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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: KinnPorsche, and Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist Edition (Part 2)

[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 conclude a two-part series on my thoughts on KinnPorsche, my very first Thai BL, and the impact that I think KP has had on the Thai BL industry since 2022.]

Top of the morning (or whatever time zone you're in) to ya! Yesterday, I ruminated on KinnPorsche's foundation in regards to how the show wasn't as innovative as newbie members of the Thai BL fandom, like myself, may have thought in 2022 -- but was rather a great example of a show that derivatively used a lot of excellent past Thai BL influences in order to make a newly stylized show that I think, for the most part, worked well.

Harkening back to the outline for these two pieces that I laid out yesterday, this post will concentrate on:

3) How I think KP has impacted how other studios approach, market, and write Thai BLs now, and 4) A quick passing thought on BOC's own continued influence on the Thai BL genre and industry since 2022, particularly by way of Dead Friend Forever.

Before I get fully into point 3, I wanted to take a second to offer one more thought on an element about the KinnPorsche series itself that I didn't unwind on much yesterday, and one that'll connect with point 3 in a second. I mentioned yesterday that I personally (in my own opinion, I am accountable here) don't think that some of the VegasPete elements of the show helped the show's flow and continuity at all times. After my rewatch, I think the show could have stood for more episode editing to better its flow. I very much know how beloved VegasPete are in much of the KP fandom (thanks so much to dear friend @wen-kexing-apologist for the conversations about this during my rewatch!), so I don't want to pooh-pooh very hard, because at the same time, I think Bible as an actor was valuable to the show regarding Vegas's interactions with Porsche -- that side storyline offered intrigue and depth particularly into Porsche's mindset at the end of the series. At the same time, I think the VegasPete scenes contained enough questionable takes on trauma and attraction that I think now contribute to the show's legend and status as a uniquely heaty drama, but (in my opinion, people, I own this!), I think some of those takes could have been removed, smoothed, or tamped down for editing's sake, vis à vis those questionable takes in particular.

Taking VegasPete's trauma-and-kink-driven storyline, and KinnPorsche's romps and unravellings, into consideration, along with the show's excellent use of comedy as a plot driver: I think that KinnPorsche has clearly had an impact on how subsequent "heat" BL dramas have been created and marketed since KP's run. I'm thinking in particularly of some big ones (heh heh), including 2023's Only Friends, and 2023-24's Playboyy (which I did not finish, FYI).

Heat -- and the increasing use and management of it -- has long been an important element of the Thai BL industry. Like I said yesterday, MaxTul (my beloved) were pioneers of it in Together With Me and Manner of Death, and MAME consecrated episodic heat in 2019's TharnType, and even introduced enough of it notably in 2018's Love By Chance by way of those awesome spicy AePete scenes. And the WONDERFUL Lovely Writer offered meta commentary about the dependence that the Thai BL/Series Y industry has on heat in order to drive in fans, oftentimes to the detriment of more interesting and/or fulfilling and/or emotionally complicated plots.

KinnPorsche's lengthy marketing, from its Filmania days in 2020 and 2021, to its eventual 2022 premiere through Be On Cloud, certainly helped to drive interest and intrigue in the show, from the debut pairing of MileApo, to the clear use of heat that the show was promising before its airing. (Red Peafowl could never.)

Looking at the moment we are in right now -- early spring of 2024, with the ability to look back on the conclusions of both Only Friends and Playboyy -- I see the influence that KinnPorsche had on these shows being HUGELY marketed as cutting-edge-entrées to a high-heat and high-interest slice of Thai BL, particularly for Only Friends, which was GMMTV's own first step into really high-heat territory.

Both of the shows ended in meh territory (and both shows were written by the same writer in Den Panuwat, who may very well have a monogamy kink). Both shows ended up putting pure monogamy on a pedestal, and seemed to judge extra-monogamous sex as a "mistake" that was worth rectifying through "true," i.e., monogamous, love.

I posit, and I'm glad, that KinnPorsche did NOT go this route. Extracurricular sex wasn't even in the show's genes anyway, but -- the heat that KP marketed at the time of its premiere was solely associated with the centralized romances of the two main pairings. KinnPorsche didn't have to get extra-monogamously messy in its bones (huh huh) in order to be hot -- and it makes me curious to wonder why shows like Only Friends and Playboyy felt the need to promote relational messiness as a way to hype up their heat, all of which kinda putzed out in the end run of both of those shows.

Of course, we've still had heat in many other shows since KP's premiere, including in directions that roundly surprised the larger fandom, such as Pit Babe's take on omegaverse, and maybe even the vets Earth and Mix getting hot and heavy in Moonlight Chicken, a direction that Aof Noppharnach has been known to not take for the sake of keeping the ratings on his shows kid-friendly. But I do find it interesting that the heavy promotion of Only Friends and Playboyy led the fandom to think that these shows were going to have progressive takes on sex and sexuality, when they ultimately did not (I'd even argue that both of these shows ended up being judgemental of sexual experimentation). And while I don't think KinnPorsche's takes on heat were necessarily progressive, I do think the marketing of their actors getting into that, particularly as compared to Apo's previous career path in leaving acting for a while, was notable -- and as well, the care that the show took to depict heat scenes with excellent cinematography makes many of those scenes so memorable today.

I want to make one final note about KinnPorsche's and Be On Cloud's general influence on the Thai BL industry, in that I'm impressed by their investment in generally good-to-great writing and directing. As I overviewed yesterday, KinnPorsche heavily featured veterans from across the BL landscape, and Be On Cloud's latest serial offering, Dead Friend Forever, continued that trajectory, having an OG BL director in Ma-Deaw Chookiat partly take the helm of that show. Very importantly, Ma-Deaw Chookiat has been the screenwriter and director of a number of seminal Thai queer films and shows, including 2019's Dew, and more impactfully, 2007's The Love of Siam, which is considered a harbinger of the television Thai BL industry, and a film that has notably influenced important Thai BL creators, especially New Siwaj, who doesn't hesitate to include references to LoS in many of his shows, including Until We Meet Again, My Only 12%, and more. Chookiat has also screenwritten and/or directed three shows written by the notable Thai Y novelist, Sammon, in DFF, Manner of Death, and Triage. Sammon has been on a tear recently, as she will be the screenwriter for BOC's upcoming drama, 4 Minutes, as well as Spare Me Your Mercy, the hugely anticipated BL drama starring Tor Thanapob and singer Jaylerr.

Going back to my thoughts earlier about big marketing of big BLs: we've seen some duds recently from shows that were marketed at a big tip, from OF, to Playboyy, to Idol Factory's The Sign. From what I've gathered from the Tumblr tag regarding The Sign -- it seems that show suffered mostly from a lack of editorial context and plot sensibility and tightness, and that there could have been a good show, if the show had spent less money on CGI, and more money on the script.

Be On Cloud seems to mostly be putting its money where its pen is. I say "mostly" as a caveat. Was the ending of DFF fantastic? No, and I totally admit as much: while the show mostly stuck to its slasher genre conventions (thank you so much to @lurkingshan, my genre guru, for explaining this to me), the show seemed to poop out in the end by giving us a PheeJin BL ship, instead of Phee's and Jin's gruesome deaths. Womp womp. The pull of BL, and the need for clean-ish endings for the fujoshi crowd, may still be too economically enticing for studios, including Be On Cloud itself.

But I'm optimistic for BOC's upcoming shows, with the talent and money they're putting into scripts and directing. And we know that BOC's first film, the non-queer Man Suang, was an important artistic point for the studio as it continues its investment in MileApo and experimental content to market within and outside of Thailand. It was important enough that Dead Friend Forever, emanating from the Thai BL world, took on an entirely different genre instead, and literally presented that back to BL fans on a silver platter. I hope 4 Minutes can tread similar experimental territory. And I'm glad to see Be On Cloud being able to invest in high-quality writing and directing after the publicly major obstacles the studio experienced last year during the Build Jakapan scandal.

From the time I discovered Thai BLs in 2022, to now: I would not have expected KinnPorsche and Be On Cloud to start such a journey in my personal drama fan life. As well, considering how many damn shows I've now watched from Thailand, I also didn't expect this rewatch of KinnPorsche to be so much fun. AND, I truly didn't realize I had this much to say about it -- but there was a lot of say, especially by way of how referential the original KinnPorsche series was, which touched my little nerdy BL heart.

With that, I say ta-ta to my entrée to this fun world of Thai BLs, and move on to the next one!

[OKAY! We are kind of back of the grind, although my ability to watch dramas has really been hampered by real life obligations and schedules. BUT: I'm trucking along through War of Y, and I have some fun rewatches coming up in The Eclipse (my first-ever GMMTV BL), as well as two new-to-me dramas in GAP (the first GL on the list, WOO!) and My School President, which I can't wait for.

I've made a few tiddly adjustments to the list below, including adding Dead Friend Forever as an important addition, and I'm deep in my giggles with 23.5, which I am LOVING. ONWARDS! For more details about the ongoing list, please checkity-check here!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 here)

...interrupting the OGMMTVC list here to watch War of Y (2022) (watching) in chronology to decide if it gets listed...

37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 44) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 45) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 46) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 47) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 48) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 49) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 50) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 51) 23.5 (2024)]

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