#this is the show that put ohm pawat on the map

[waitmyturtles]

@bengiyo We got another one! 🎉🎉🎉

Time for me to repost, again, the most brilliant thing that @bengiyo said to me last year when I watched MIR for the first time, which echoes the note about teenagers that you mention, @maybe-boys-do-love:

“[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.”

MIR is INSANE, and messy, and chaotic, and oftentimes totally insensible (especially the second season), but my god, was it sophisticated in the way it tackled issues of sexuality and internal/external homophobia (among other themes) so directly. Book and Frame at the clinic — so very Gay OK Bangkok!

@maybe-boys-do-love, for all of what we’ve talked about regarding GOKB and recent shows like Only Friends, yes — making Make It Right now would be a lot more difficult, as we’re a touch less out of the experimental mode that queer filmmakers were working in in 2016. But I think shows like Knock Knock Boys from this year still touch very honestly on matters related to what happens before, during, and after sex, that can help young audiences through understandings of queer sexuality. The shows are rare now, but — they were rare almost 10 years ago, too, and MIR was such a groundbreaking show in making queer sexuality more visible for a growing audience. I effing LOVE this show, both seasons of it!

I know I'm the only one watching Make It Right the series rn (thanks @waitmyturtles for the great reviews to encourage it), but I gotta say that episode 8 of season 1 where Fuse and Tee wake up together and skip school feels more tonally similar to GayOK Bangkok than any BLs I've seen. The casual intimacy and chemistry in the conversations they got out of these young actors is wild (Book and Frame, too). And they're clearly given a lot of freedom to move and make choices in the moment, which isn't always the case. I would bet money they had a minuscule crew on set to help them be more comfortable to act so openly. I know director Julie Andem's talked about how that's part of the reason there's such great performances from the young untrained cast in Skam.

The whole series of Make It Right so far seems to be a show about teenagers for adults looking back on their experiences at that age rather than a show for teenagers to ogle and aspire towards. For one, the problematic elements it depicts are all experienced and addressed as problematic by the characters. The characters themselves are so unclear about what they want, let alone communicating it to anyone else. It hits such a raw nerve for me. And clearly based on what the few other people on tumblr write about it (@bengiyo and @elimstillnotgarak doing us all the public service), I'm not the only one. I know Love Sick 2024 is starting up, and I gotta watch the original series, but it seems like Make It Right would be so much harder to remake and market because it doesn't follow the BL rules.