Published on June 27, 2005

She was raped twice. She was abducted against her will, and kept locked up with chains. She was hit several times, throttled, punched in the stomach, thrown to the floor and threatened with guns and other weapons.

She was tricked into taking a fruitless jungle trek wearing just a pair of sandals on her feet. She appeared week-after-week with a bruised face, tearful eyes or with blood trickling from her mouth.

This was not some poor defenceless victim. The character was supposed to be an ultra-modern woman with a PhD from an overseas school. Nobody in this story lived in a house smaller than an airport terminal.

“Phloeng Phayu” (“Firestorm”), the prime-time drama serial that ended last week, was an epic on the theme of the abuse of women. The lead actress, Patchara Chaichua (Um), has been voted the country’s prettiest and sexiest star. The purpose of this series was apparently to show someone so lovely and famous getting beaten up, over and over again.

The series featured a labyrinthine plot about a disputed inheritance and sibling jealousy, but that was just there to spin things out and keep the actors playing the recurring characters employed. There was also a Fatal Misunderstanding to explain away all the bad behaviour, though this was very thin.

There was also a little bit of moral relativism. The really nasty rapist (he drooled like a mad dog) got his comeuppance by shooting himself while trying to rape the heroine again and murder his own daughter at the same time. Instead, the not-quite-so-nasty rapist eventually got the girl.

The two suitors who didn’t enjoy beating the heroine got nowhere. One disqualified himself by being a farang, and the other by being too nice to be real. When she threw him over, he took it out on the sea rather than hitting her around the head. What a wimp.

And what a message.

For viewers who were upset the series had ended, the channel ran two trailers of its successors. In one, a father was beating his daughter about the head. In the other, a woman was throttled, punched, threatened with guns and sharp objects and then had her throat slit.

This is family entertainment. It runs during prime time. The prime minister himself told the nation how much he enjoyed the series in question, which in itself is a kind of endorsement by even the highest political authority in the country.

At the same time that this epic tale of abuse of women was thrilling the nation, the reality show “Big Brother” found itself at the centre of a controversy.

Two of the young people closeted together in a house for the programme seemed to have fallen in love. The controversy started when the self-appointed keepers of national morality objected to scenes of these two having a cuddle, calling such behaviour “un-Thai”.

“Firestorm” attracted no equivalent complaints. We should be spared the sight of a young couple expressing their love by cuddling, while multiple rapes, abduction and countless acts of violence reflecting male domination are fine. The infamous cuddle appeared on a cable channel with few viewers. The epic of abuse was on at prime time on a free-to-air channel with a huge audience.

The cuddle was apparently spontaneous. The orgy of abuse was brought to us thanks to the talent of a large group of writers, directors and actors with the help of a lot of expensive production equipment. The cuddle is “un-Thai”, but. . . .

Displays of violence against women on TV dramas are not new, though they seem to be growing more frequent. Other TV shows follow the “Firestorm” pattern.

Game shows regularly feature male comedians dressed up as women being beaten by the other hosts. An ad showing a woman repeatedly slapping herself for having oily skin is among several that have flirted with violence against women.

What is going on here?

In part this probably reflects a general increase in public-sphere violence under the current government. The drug wars, extrajudicial killings, the frequent assassinations of activists of various sorts and other unexplained disappearances have created a climate in which public displays of violence have become acceptable as entertainment.

In part, it may reflect the general dumbing down of the media. The government has successfully drained the electronic media of any social and political content.

Five years ago, scriptwriters were able to build drama series around real issues including “influence”, corruption, Burmese refugees and even the abuse of political power. Now they are limited to the stale old formulas. It is no surprise that family dramas are becoming more labyrinthine, ghost stories more outrageous and thrillers more violent.

But that still doesn’t explain what has made women the preferred target of such violence.

The social power of women has grown significantly over the past decade. There are more women in Parliament than before, and significantly more women at the upper levels of the public service.

Some, like Khunying Pornthip and Khunying Jaruvan, are probably more widely known that any of their predecessors. Women have overtaken men in terms of enrolment and exam results at universities. A few more high-profile women have appeared in big business. Women rather than men brought the medals back from the last Olympics. The first pop singer to shoot for international stardom is female.

Of course, the male-female imbalance is still huge. What is important, though, is the trend.

Television in particular seems to reflect some deep male anxiety about all of this. One of the more persistent themes appearing in TV dramas in recent years involves women who come to a sticky end by being too ambitious in business, love or the gangster world.

Chang Noi would like to propose a new reality TV show. A group of TV producers, directors, scriptwriters and network executives is closeted in a house. An SMS vote is held to select a two-hour segment of prime-time viewing. Each participant is then subject to the same acts of violence against women that are portrayed on screen.

On the evidence of the final episode of “Firestorm”, complete with its prelude and trailers, they would each suffer being raped, manacled in chains, thrown to the ground, threatened with guns and sharp objects, hit on the head several times, punched in the stomach, throttled and then have their throats slits.

Of course, nobody would win.

CHANG NOI

The Nation

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