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waitmyturtles · 10 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Theory of Love Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover Theory of Love, a polarizing show that was one of the first BLs to deep-dive into viewer subversion of commonly held judgements. THANKS SO, SO MUCH to the SWEETEST ToL friends EVER for watching along with me and offering your clarity and insight: @lurkingshan, @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle, @neuroticbookworm, @ginnymoonbeam, @manogirl, and if I forgot anyone, my apologies!]

It was inevitable, in this project, that I would begin crossing lines into territories of beloved vs. utterly hated shows. I had THAT experience in FULL last week with my review of TharnType and the subsequent public and private conversations that that show, and my thoughts on it, engendered. (And it was a FABULOUS experience, let me tell you -- thanks, ALL Y’ALL, for your thoughts and input on that show.)

[Before I dive into analysis, I just want to say that: if you’re impacted by Theory of Love, particularly by way of any experiences you might have had in your own past that you relate to in the show (especially with Third’s reactions to Khai’s behavior), that is VALID AND REAL. I learned in the aftermath of my TharnType review that I need to be a bit more clear about this, especially because of how divided the feelings are on TT and ToL, so: while this review is going to feature effusive praise for this show, I am, by no means, invalidating anything that anyone felt about relating to Third’s feelings or experiences. Those feelings are REAL. And please feel free to skip this review if you need to get away from Khai, etc.!]

So, Theory of Love -- it’s another one that has a heavily divided fanbase. You’re either in HEATED PASSION for this show, as I ended up being, or you PASSIONATELY HATE this show, and/or Khai himself as a character. Things that I heard about this show as I was putting together the watchlist, and as I began to watch it, were things like, “this show features heavy misogyny,” “this show has bad friend behavior,” “Third is treated horribly,” etc.

However, almost as SOON as I started watching Theory of Love, I realized that I was about to enter into a world of subversion, where I had to have my smell test strong and ready -- and I found it to be a FABULOUS experience.

I’m going to talk about a couple of themes here regarding ToL, as I usually do:

1) The tendency that we might have to fall into a compassion/sympathy bias, and how that clouds our judgement of characters, especially regarding their personal responsibility and accountability to others, 2) The large-scale impact of heteronormativity, 3) How behavioral change is massively difficult, 4) How we as populations and societies are ACTUALLY RESISTANT, OFTEN, to people around us changing,

and more, if I get to it -- because there’s a lot.

As soon as I started the first episode, I was like -- ooooh, FUCK, we’re gonna get played, aren’t we? Third/Gun’s tears. Sobbing in the shower with his clothes on. Raging in despair over Khai’s behavior with women.

First, I ran to MDL, and saw the screenwriters -- and I was like, OHHHHHHH. OKAY. I SEE WHAT WE GOT GOING ON HERE. Bee Pongsate, Pratchaya Thavornthummarut, and Au Kornprom -- some of the heaviest of hitters, in my opinion, authors and/or ADs of some of the best writing that I’ve seen on television (Bad Buddy, anyone?). (I saw a LOT of proto-BBS in ToL, which I’ll hopefully reference throughout this piece.)

When I saw these names, I knew I was in for an experience of emotional subversion, and that’s kind of when I started flipping my lid about this show -- right fucking away. And I felt that I knew what they were doing by giving us so much of Third’s despair, hot and heavy, from the very start.

Let’s backtrack for a moment. When Extraordinary Attorney Woo aired last summer, I referenced in a few of my posts the concept of implicit empathy bias. For Third, I’d adjust this nomenclature to call it our implicit compassion or sympathy bias, in that: we were presented with a very emotionally impacted person, right away, who really served as a foil in a human character to “translate” what Khai’s behavior meant to a larger circle outside of Khai himself.

What I wrote about Woo Young-Woo in EAW is that we as viewers had a responsibility to check ourselves on our having sympathy or even misplaced empathy for her. I argued: who were we to have sympathy for her? Woo Young-Woo was a fucking badass. She was a kick-ass lawyer, she had a hot guy after her tail, and she knew exactly what her preferences were in her life. Oh, and she probably made bank at that private law firm. She earned the respect of her seniors and was someone to be admired, not sympathized with, as an autistic lawyer.

Implicit compassion or sympathy bias is a concept that therapists need to be aware of when working with clients, as sympathy or misplaced compassion could lead to an unbalanced power differential. Therapists, out of sympathy for a client, may believe that a client may not BE ABLE to change their behavior on their own or with guidance, and may lead to implicit and/or explicit condescension. AND, worse of all (in my opinion): that may lead therapists to not encourage personal responsibility and/or accountability for their clients to own their feelings and their preferences, and allow a therapist to write off problematic behavior and approaches as unchangeable and/or acceptable, even if the client COULD benefit from modalities of change.

And so: Third. Crying in the shower. Despairing over Khai bringing home girl after girl. Raging in pain over his un-communicated love for his best friend.

Now, listen, before I get further: YES, at many points, Khai was a MASSIVE asshole. He even called that first kiss on Third a “colossal dick move” (I REALLY wanna know how to say that in Thai, lol). Asking your homey to leave your place and keeping him on the street all night -- bad. At least find your best friend a couch to crash on.

But there are two things here I want to tease out vis à vis the implicit sympathy bias concept. In the first few episodes, we see Third in his absolute dumps.

HOWEVER. The ways in which he’s either NOT communicating, or trying to communicate in INCREDIBLY passive ways? That’s on Third, and Third alone. Bro, don’t write on Khai’s shirt WHEN KHAI’S NOT AROUND! Dump those clichéd posterboards! If you want someone to know your feelings, you are RESPONSIBLE, on God, for doing that yourself.

Couple that with Third’s judgement of Khai’s behavior. He looked down on Khai’s behavior ... all while belonging to a friend group that was EXTREMELY rooted in what we could call stereotypical heteronormative behavior (and I want to heavily credit @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle for bringing heteronormativity to this conversation vis à vis Khai -- thank you for letting me borrow your words, let me give you your flowers!).

I didn’t see Third condemning Two and Bone (huh huh, Bone) for doing the same thing with girls.

What I saw X, Bee, Pratchaya, and Au doing here was setting us, the viewers, up for an experience of having sympathy for Third -- and almost IMMEDIATELY being lulled into an experience where we wouldn’t, subsequently, hold Third ACCOUNTABLE for taking RESPONSIBILITY in trying to change the paradigm that he was in. INSTEAD, I posit, it would be EASY to sympathize with him, AND condemn Khai for being a booty-chaser, ALL WHILE Third, or us, were NOT holding Two and Bone similarly accountable. PSH.

And think about how easy that is! Gun’s SOOOOOO CUTE, Y’ALL, UGGGHHH. Him crying? Forget about it. Those tears, those pouty lips! Stop that man from crying, get him a Kleenex Thailand sponsorship!

And, AND, in Thailand, and in America: think about how easy it is to judge hook-up culture. It’s SO EASY. A person can be a whore, a ho, a slut, or easy. Write ‘em off.

We can talk about sexual freedom and agency in one breath, and judge someone for getting tail in the next.

I’m telling you. I was TAKEN AWAY BY THE BRILLIANCE OF THIS SET-UP from the damn start of this show. And I related to it personally, particularly from the lens of heteronormativity, because ... I related to Khai (maybe I wasn’t as much of a player in my twenties, but ya girl, ya know -- I had my experiences, okay?! ANYWAY, moving on, cough cough.)

So I had my experiences. In my majority-Asian girlfriend group, I was judged for my experiences. Why?

Because sex is judged in almost all societies (I’m leaving continental Western Europe out of this, but I welcome input from the family over there!). If you’re getting some, there are others that aren’t, for a myriad of reasons. Why do we judge? For religious and/or cultural reasons, a lack of sex education, a lack of supportive input and guidance from elders and/or friends -- the list goes on.

For being able to hook up with guys (I’m cishet), I was called a slut, a ho, a whore. From my perspective? I was doing.... what everyone else was doing. I was participating in heteronormative society and behavior, and because of the ease of my being able to socially engage with others, I was judged for it. (I don’t carry too much baggage from that judgement. I’m happily married to a man I got drunk with in a bar the first time I met him. All I can do is NOT condemn my kids for doing the same when their time comes.)

Again: ToL was NOT set up to elicit judgement against Two and Bone. The judgement -- as ferociously directed FROM Third -- was written and designed to be AGAINST Khai. In summation: I call bullshit on Third. I would argue that the brilliance of the writing here meant that we as viewers could have been lulled into judging one person for their behavior, while allowing passes for others engaging in the exact same thing. And I’d posit that ToL, above all else, provided an INCREDIBLE meta-commentary on the insidiousness of this selective judgement.

[Let me also add that I believe these messages were woven into the story in other ways. As I chatted with @wen-kexing-apologist about: I compared the name “Un,” Earth Pirapat’s character, to the title of the French film that Bone and Paan were into, Un Homme et Une Femme. “One Man and One Woman.” A message from society that all humans are supposed to be... het and monogamous? And unchanging, at that. Memorialized into media. And anything else could be judged. When, in fact: Un himself broke a mold by being in love with Two (un... deux....) the entire time.]

I would also argue that ToL was not necessarily a condemnation of heteronormativity in society. I think, instead, it served as a reflection for both what we as members of society are willing to accept or not accept by way of acceptable behavior, BUT ALSO: HOW UNWILLING WE ACTUALLY ARE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO CHANGE.

What do I mean by that?

So, Khai. I think Khai, at the start of the show, was being Khai. I don’t know if it was clear from the start of the show that Third was gay, per se. What was only made clear to me was that Third was in love with Khai.

I’d posit that Khai’s expectation of his friend group was that all of them were heteronormative bros, all into the same thing: getting with women. Why would he have reason to think otherwise? Especially from Two and Bone, this is what the guys were into, night after night.

And it makes me wonder about how he was raised, how not just his friends, but his family, his school community, everyone around him -- how they all treated him. All of those impacts WILL contribute to how a person turns out as an adult. Khai acted this way because, in part -- society allowed him, and likely EVEN ENCOURAGED HIM, to be this way. Because he was a tall, cute, homeslice-kinda guy.

Khai is out there Khai-ing. (And, as I noted during my watch sessions, it wasn’t just Khai Khai-ing. Two and Bone were on the scene -- BUT THE GIRLS THEMSELVES were also on the scene, and engaged in their OWN agency in hooking up with Khai. Girls are playas, too.)

For most of the show, Third is NOT confronting Khai with Third’s feelings. Then Khai learns about Third’s feelings, and tries to get Third to fall OUT of love with Khai, leveraging “colossal dick moves.” Then Third ACTUALLY falls out of love with Khai, and the narrative switch of the show takes place, where we settle into Khai’s perspective and Khai’s attempts at winning back Third’s heart.

Before I get into that switch, I want to note something that I think that the majority of the BLs out of Thailand that I’ve watched so far represent really well. I often write that behavioral change is MASSIVELY difficult. In my real-life job, I very often reference the five stages of behavioral change as a means of relating to my colleagues about difficulties they’re facing in changing something that they’re doing at work. Think about not just GOING on a diet, but STICKING to a diet, if you’ve never been on one; or not just GOING to the gym, but STICKING to an exercise routine, or really QUITTING smoking, as opposed to taking a break. Those changes are MASSIVELY DIFFICULT.

What I saw in the second half of ToL was another UTTERLY BRILLIANT commentary on society: how, once we have someone under our judging eye, how we DON’T LET THEM CHANGE.

Khai WANTED TO CHANGE for Third. Many, many times, he didn’t quite know HOW to go about it. OR, to be more specific -- how to change PER THIRD’S PREFERENCES. And honestly, Third was clearly ready to just BE judgy, right? Gurl.

But, once you get a label, that label STICKS. You’re a bully. You’re a slut. You’re a whore.

You need to do a lot of damn work, in the private eye, in the public eye, to shed those labels. Think about the condemnation of celebrities (I am always referencing this amazing video by Ohm and Perth on mental health). How easy it is to write ANYONE in our lives off, and not ever look back, with a single glance.

And Third wasn’t gonna give an inch to Khai. And I had to say, I admired Khai for trying to do the damn thing. He fucked up, A LOT. Praew? Not necessary. All that unsolicited kissing? NO. Don’t do that.

But here, again, I argue that Third needed to take responsibility and accountability, too. Khai was being far more forward with his attempts at communication. And Third? For some reason, he was written as being, like, UNABLE to listen, talking over Khai, interrupting him, not letting Khai finish a damn sentence.

Both of these two DEAR characters were bumbly and immature AF. I really loved that about the BOTH of them. BOTH junior college students, BOTH learning the ropes of their attraction, especially Khai, who was ROOTED in an otherwise DEEPLY heteronormative experience.... but, again, so was Third, taught by... what, exactly, to not be the open communicator that he NEEDED to be to solve his initially unrequited love. Possibly, and likely, because there was a significant corner of society that would SYMPATHIZE with his pain, without holding him ACCOUNTABLE for that pain, as Two, and eventually Bone, did for him, before turning their attentions to Khai to help Khai seal the deal.

I really love this life lesson. To me, it’s extremely reminiscent of the kinds of life lessons that we saw in Bad Buddy, which is why I might term ToL as a kind of proto-BBS, where we see Bee, Pratchaya, and Au playing with the ideas that eventually became the INCREDIBLE foundation of BBS.

In BBS, Pat and Pran accepted, with robust empathy (NOT condescending sympathy), the fact that their parents WOULD NOT, and maybe even, COULD NOT change -- leading the guys to keeping their relationship secret.

Here in ToL, I love that the writers played with Third’s RESISTANCE to change, but also, designed him to ultimately OPEN UP to it, with Khai’s constant pushing. Khai and Third didn’t have the generational divide that children and parents do, as we see eventually in BBS. They had youth on their side. We saw in the follow-up ToL special that Third is still a jealous MF, a side of him that Khai plays up and is concerned about.

But Bee, Pratchaya, and Au were ultimately SO GOOD to Khai and Third (and Two! and Bone! and Un!), because: they wrote these characters ULTIMATELY WITH GRACE, with the GRACEFULNESS that beautiful behavioral change elicits. To witness their processes of change meant, to me, that the show BELIEVED that people CAN CHANGE, AND, AND -- that humans DO NOT HAVE to suffer from weighty labels that are ultimately just a goddamn and meaningless unnecessary burden.

CHANGE IS BEAUTIFUL, if you can embrace it, and if you can allow your loved ones around to TO CHANGE. And when you change, with your community supporting you: you CAN, and likely WILL, become a better person for it.

WHEW. OH MY GAWD. NOW THAT THAT’S OFF MY CHEST! (For real, for ToL: I had MORE notes written, PAGES OF NOTES, written for this show, than anything I’ve watched on the OGMMTVC list, including He’s Coming To Me, my favorite of the old shows so far. ToL WAS SO SUBVERSIVE. UGGHHHHHH!!!)

Some final quick notes, some easter eggs that I utterly loved, that I couldn’t fit into this review in another fashion:

HAAAAAAA. (Even Khai’s social media probably reinforced the heteronormative lifestyle he had been living before falling in love with Third.)

2) The repeat of the stage/play/sound/actors theme, from ToL, to BBS, to Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars (with references to Earth’s characters, to boot!). GOD, I LOVE HOW THEY COME BACK TO THIS THEME! How not just a stage, but so much of LIFE ITSELF, is so fucking performative for the people around us (including Pat and Pran hiding their relationship, Khai bragging to the homies about girls, all of it!).

3) I had planned to include these earlier in the review, but they ultimately didn’t quite make it -- I wanted to write about a bunch of stuff just floating in my head as I watched ToL:

a) My playlist for this show (“I’M NOT A PLAYA, I JUST CRUSH A LOT,” COME AWN! Where did my mom jeans go, shit...) (And the theme of “just friends”? ToL was a total workshop on this theme for BBS. I wish they had sped up into the future to include Nanon’s song.)

b) I had a whole bunch of New York-isms that I wanted to fit into this review somehow, something that like, Dom the pizza guy on the block would say to Third if Third was crying over his slice:

“Who are you to judge?” (pronounced “whoawu”) (besides Third judging Khai, I’d also argue that this applies to the ladies, too -- who are we to judge the ladies that wanted to get with Khai), “No one owes you jackshit,” “GET IT TOGETHER, my friend,”

but they didn’t quite fit, but I feel like I should still jot them down anyway. ANYWAY!

2019, right before the pandemic hits, a year in which you have SO MUCH BL percolating, great BL like He’s Coming to Me, controversial BL like TharnType. And you have this incredibly intelligent, SHARP, subversive, sexy show in Theory of Love, that just causes RIPPLES among the fanbase. I can absolutely see why @bengiyo calls 2019 the year that BL bifurcated. ToL, like HCTM, to me, was a little ahead of its time. It was so subversive as to maybe even be a little manipulative. Because I’m in binge mode and in the THICK of the best of 2019, I know I was mentally ready for this -- but I can see why some audiences in 2019 were maybe NOT so ready.

But I’m damn glad this show was made. If this script hadn’t been written by Bee, Pratchaya, and Au, then I think Bad Buddy would not have been as subversive as it was. ToL is a phenomenal show, AND it gives me SUCH clarity into the refining of the creative process of this team that ultimately produced BBS. And in terms of layers and layers and LAYERS of meaning and depth, nothing, in my opinion, comes close to BBS. I’m thrilled that we had ToL, and the spectacular pairing of OffGun, to precede that moment.

[ToL kicked so much ass, AND I finished 3 Will Be Free last night, ANOTHER monumental show -- if I can get it together, I’ll drop a 3WBF review later this week, but if not, keep your eyes peeled next Monday.

My time tonight, I’ll be watching Dew the Movie -- another stop on the Ohm Pawat train, on which I’m a permanent passenger. Mans is such a translator of queer revelation and angst. I can’t wait. And thennnnnn, after Dew, a big one, Until We Meet Again. It’ll be my first go-around with Fluke Natouch, which I’m looking forward to; but I was informed by @bengiyo and the clown friends that this shit’s SEVENTEEN EPISODES. WHY DOES NEW SIWAJ HAVE TO DO THIS TO ME?!?! Thailand needs to pass a federal law restricting New to 12 episodes OR LESS! GAH.

But anyway, listen, we are making big progress, and inching ever closer to a major stop on this journey in ITSAY. I know @shortpplfedup is watching my shit very. closely. Annnnd, I’ll take any thoughts on this, but I kinda think that I should maybe do a Very Very Fast Rewatch of KinnPorsche...since it was KP that got me here in the first place, and I think I might have a lot more to say about it, now that I’m firmly familiar with the BL echelon. And, Tong.

Here’s the list as it currently stands. As always, feedback is welcome!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review coming) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (not an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but I want to watch this in chronological order with everything else) (watching) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 29) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 30) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 31) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 32) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 33) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 34) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 35) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

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