An old debate has reappear. Is Thai media bad for Thai youth? That is the question.
According to Kitti Samanthai, Director General of the Office of Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups (OPP) part of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, media influence lifestyle, especially children and youth groups. Thai youths are exposed to violence, bad behavior, excessive materialism in media and they are mimicking those ills of society. Samanthai wants action and considers it a national duty to remedy this issue. In March, he wants to hold an assembly with relevant youth agencies, student representatives to create a network of young people working together to find ways to improve youth development and to present it to the government.
Kasem Chandranoi, assistant to the president of Eastern Asia University agrees with Kitti Samanthai that the media is very dangerous to young people because they are less mature and do not understand the repercussion of their actions. They become victims of media. Nowadays, TV is raising a child in place of a parent.
Kasem Chandaranoi finds the current lakorn “Mia Luang” starring Aum Patcharapra very worrisome because it shows inappropriate behavior. It puts an effort on parents to explain to their child what is right and wrong. Parents must take responsibility and Channel Elders must monitor what they show on TV. Also, there is too much smut in Media. Overly sexual images are used to sell projects, porn makes 7,000 million baht ($199.115 million USD) per year, digital media and the internet is also bad. The most important thing is to caught on to the Media’s tricks. In order to do so, you need the cooperation of the household and temples to help eliminate bad media and to create better media.
Don’t feel bad about “Mia Luang”, “Sawan Biang” was also discussed. The Deputy Secretary General of the Anti-Corruption Commission wondered why people cheered for Kawee in “Sawan Biang” to rape and impregnate Narin when they should be cheering for his arrest. He wants parents to reform the most and teach their children what’s right and wrong.
Thoughts? Thais had a lot to say about this topic, 200+ comments were left at Kapook Highlights within a few hours of the article’s posting.
P.S. I want to add that maybe the reason that sexual assaults in lakorns is tolerated in Thai society is because in a way, it’s not really rape in the minds of Thai citizens…it’s ‘ravagement’…the fantasy of being taken by someone who wants you so badly that they can’t control themselves is what they find appealing.
Lakorns seem to portray their p’ek as what is called “The Gentleman Rapist”–who fools himself into believing that he has a relationship with a woman and tries to take care of her and calm her after the rape, not seeming to understand his horrid actions as wrong/bad–there’s a difference between rape and ravagement and fiction and reality but we also have to remember that there’s a thin line between the two and while “art imitates life” the producers of these lakorns have to remember that there are psychos who belive in ‘life imitating art’
I’m not Thai but I do love watching lakorns on youtube (mostly b/c you’d never see a storyline like this in the west) and even though I haven’t watched “mia lung” I did love Sawan Biang and JLR.
Harit did know that what he did was very wrong and regretted it. He never did it again and felt horrible after finding out that he had the wrong girl. As for Sawan Biang…it was hard to stomach, I admit but Kawee learned his lesson in this fictional drama….
Now, is it ok to show this on television? hell no! both Kawee (especially) and Harit would be imprisoned if this were real life and those females would be permanently scarred for life in the real world but I felt that both Sawan Biang and JLR did a great job (for a larkorn that is…) when it came to portraying rape in a more negative light because it showed the extreme emotional damage done to all the characters by the rape.
The portrayal of sexual assaults as being romantic does need to stop unless they show actual consequences. I cannot imagine a Thai girl who was a survivor of rape who would be incapable of watching a drama without seeing a rape scene being glorified and romanticized by having a good-looking actor raping his good-looking female counterpart. This is not reality.
Kind of off topic, but if the guy in Mia Luang has a wife, is Aum suppose to be the Nang’ek? I haven’t been watching it so it kind of confuses me.
i really despise this drama (mia luang) because it just really brings
bad memories of things/people i know, people around me, myself
included, etc…and seeing this like this really hits you because it
makes you realize that things that goes on like this & men who
cheats are something that psychologically scars you. i do feel that
it does put on bad images in front of young people who watches it.
i mean, when people watch tv/movies/dramas, it’s always either
their gonna say or think “OoO..i should do that” or “okay, i would
never do that because i have my morals”. when people watch
stuff, they do decide things for themselves.
i think that Aum’s role in mia luang makes her look really bad. she’s won tons of awards for being sexy *rolling eyes* and therefore in this drama, it just makes her look like because she’s sexy she can take on someone’s husband with her body. anyways, i think the “head” wife in mia luang looks wayyyyyyy better than Aum anyways.
PS. Sawang Biang rocks (regardless)! :0)
sorry to fan of sawan biang. i have to agree that kawee doing to narin was wrong and bad impression on youths nowaday. i was very anti on that matter; in fact, i had been saying to my sister and my mother that if that was in reality, kawee would have been imprisoned. the same goes for harit in JLR. holding and raping a girl is not something that could be let loose easily. at least, not in america you don’t. can’t get away with that.
I agree that rape/pregnancy in lakorns is bad…. But why would you blame the media for that? Parents control what they’re kids watch, if they don’t want them watching it then forbid them! My Goodness!
Some people just go WAYY over the line!
I didn’t watch Mia Luang yet.
but i have to say n’rais in recent akorns really have been super evil and very violence.
for me, as an adult, those fighting screens sometimes it’s really ridiculous.
i guess it’s not good for teenagers.
anyway, it’s lakorn, don’t take it seriously.
Thanks leela! Glad u have my back…and in response to solin about explaining to your kids about the rape scenes…why would they be watching it in the first place? It doesn’t make for good family tv programming. Put it on nickelodeon!
I totally agree with you Kambostani!! Well said.
I didn’t get to read all the comments, but I must admit I enjoy watching this lakorn, Mia Luang. I see it in a different light. I don’t see that his wife find his affairs or cheating accepting, but the reasons why she chose to stay has many reasons. I don’t want to get into that. I haven’t seen a rape scene in this lakorn yet. I think this lakorn has many truth in some marriages and how people think.