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waitmyturtles · 2 years ago

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Make It Right (Season 1) Edition

TW: dubious content, sex without consent, sex and alcohol

[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. I’ve covered Love Sick and SOTUS so far, and today I offer my thoughts on the first season of Make It Right. This is a long post, folks.]

I admittedly started Make It Right with hesitation: there’s a lot of commentary here on Tumblr that MIR is a wholly problematic entity, a über-pulp of high school pulps, one that unabashedly doesn’t apologize for its questionable content or intentions.

In the course of my undertaking my Old GMMTV Challenge, I asked for advice on taking on Make It Right, most of all to understand the trajectory of the high school pulps from what Love Sick had started. I thought this was an important endeavor, considering what Love Sick had invested a tremendous amount of time in depicting -- AND considering that one out of two Thai BLs (it seems to me, ha, that’s kind of a joke, kinda) are based in school settings.

What I did not expect, at all, in watching Make It Right, was to see an utterly sophisticated commentary on first sex, teenage sex and love, and queer discovery. It totally surprised me and I was deeply moved.

I want to base this review in a few groundings that gave me tremendous perspective into what I was watching.

1) I had the good luck to be able to engage with @bengiyo during my watching of this show, and he’s become a dear drama friend in the process. Ben gave me a perspective that, once I heard it, I realized that I needed to hold onto it and look for this perspective in any past and future dramas that I watch.

Ben gave me the perspective that the show’s writers and directors -- New Siwaj, Cheewin Thanamin, Yuan Tin Tun, and Andy Rachyd of Love Sick, all prolific Thai BL creators -- approached the making of Make It Right with experience and knowledge about early queer male experiences and discoveries. Ben wrote to me the following:

“[New Siwaj] understands that many early sexual experiences are with other boys. And Make It Right asks what life could be if they just didn't turn against each other for it.”

How could I not be moved after I read that. You don’t need a magnifying glass to understand the implications of what Ben was indicating. All I needed was to reflect on my own teenagehood, and think about the casual homophobia that I grew up around -- and think about how devastating that homophobia was to people who wanted a fair shot at growing up happily, in a safe environment, discovering themselves without blame and shame from others.

Once Ben said that to me, I really sat up and paid full attention for the rest of my watch of MIR.

2) Ben also helped me to understand the New Siwaj oeuvre. I started MIR thinking that I hadn’t seen any of his work; but as it turned out, he was a screenwriter on Love Sick, AND he’s a screenwriter on a non-BL drama airing right now that I’m watching, Double Savage, featuring two former New Siwaj BL leads in Ohm Pawat and Perth Tanapon.

So, a quick note on New Siwaj. I’m not familiar with his PROLIFIC body of work (Until We Meet Again, Between Us, A Boss and a Babe, My Only 12%, Love By Chance, the list goes on), because I haven’t gotten there on my watchlist -- but many of you, dear readers, have watched these.

His work can be up or down, right? (Feel free to spoil me on ABAAB.) What Ben noted for me is that New is better with collaborators -- and that’s maybe why I found Make It Right to be so INCREDIBLY consistent and engrossing throughout the entire first season. For me, there wasn’t a bump. (Well, maybe except for Rod and Nine, which wasn’t my favorite ship, but I’ll quibble about that later.)

I’m glad I’m watching New Siwaj in order of the airing of his shows. I didn’t do that when I first jumped into Thai BLs. I went from KinnPorsche, to The Eclipse, to ATOTS, to Bad Buddy. Part of the goal of this project is to get oriented in the trajectory of Aof Noppharnach, whose work makes my bones ache in reflective emotional pain. But at least I get to start New’s work in chronologically correct order, and at least have an awareness of his impact on the genre.

So I’m keeping in mind that part of the magic of MIR/season 1 is the collaboration that a VERY young (like, 21-young) New Siwaj engaged in with his colleagues to make a show that, I can say with certainty, was unlike what early Thai BL fans had seen yet. MIR leveled UP by way of progressive queer content in BLs at this moment in time, in 2016, right before MaxTul debuted in Together With Me (which I understand to be the first high heat Thai BL, and is next on my watchlist).

3) The third grounding that I need to unwind is about the problematic nature of the way in which the two main ships, TeeFuse and FrameBook, were introduced. Both ships began with dubious content — one as a drunken hook-up without consent (TeeFuse) and the other as a non-drunken hook-up without consent and with initial refusal (FrameBook).

A lot of what I saw by way of commentary about MIR before picking it up was a discomfort with the way the ships were introduced like this, and how old the actors were in these scenes (Ohm Pawat was all of 16 and in braces in this first season).

Before I go on, I want to say that, unequivocally, I will never defend sex without consent in real life.

Will I defend it in art? That’s more difficult to unwind.

WHY?

Reflecting back on what Ben said about New Siwaj — what New and Cheewin were clearly going for here was a reflection on the young queer experience for teenage males in 2016.

Now, I’m not a young queer male. But I was young, once, in a big city during my college and post-grad years.

I’m also older than a lot of the majority audience here on Tumblr. I was a teenager in the 1990s. The age and eras of consent — the popular acceptance of a language of consent to sex — was not parlance in my youth.

I wonder, in MIR, if I was seeing what we label as “problematic content” as a reflection of scenes of realistically-inspired ways in which queer experiences actually came about at the time that New and Cheewin were young themselves.

In other words — why would New and Cheewin write and direct these scenes in these ways in the first place? What drove them to make their art this way?

I would argue that New and Cheewin included these scenes because they were reflective of what they themselves may have gone through as very young men.

Like I said — I was once a young lass in a big city, before the age of consent. My hook-ups? Many included alcohol. I didn’t have sex without consent, per se, but as that infamous song stated — there were certainly blurred lines at many times. I certainly wavered at times before and during a hook-up. I sometimes waffled before deciding to move forward in an intimate moment.

I think, in 2016, for New and Cheewin to make Make It Right, that as artists — if they needed to explore those blurred lines for the sake of their show, and what their show meant as a reflection of a young queer male experience — then I would defend their right to make their art.

Myself and @bengiyo would also argue that we -- as viewers of Thai BL -- bear a responsibility for not judging past historical works through a currently modern lens (I’m paraphrasing dear @bengiyo here, who said this much more eloquently than me).

A major responsibility that I think us viewers should bear when consuming queer media -- especially cishet viewers, especially viewers who do not identify as queer -- is a required self-questioning and self-reflection on WHY an idea or a scene might make you feel uncomfortable. What makes a viewer uncomfortable about witnessing a queer hook-up that may occur outside the boundaries of consent? Boundaries which were only beginning to be talked about in popular media in 2016? (Is it because the hook-up lacked a kind of communication that you want to see in art? Is it because the sex was messy, and not perfect? Is it because, implicitly, a non-consensual queer hook-up might make you uncomfortable? Is it because, implicitly, you might judge someone for having lots of sex? IT IS OKAY TO ASK YOURSELF THOSE QUESTIONS AND EXPLORE YOURSELF -- I encourage it. You will discover characteristics about yourself that you might want to explore and improve on. Self-discovery is a fabulous thing!)

Remember that the start of 2022′s Between Us was remarkable for the sensuality of asking consent from Win to a drunk Team. And that was a New Siwaj piece, too. Can New grow vis à vis his art? Of course. Extrapolating from that: should his art of 2016 be negated for elements that we might argue are “missing,” particularly from the early scenes of intimacy? No. Because 2016 was already a vastly different era in BL, as this project is proving, versus the media we consume today, which has had the benefit of DEVELOPING, and being INFLUENCED by what we’re calling the problematic art of the early years of BL.

In other, much shorter words: things get better when there’s history to learn from. This BL art that we love so much will GET BETTER, because we’ll have new and old filmmakers creating community and consuming each other’s art, and they’ll be influenced by it, and pushed to make even better art.

AND: I would argue that if New and Cheewin needed to process the problems and the awkwardness of first queer intimacy for young teenage men -- then we as viewers have the right to watch it, or to walk away. But as I said before: we as viewers bear a responsibility to understand the context of what we’re watching before we write it off -- because I believe we have to look into ourselves to discover what really makes us uncomfortable about some art. And we have to give room to artists to make art that very may well reflect their own personal experiences.

PHEW.

Okay, then. On to the actual show! A show that -- for all of what I just meditated on -- is ABSOLUTELY WORTH WATCHING.

I immediately fell in love with the first two ships, TeeFuse and FrameBook. Tee’s unabashed crush on Fuse, and Fuse’s pain at his being two-timed by his girlfriend, Jean, was presented with an unexpected crispness -- it just MOVED, fast, and smartly, to get where we needed to be to get Tee and Fuse together for their first encounter.

Frame and Book started similarly -- more consciously on Book’s end, but similarly, with a dumped-and-broken-hearted Book going outside of his boundaries, and discovering Frame, literally, on the other side of those boundaries.

I love that @absolutebl called Fuse a “chaotic bi,” and I’d throw Book in there, too. For me, the show centered on their struggles and realizations, and I really like how these two in their couplings, when juxtaposed with each other, demonstrated a VERY real sense of what happens in real-life love.

Because real-life love is MESSY. Season one ends with Fuse in two (TWO!) relationships. Frame and Book, after their first (problematic, yes) sexual encounter, deal with an extensive aftercare sequence.

When I think about these two couples -- I look back and ADMIRE the details of how complicated they were presented.

Fuse waffles between Tee and Jean. He’s OVER THE TOP in love with Tee, my gawd. Those two at the resort. The looks they’ve giving to each other as they’re presented with the couples sweets by the owner’s sweet son. (I LOVED THE MEANING OF THAT SCENE, I LOVED IT, I LOVED IT -- when you are accepted by CHILDREN, the world is a MORE PERFECT PLACE. The way Fuse held onto the child while sitting next to Tee. SWOON.)

Still in 2016 -- as what happened for most of Love Sick and Love Sick 2 -- Fuse’s reality in MIR/season 1 is that his relationship with Jean is not worth ending yet, even if she’s two-timing him. Fuse and Tee need to work out things with each other. There’s not a glimmer of what an OUT relationship looks like yet. We don’t even know yet, at the end of season 1, if out is what they want.

What Tee wants is to KNOW that Fuse is HIS. And I think season 1 ends with Tee realizing that Fuse IS HIS, despite Jean’s presence, because Jean’s presence is a necessity for Fuse in that moment. While Jean two-timed Fuse, Fuse’s reality is that he has a girlfriend, and that duality -- loving Jean vs. loving Tee -- is certainly a dilemma that’s presented as needing more time for Fuse to unwind through, thus leading us to the second season.

It makes sense to me. New and Cheewin are still admitting, even in this more open world of queerness versus Love Sick (think of the very out and adamant Yok, who fearlessly says he’s gay to everyone -- including his disapproving mother), that casual/intentional/internalized/externalized homophobia still exists. And that may drive a high school student to not leave his het relationship while having a queer revelation, AND while his girlfriend is two-timing him.

I just really liked the reality of that. Life rarely gives us clean dualities. Life instead gives us lots of gray areas. Make It Right clearly exists in the gray. Fuse is in the gray. He’s chaotic. Pulled in a lot of directions. And sweet Fuse is just figuring that shit out -- all while falling more and more for Tee.

I want to give Fuse a HUGE MOM HUG. That’s a lot to deal with. We need to know why Fuse still stays with Jean, and we need to continue to see Tee and Fuse working that out in season 2.

Going to Frame and Book: Frame and Book begin with a problematically wild hook-up, and with Book needing quite a bit of aftercare afterwards.

We complement shows like Bed Friend and Big Dragon now for containing scenes of aftercare and testing -- it’s fabulous. I had NO IDEA Make It Right went there in 2016.

I mean, they’re teenagers! Like, as a mom, I’m like -- WOW, Frame just GOT Book IN HIS CAR and was like, WE ARE GOING TO THE CLINIC, and we are going to get you medicine so that you can feel better. Some viewers might argue -- well, Frame, if you hadn’t pushed the sex in the first place, Book wouldn’t have needed the aftercare.

Correct. HOWEVER. Book was clearly -- like me, when I was young -- waffling. WAFFLING IS REAL. He was figuring out if he liked Frame, he was figuring out if he liked guys. He was figuring stuff out, and we saw him figuring stuff out, and coming to terms with his feelings.

My heart. The pain and confusion I felt in that waffling. Book knew Frame was a player. We could see his hurt when Frame jumped on the chat apps. We viscerally SAW and HEARD Book’s pain when Book mistook Frame’s aunt as a lover (yes, that happens, lol).

The thing that I loved about how this coupling was written was that Frame could see that pain and hurt, too. He wasn’t ever oblivious to it. HE DIDN’T IGNORE IT. Book had been dumped by a girlfriend on a chat app. He was worried it would happen with Frame.

Frame was direct with Book. Frame was very bisexual and sexually active. Yet, after their first encounter -- we (at least the viewers) did not see Frame in another hook-up. Frame knew Book was suspicious of something else happening, and Frame took his time to explore if Book would be serious about falling for Frame.

And Book fell! He fell so hard! He wanted, not just Frame -- he wanted a THING with Frame, he wanted stability and commitment with Frame. He demanded it. Book! My man! Oh my god, my heart.

Frame had to work around Book’s insecurities and issues with confidence and trust to get Book to trust him to be together. I think Frame was even a little surprised, when they were together in Book’s place, to discover that Book wanted exclusivity.

And what I loved about seeing them come together was that Frame was willing to meet that challenge. He had to get Book out of his lack-of-trust-and-confidence space to get Book to trust Frame. Frame just pushed for it. He saw what Book wanted, inside of all that waffling, and was able to give Book what Book demanded.

It was complicated, it was funny, it was disorganized, and it was really heartening to see Frame confess his love so loudly in the school gardens -- reminiscent of another confession moment on a school campus.

The TeeFuse and FrameBook couplings delved into a tremendous amount of detail at the kinds of things that derail relationships, queer or not. I appreciate that New and Cheewin and their collaborators didn’t shy away from the ugliness and messiness of early courtship in school settings. And I also appreciated that New and Cheewin also showed homophobia, as Book’s friends confronted him about his relationship with Frame, with Book dealing with how to confront them back; and Tan confronting Fing about her potential dalliance with Mook (oh, yes -- GL side dalliance, fam!).

I might argue that the one quibble I had about the show was New’s sometimes-penchant for too many ships in one show. I know @bengiyo is more sympathetic to the RodtangNine ship, but I don’t quite think I needed it. @bengiyo said to me that it was an important ship because Rod was first attracted to Fuse -- and then moved on, and was able to fall for Nine. The moving on was an important flow to show that an attractor doesn’t need to get stuck and obsessed only on one person -- that that demonstrates growth.

I’d just argue that the show had SO MUCH going on between TeeFuse, FrameBook, and FingMook, that there wasn’t quite enough room to get emotionally close enough to RodNine to care deeply enough for them. For me, as well, the acting of Rod was painfully bad. But that’s a minor and personal quibble.

While this piece is tremendously long, amazingly, it’s not over, because I haven’t watched season 2 yet. I’ll watch season 2 after watching Together With Me, to be chronologically correct (watchlist below). I’ll offer just one last note on the thoughts above.

If you read this and decide to give Make It Right a shot, I totally encourage it, and all the self-exploration that I spoke about before. I DEEPLY BELIEVE that TeeFuse and FrameBook are very much worth the time, for how sophisticated the writing around them is.

If the show gives you the jibbles, sit with that and try to ask yourself why. If it’s too much, turn the show off and walk away. It’s not worth the triggers you might experience.

But I think there’s joy in watching imperfect things, because life is imperfect, and art can be imperfect, too. I don’t expect perfection in the art I consume. (Case in point: the AkkAyan debates around Our Skyy 2 x The Eclipse. Case in point: the Bad Buddy finale. Case in point: the finale of Eternal Yesterday.) I can’t wish for art to always go the way I want it, because I might demand closure that makes me comfortable.

I’m old enough to know that what I’ve learned from life is that -- instead of demanding clean starts and ends -- that things are often messy and painful and hurtful, and that the joy of my life is discovering myself in how I managed those things.

And I think that’s what Make It Right captures. The boys are learning how to manage, to make it right, for themselves, as they discover themselves as young men and young adults. And I can’t help but think that that will always be a beautiful journey that I want to see in the art I watch, time and time again.

[Man, oh man. As usual: thanks and shout-outs to the family, ESPECIALLY to @absolutebl and @bengiyo for the encouragement to add and watch Make It Right -- and very especially to @bengiyo for engaging me in the most beautiful and awesome dialogue to this show. Thank you, friend.

I’m on to Together With Me, with the encouragement and convincing of @manogirl and @miscellar to explore the MaxTul ship and the first high heat in Thai BLs. Let’s go. And thanks to everyone else for their input on TwM: @shortpplfedup, @lurkingshan, @aliceisathome, @liyazaki, @aprilblossomgirl, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @clairificusrex, @respectthepetty, @nieves-de-sugui, and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle.

Here’s the watchlist, for those who are following!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) SOTUS (2016) (review here) 3) Make It Right (2016) 4) Together With Me (2016) 5) Make It Right 2 (2017) 6) Love By Chance (2018) 7) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) 8) He’s Coming To Me (2019) 9) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) 10) TharnType (2019) 11) Theory of Love (2019) 12) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 13) 2gether (2020) 14) Still 2gether (2020) 15) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 16) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 17) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 18) Not Me (2021-2022) 19) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 20) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 21) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 22) My School President (2022-2023)]