way we find out about new shows in this space is through either word of mouth (well actually, post) or because we follow production houses known for producing media. Because of the sparse nature of both the media and the consumers, there's very few people who learn enough about the media to want to give it a shot. For example, there's a film on netflix called Badhaai Do (hindi for Congratulate Us) that I've been meaning to watch for a while. It centers around a lavender marriage and I've heard a lot of good things about it, so I was slightly surprised to see that most of the people on tumblr I interact with who have been engaging with queer media for far longer than me had never heard of it. There's also a, Indian BL from 2017 called Romil and Jugal that I've written about before here, and I would've never learned of it's existence if not for a friend hearing about it from another friend of hers.

Because there's so little queer indian media, it's natural that the quality leaves much to be desired. The main issue is, because the queer asian media market has become so saturated lately people are becoming a lot more selective with what they watch, and for good reason. This means that queer media from india is simply unable to grow and improve over time, leaving it stagnant. Back in 2016-2018, the overall dearth of queer media from Asia meant that a lot of people were willing to watch shows that were average or even worse. Thailand particularly seems to have benefitted from this, being able to grow and evolve its queer media due to the successes of shows like SOTUS, 2gehter, TharnType and more even recently, KinnPorsche. Queer Indian media will have a much, much harder time with this because of all of the factors I've talked about and more, meaning that it is much harder for queer media to evolve. Honestly, though I haven't been able to watch/read much queer media from India, the stuff I have seen is really quite decent, it's just that it tends to fail in comparison to some of the brilliant stuff we're seeing from other countries. A while a ago, I bought four queer books by Indian authors, and of the three I've read so far, I'd genuinely recommend two, albeit one with quite a few reservations (I'll be writing about them sometime in the future, just haven't found the time yet). While talking about this with @neuroticbookworm, she brought up the excellent point of how Indian media in general has just been of fairly poor quality lately. It seems to me that a lot of it is catered to more conservative audiences, which results in people like me becoming disillusioned with Indian media and simply moving onto things from other countries. It has been a long time since I've watched anything worthwhile come out of Bollywood. So, it becomes even harder for queer Indian shows to be found at all; a majority of their target audience has already forsaken Indian media as a lost cause.

So, those are a bunch of reasons because of which there's not a lot of discussion about queer Indian media in fandom spaces like Tumblr. Something else I'd like to point out is, it's very hard for queer shows in India to gain much traction whatsoever. Live television slots are ruled by the infamous Indian serials, the majority of the audience being people in their late thirties and older, particularly women. And while homophobia is just as prevalent amongst the youth of India as it is amongst older generations, younger people are far more likely to be engaging with queer media, in India at least. This means that it would be near impossible for queer shows to air on live television the way they do in countries like Thailand and Japan. The majority of Indian youth use global streaming services to watch shows, hence the greater concentration of queer shows on service platforms. (Romil and Jugal is something of a dark horse here—I don't believe it was ever aired, but it was produced by a producer who has a few decently popular serials under her belt and is available on an Indian steaming service—another reason I'm determined to research how tf this show ever came into existence) If we talk of movies, the industry is limited by the iron fist of Bollywood, another reason it's very hard for queer movies to be produced and why they're generally found on streaming sites.

There's just not a lot of people who have the balls it would take to make a queer Indian show/movie and push it to the Indian public beyond a streaming service. I mean, we're all seeing what's happening with the Love in The Big City drama right now, and believe me, public backlash in India would be the same, if not much worse. And if no one in India is watching these shows, why would anyone in any other part of the world? There's barely any public figures that would be willing to participate in such a project, so queer media stays underground. Currently, Karan Johar is the most popular—and one of the only—out celebrities in Bollywood, and, well, he's treated as something of a laughing stock by the public. He has one or two queer adjacent shows under his belt as a producer, but once again, they're barely known and available only on Netflix. There was a movie called Dostana in which he played a straight guy pretending to be gay but, well, that speaks for itself. And well, I can't exactly blame him for it, knowing how the Indian entertainment industry is.

To talk a little more about the specific comparison between India and Korea, I think you're fairly accurate in saying that the two countries seem to be roughly on par in terms of homophobia, although that's an extremely vague statement that's rather hard to either prove or disprove. While the difference in international attention towards Korean and Indian media is certainly a major component of the difference in discussion about the queer media from these countries, there's obviously other things that go into it as well. There's this video I watched some time ago on the progression of queer representation in K-dramas that's quite well researched. It's an hour and a half long, so in case you don't have the time to watch it (though I do recommend it), it basically talks about some of the dramas with queer rep that have aired on Korean television and their impact. While it's hard to gauge the level of impact of these shows on the availability of bls and gls in Korea, they certainly had an effect, if only telling the queer population of Korea that they are seen and heard. To my knowledge (although I may be mistaken), no such queer rep has ever aired on Indian television, meaning that there's nothing to push creators to put queer media out there. There have been old movies and shows that depict queerness, but none of them ever reached the sort of the scale where they may have some sort of impact on the industry. As I mentioned earlier, the widespread popularity of K-dramas (and k-pop) does make it easier for creators to make queer media since there's a much higher chance of the shows being successful thanks to the international audience. Bringing back Love In The Big City, the success of the book abroad and the high probability of the show being well received internationally is probably one of the reasons it was able to be produced amongst domestic backlash.

Now, I've been talking a lot about how it's difficult for queer Indian media to gain any sort of international recognition with domestic attention. However, it's not necessarily the case. Here's where I start rambling (I say, as if this post isn't verging on 2k words). It's been proven that the presence of the international market allows for greater creative freedom in spaces beyond television. The best example comes from Korea's very own 'soft power'; K-pop. There's a K-pop group called Dreamcatcher that debuted in 2017 with a rock sound and horror concept that was extremely rare in kpop at the time. They succeeded mainly by focusing most of their promotions to the foreign market, knowing that their concept would not be well liked in Korea. And they succeeded. Today, Dreamcatcher has a sizeable fandom and has even been growing in popularity in Korea, with the Korean public warming up to their genre and having influenced other girl groups to try out similar sounds. We've already talked about the lack of international attention for Indian media, but there's also the issue that the producers of queer Indian media aren't marketing to foreign audiences, which remain ignorant.

That's all I have, this is so long good lord. All in all, there's a bunch of factors that feed into each other creating a cycle which means that, unless there's a break somewhere, queer Indian media will remain unrecognized. I'm excited to see what other people have to say, because this is a topic close to my heart and I'd definitely enjoy seeing more discussions around it.

#bl meta

342 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Note

🧡💛💜

For the ask game!

hii beloved, thank you for the ask!

🧡 - What show did/do you have the most fun watching?

honestly, probably any of the shows I've watched with @ranchthoughts - tonhon chonlatee or unknown the series! it's so much fun discussing our thoughts... but if we're talking just pure entertainment value via show itself, then BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita: Crank Up Hen is probably super high up on that list. no one does entertainment like japan for real <3

💛 - What character do you relate to the most?

out of every bl ever?? hmmmmm... I don't really see myself in characters per se usually, I see them as distinct to me. but if asked I can probably say someone like tiw (msp)! though I'm not sure if others would agree with me - is that the kind of vibe I give off?

💜 - If you could rewatch any show for the first time, what show would you watch?

omg, probably definitely certainly kamisama no ekohiiki!! it's one of my all time absolutely favorite shows - it's so good, and so good at making you feel uncomfortable sometimes, and so genuine and messy and I just. I love every single one of the characters and the story, though not groundbreaking, is incredibly good for the quality bl plots usually are, and I just. I LOVE it. so much. I'd love to re experience it again!!

#thank you for your answers! 🥰#I have also had so much fun watching shows with you - thanks for watching with me (and making me motivated to watch in the first place!)#ask games #I can see the Tiw vibe (you also keep saying Alpha is basically you when she's on screen in 23.5)#also should I/we watch kamisama no ekohiiki one of these days?#I also had a blast with BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita (I became the lead in a bl drama)

7 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Text

IF IT'S WITH YOU 君となら恋をしてみても 2023, dir. Matsumoto Hana

#if it's with you #if it's with you gifs

51 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Text

#msp #msp gifs

377 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Note

Rose's Day of Asks - the sequel

Hi!!! So this was always a curiosity of mine. How did you get started with the the thai communal wardrobe? And how many are on the list at the moment?

Have a wonderful night. Rose💛

Rose! I'm so honoured that you sent me this on your Day of Asks - the sequel!

How did I get started with the thai communal wardrobe? And how many are on the list at the moment?

The short answers?

I liked noticing the shared clothing across series and wanted to a) collect them (ie document them by writing a list) and b) post about them in a consistent format.

Approximately 230 (!).

And the long answers:

I think it was about this time last year, or maybe a bit earlier, when I first started documenting the shared clothing across different series. I had been noticing several items of shared clothing for a while but I think the desire to document them stemmed from the stripy linin shirt having appeared in so many shows in such a short period of time. Other notable items included the yellow-soled shoes, this stripy t-shirt, and this polo shirt.

I wanted to post them in a consistent way (ie the format I currently use, with the header and then sub-headings of each show in chronological order), which meant I needed to write them down in a list to make sure I had all the info correct. At first, I just used a word document but after a few months switched to a spreadsheet because it made it easier to set out and find the information.

I started with the ones I already knew but decided to scan through a lot of shows to see if I could find some more. I think this took the total to around 45 items of clothing, so I decided to do the BL Advent last December as a way to post them all. However, in preparing for that I went from 45 to 90.

As new series came out, and as I kept scanning through old series, by the end of March this year the total had risen to 126 and I put it to a vote as to how to continue posting the rest - the consensus being that I should go chronologically down through my list. Which is what I've been doing since then. I queued up a lot of posts, had a little break during the summer, but now I have more queued up.

Things got quieter over the end of spring and into summer and the list stayed around 150/160 for a couple of months. A few new ones did crop up over this time, like this new popular one (they're the same top just in different colours and with the pattern inverted on the grey/brown one):

But then Peaceful Property hit. And hit big.

At the same time, The Trainee went mad, and because I had noticed a few shirts from Last Twilight in both shows, I did another scan through of that and found A LOT of new ones. BUT ALSO, because of that, I realised I had seen this shirt recently and that led me to discover that Monster Next Door and Knock Knock Boys had a lot of shared clothing, and some of which they also share with Cooking Crush.

So I think since the end of August, I've added about 50 new items onto the list taking it up to around 230. Previous to hitting 200, I had thought I would make a post to mark it...but then I got swamped by all the new ones and I've been busy trying to document them all...to the point where I'm beginning to question my sanity over the amount of time I'm spending on doing all this!

Here's my current folder situation and which basically shows the list, although 80 of them don't currently have a number/place on the list because I'm waiting to finish collating all the new ones from Monster Next Door, Knock Knock Boys, and Cooking Crush:

Let's end on a few stats:

So far, 21 characters have worn the Mustard Sneakers brand yellow-soled shoes.

The items of clothing worn by most characters (11) are the stripy linin shirt and the stripy t-shirt (mentioned above) but the stripy t-shirt has been worn in more series (10 compared to the linin shirt's 6).

The show with the most items of shared clothing with another series is, of course, Only Friends with 64 (and counting!)...and even though I'm not sure this will ever be beaten, Peaceful Property might be able to if it keeps going the way it started.

The show with the next number of items is Last Twilight with 41.

The actors who have currently worn the most shared items of clothing are Sea (41), Book (31), and Gun (28).

#I love hearing about other people's projects #the thai communal wardrobe #the thai bl communal wardrobe

32 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Text

Happy marriage equality Thailand! 🌈

A few months ago, @colourme-feral came to me with the idea of cataloguing as many same-sex Thai QL proposals and weddings as we could. And today, to celebrate the bill passing the Senate (and the first post-bill-passing proposal and wedding), I'd like to share with you all our findings! Even though same-sex marriage has not been legal in Thailand until this year (hopefully things will be official in the fall), there have been quite a few same-sex proposals and weddings in Thai QLs throughout the years.

Big thank you to everyone who assisted on this project in some capacity (@airenyah, @bengiyo, @blmpff, @chickenstrangers, @dribs-and-drabbles, @nieves-de-sugui, @twig-tea, @waitmyturtles, @williamrikers) plus all the gif and fanvid makers whose work was instrumental in helping us double check everything (particular shout out to these gifsets by @apathetic-tortoise (1, 2) and this one by @gunsatthaphan).

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

We found 28 Thai QL shows which featured at least one same-sex proposal (the blue list below) and 15 Thai QL shows which featured at least one same-sex wedding (the green list below).

I was pretty strict with what counted as a proposal or a wedding for the purposes of this project. For example, characters who we know are married but whose wedding we don’t see aren’t counted (like Laws of Attraction’s Maya and Rose, or the unnamed Force and Book characters shown in a “Just Married” car in Vice Versa). There are many shows where there is a ring or someone gets down on one knee but the question is not exactly “popped” (Khun Chai, Star In My Mind Our Skyy 2, etc.), and there are even more shows characters talk at length about commitment and being together forever but there were no mentions of marriage or other details (like rings, etc.) that would specifically suggest it was a proposal (A Boss and a Babe, Ai Long Nhai, Be My Favourite, Cupid's Last Wish, Dark Blue Kiss, Something In My Room, Star in My Mind, Still 2gether, Until We Meet Again, 3 Will Be Free, etc.). Some of these moments might have been intended as a declaration of intent to marry by the characters and the show runners, but they weren’t conclusive enough to be included on this list. Furthermore, I think it’s interesting to see how many shows were, for lack of a better word, explicit in their discussion or portrayal of same-sex marriage (having the characters use the word marriage, showing weddings, etc.), despite being from a time before such a thing was legally possible.

Note: I've listed the shows with the year they started airing for ease, even though some of them did finish airing in another year.

(see alt text for the full lists)

The Quick Facts

The first proposal and the first wedding in our data set both happened in Grey Rainbow episode 4, which aired on May 7, 2016. (though this is not exactly an auspicious wedding to start with, as those who know know)

12 shows featured at least one proposal and one wedding (Cherry Magic, GAP the Series, Grey Rainbow, Laws of Attraction, Love Syndrome 3, My Secret Love, Naughty Babe, Never Let Me Go, Tharntype Special: The Wedding Day, Two Worlds, Wedding Plan, and the Wedding Plan Special).

4 shows feature two same-sex proposals (Cherry Magic, Love Syndrome 3, My Secret Love, and Two Worlds). All these shows also feature a same-sex wedding.

None of the shows in our sample had two same-sex weddings.

The Data Over Time

As you can see, generally same-sex proposals and weddings have become more common in Thai QLs over time, though of course there are more Thai Qls being produced now than in the earlier days.

Note: I'm only looking at shows which aired before the marriage equality bill passed the Senate, so the 2024 data does not include Wandee Goodday or OMG! Vampire. It will be interesting to see if and how the number of same-sex proposals and weddings in Thai QLs increases through 2024 and beyond now that it will become a legal reality.

It is also interesting to consider the production companies behind the shows in our sample. This sample includes 7 GMM shows and 5 Mandee/Domundi shows, plus 1-3 series each from other production companies like Idol Factory, MeMindY, Studio Wabi Sabi, Copy A Bangkok, Jinloe Media Work, TV Thunder, and M Flow Entertainment. In other words, GMM shows make up roughly 23% of the sample, Mandee/Domundi shows are another 16%, and other production companies comprise about 61% of the sample.

Main Couples vs Side Couples

There are 28 shows with proposals in the sample but 32 proposals, because four shows have two proposals each. 26 of these 32 proposals (81%) are between the main characters and 6 of them (19%) are between side characters.

Of the 15 weddings in the sample, 12 (80%) are between main couples and 3 (20%) are between side couples.

For interest's sake, I also broke this down for GMM and Mandee/Domundi. GMM has 7 proposals in 6 shows, with 5 main couples and 2 side couples popping the question; and 3 weddings (across 3 shows), in which 2 side couples and 1 main couple got married. Mandee/Domundi has 5 proposals in 4 shows, all between main couples, and 3 weddings (across 3 shows), also all featuring main couples.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

And now here we are, after the bill has passed the Senate. Congratulations to the Thai queer community, and the happy couples Oyei and Cher from Wandee Goodday and Sen and Run from OMG! Vampire who are the first Thai QL couples to propose and to have a wedding (respectively) after Thailand's marriage equality bill passed the Senate! (The bill passed the Senate on June 18, 2024, and episode 8 of Wandee Goodday aired 4 days later on June 22, followed by episode 6 of OMG! Vampire on June 23.)

I can’t wait to see more same-sex engagements and weddings in Thai shows as we move forward.

#and another celebratory reblog of this for twig-tea's very important addition!

191 notes · View notes

ranchthoughts · 2 months ago

Text

Happy marriage equality Thailand! 🌈

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

We found 28 Thai QL shows which featured at least one same-sex proposal (the blue list below) and 15 Thai QL shows which featured at least one same-sex wedding (the green list below).

Note: I've listed the shows with the year they started airing for ease, even though some of them did finish airing in another year.

(see alt text for the full lists)

The Quick Facts

4 shows feature two same-sex proposals (Cherry Magic, Love Syndrome 3, My Secret Love, and Two Worlds). All these shows also feature a same-sex wedding.

None of the shows in our sample had two same-sex weddings.

The Data Over Time

As you can see, generally same-sex proposals and weddings have become more common in Thai QLs over time, though of course there are more Thai Qls being produced now than in the earlier days.

Main Couples vs Side Couples

Of the 15 weddings in the sample, 12 (80%) are between main couples and 3 (20%) are between side couples.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

I can’t wait to see more same-sex engagements and weddings in Thai shows as we move forward.

#reblog to celebrate it being fully legal now!#🌈🌈🌈

191 notes · View notes