Thailand's film board has banned a movie about a male-to-female transgender parent struggling to raise two children. The 21-member National Film Board, which is chaired by the prime minister, ruled last Wednesday that the movie Insects in the Backyard can not be shown in Thailand but did not release an explanation for the ban.
Director and writer Tanwarin Sukkhapisit says the movie is based loosely based on her own life. Born male, Tanwarin began crossdressing as a teenager. In the movie, Tanwarin plays a 35-year-old single 'father' whose teenage son and daughter are torn by feelings of love and shame, and eventually run away from home and turn to the sex trade.
The Associated Press (AP) quoted an official of the Culture Ministry's Film and Video Screening Office, which is under the Department of Cultural Promotion, as saying that the movie has been banned for being "deeply immoral." The official added that it was "unnecessary" to show child sex workers and dreams of patricide that could be copied by young viewers.
The 37-year-old filmmaker says she's seeking a limited theater run in Bangkok for audiences aged 20 and over, and plans to appeal the ban. She added that the scenes including an explicit depiction of two men having sex were crucial to the story line and could not be cut.
Various media reports say the film includes a scene of Tanwarin masturbating with her penis visible, and fetish sex between the teenage children of the protagonist and their paying clients. The AP report also quoted two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak before the ministry's official explanation is released, that among the scenes deemed "immoral" by the film board were clips showing children in their school uniforms working in the sex industry, a dream sequence in which a son kills his father and the male sex scene that the board found too graphic.
"Our society tries to show it accepts differences – but actually it doesn't," Tanwarin said. "Thailand is still a conservative society. This is a case of the government using its power to suppress people with different opinions."
"The problem with my film wasn't that it was a gay-themed movie – because there are many gay comedies allowed in Thailand," Tanwarin was quoted in by the AP as saying. "My movie was banned because it was a serious movie. It showed there can be real problems when society cannot accept sexual differences."
Transgender females and cross-dressers are regularly seen on TV soap operas – but almost always for comedic effect – and throughout Bangkok working in retail and restaurants, and at numerous transgender beauty pageants which are openly held.
In an interview published in the Bangkok Post in November, she questioned if Thai society is as open about gays and katoeys as it is often thought to be.
"Most people believe so. We're not arrested on the streets. Our rights aren't limited, and we can live fairly happily. But if you ask me if katoeys are accepted as part of the mainstream 'we' of society, I don't think so. We're still 'the others', the insects in the backyard.
"I'm saying this because that's what's happening. I'm not demanding anything. I didn't make the film to present my statement, I just made it because that's the story I wanted to tell. If katoeys are not part of the 'we' in society, so be it. I accept that fact and I'm fine with it."
(In Thai)
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Reader's Comments
anyhow, i wish all the best to this film and it's director.
These kids are truly precious. It's hard not to like them, but if the king has an opinion, his majesty should have the opportunity to make it known. Who remembers the yellow shirts? I doubt it is only that one filmmaker!
She was nice. I explained that many and maybe most gay men are not effeminate and that it did not matter.
Yes, stereotypes are strong in Thailand
my kids adore him
I am sure when they are 12/ 13 years old they are gonna request him to DJ at the big Jewish bat and bah mitzvah bashes their dads will launch, the blokes at HRC and Allegria already voluteered to help out
gosh, the gay dad Christmas parties in NYC are really over the top, but tasteful, I am glad I am just a visiting Jew, cause I really can't keep up with the NYC gay dads here
http://news-briefs.ew.com/2010/12/27/elton-john-david-furnish-baby-boy/
to be frank, I've bedded and been bedded countless studs, including Asia's finest and have enjoyed a robust and safe sex life, but nothing compares to be a dad, period
sex is fleeting and overrated
best experience on this planet is being a dad
"Insects in the Backyard" is aptly named on so many levels. My mind is about to blow by turning Franz Kafka's vermin (cockroach) in "The Metamorphosis" gay where he not only is rejected by his own human family because he's an insect but also by other right-winged (pun unintended) cockroaches who themselves hide in the closets and cupboards because they are threatened by him being out (double entendre unintended) as a big gay cockroach.
1. gogo bars with boys wiggling about in their underwear all over the place
2. Thai ladyboys in large numbers
Their opinion, it should be added, is also formed on the grounds of what they see in a small part of Bangkok as well as in some specific areas of Pattaya, Phuket, and other totally touristic... and utterly un-Thai places, which most Thai people see as a combination of zoo and money making zone but certainly not as a part of real Thailand.
On this comment board and over the years I have repeatedly pointed out that these two aspects of Thai "culture" (the term "way of life" would be more appropriate) do not indicate tolerance AT ALL but the very opposite. I won't go into the gogo bar issue here because it's not the topic but when it comes to ladyboys, clearly Thai society determines gender according to sexuality and guys are heavily conditioned by this rigid principle, which was all over the place in the West too until - roughly - the end of the 1960s. It could be summarized like this : your gender is determined by who you're attracted to. If you are attracted to men, you can ONLY be a woman, and vice versa. There is NO PLACE in Thailand for gays in the way we now envisage them in the West, except in very small upper class, artistic, show business circles of Bangkok society.
Human beings being, for better or worse and everywhere in the world, intensely willing to CONFORM because to conform is to belong, Thai gays from a very early age strive to adjust to their sexual nature by altering their gender.
For anyone who has met more than a few Thai gays, you cannot but notice their very significant and systematic choice of words in conversations such as this :
Western question : and how about so&so, do you think he's gay ?
Thai answer : oh no ! him, he MAN.
"Gay" is NOT opposed to "straight", it's opposed to MAN.
It's IN THE LANGUAGE, including the language of the gays themselves, and that's what conditioning is all about.
So...Kel00 (comment#16) I beg to differ... I'm sure you're enjoying your gay time in Thailand but I've been coming to this country for 30 years, and actually lived here for 10 years and I can assure you that for THAI gays it is NOT easy to be gay in Thailand if they don't turn into "kathoeys" (for the non informed, a DEROGATORY word for feminine gay men).
And mind you, being a kathoey or lady-boy is the "least worst" solution, because they are not, in fact, fully accepted in Thai society AT ALL. They are an object of constant derision and seen mostly as a free and easy f**k by straight men (or men who like to think they are straight). They are not disliked because they are not seen by straight men as a threat to their identity.
You've definitely embarrassed yourself (and me) here...
"I'm sure you're enjoying your gay time in Thailand but I~"
That's rubbish! And that's degrading to me and people who are NOT involved with the shitty side of tourism in Thailand! F**k you for that comment! I've never touched one Thai guy in my life. I have a very good Thai lesbian friend in Nakohon Pathom and I always have a great time with her, her mother, her gf and her gay and straight friends (guys and girls) in her university. Sorry to say to you, but being gay is not easy anywhere, and Thailand is a much better, open and tolerant society than any other place I've lived in in Asia - China, Taiwan, Singapore and Korea. Maybe we could narrow it down to say that the under 30's are more accepting and open-minded than anyone else, but I've never come across a place anything like Thailand in this respect.
I've often read your comments on these discussion boards and thought they were quite interesting, well thought out and knowledgeable. But after your rant above, I'm quite disappointed..
When I said "I'm sure you're enjoying your gay time in Thailand, I meant just what I said, I didn't "imply" anything else, and by the way there's nothing wrong with "touching a Thai guy", why do you make it sound like something horrible ? If I were Thai I would be insulted.
Thank you for reading and appreciating my comments (so far!), looks like I just lost a reader and made an enemy but then maybe you didn't read my comment carefully enough this time, because if you had, you would see I was not after you, just making a point, giving a angle of view which you may not agree with but then, comment boards are for sharing experience and opinion, not insults.
Have a nice day in Thailand... :-)
Anyway, I'm not an enemy of yours, I just may refrain from posting future messages on this topic. :P
Have a nice day wherever you are... :-)
Having, as I said, earlier, come to Thailand regularly for 20 years then decided to live here 10 years ago (total 30 years), you can easily imagine that I have nothing against this country, people, and culture, quite the opposite.
So... what I wrote was no ranting, and it is not based on one or two encounters - it's an understanding I formed after meeting hundreds of people here, both Thai and foreign, in many different parts of the Kingdom. I'm not saying it's the truth because I know there is no such thing, but it surely is not a bunch of superficial, stereotyped and hasty statements.
What needs to be understood (and very widely isn't) is that the gigantic sex trade network here tends to screw up all other forms of interaction between human beings, especially when it comes to love, and it's not an issue that can be analyzed in just a few paragraphs. Books have been written on the subject and a lot more remains to be studied and understood. Most will probably remain unexplored however, because the roots are too deep, too complicated, and the approach between east and west is all too often incompatible.
Let me just say that blaming westerners only for the sex market here is, I reckon, an inevitable side effect of post colonial guilt but it's simplistic, partial, and therefore untrue ; it's something that's very often said, both by westerners and Thais, the latter being understandably quick and happy to blame the "others" for what they rightly see as an embarrassment. Blaming local difficulties on foreigners is, as you know, a very common and convenient sport throughout the world. It is almost always untrue and always dangerous.
People should be aware that the sex trade in Thailand is HUGE, it's EVERYWHERE and the places where it caters for foreigners represent a very small proportion. It also goes back WAY before westerners started to visit the Kingdom of Siam as "simple tourists" or "sex tourists". The Vietnam war undoubtedly "created" Pattaya but that's just one tree in the forest and one specific phenomenon in history . In Bangkok itself, there are big districts which are packed with gogo bars, both straight and "gay", and where you might see ONE foreigner PER YEAR if you're lucky... In EVERY little city upcountry - where westerners (and that includes our dear journalists who repeatedly visit the same places and end up doing the same outraged paper or TV program for reasons which are downright suspect in some cases) almost never go because there's no beach - there are MANY so called "karaokes" with mutlicolored lamps outside. The meaning of those lamps is brothel, every Thai person knows that, and Thai men of all classes patronize these places on a regular basis.
Last but not least, there is a VERY large number of sex tourists who come from ASIA. That means (the order is irrelevant) Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, China and of course Japan - a WHOLE street in the Patpong area (Bangkok) caters STRICTLY for the Japanese. All these men come here simply ... because they can.
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