GayOK Bangkok
Thai series GayOK Bangkok doesn't really count as BL for a number of reasons, but I thought I would include it anyway, as it's a good counterpoint to show up the differences.
Summary: The series follows a group of six young gay friends living in Bangkok, over the course of about a year or so. Pom is a self-proclaimed nerd in a good job, but he is struggling to find a partner because of his insecurities about his appearance and effeminacy. He lives with his vain best friend Arm, who enjoys the single life and sleeping around, but he doesn't have much interest in anything other than himself. Oaff is in a happy long-term relationship with the much younger Big, although Oaff is starting to suspect Big of infidelity. Satang, who is katoey and identifies as female, is caustic and bitchy, but is also staunch and loyal, delivering advice to her friends with gobsmacking savagery. When Arm and Pom run into a long-lost acquaintance Nat at a cafe, Pom plucks up the courage and invites him on a date. Arm however has his own selfish plans for Nat.
It's refreshing to step away from the BL bubble and re-enter the 'real world' with this program. GayOK Bangkok takes a realistic approach to its portrayal of the life of Thai gays and trans in their twenties and thirties. For this reason, it made me think it was trying to be a Thai version of "Queer as Folk". This is true up to a point, but its main stated purpose is to educate its audience about gay men's sexual health issues through the depiction of the daily drama and trials of gay Thai men. This is really admirable, but it's even more so when you consider how well it blends this purpose into the screenplay. Before each episode begins, some of the main actors address the camera with general tips about HIV testing, condom use and how to access PrEP. (They provide the astonishing statistic that one in four gay men in Bangkok are HIV positive.)
The six main characters' story arcs aren't especially original, but they are involving. Realism is a relative term when you're talking about what's effectively a soap or melodrama, but after watching standard BL for several weeks, as I have, just about anything else you watch is realistic. Perhaps a truer description of GayOK would be to say that it's unromantic and disillusioned, and completely lacks BL's innocence and youthful fervour. It's not entirely without hope though. None of this is meant to detract from how fantastic this series is, but there's an awkward possibility to face up to here: these jaded qualities and the outlines of some of the characters appear to have been adapted from 'Queer as Folk', then placed within a Thai setting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, regardless of how much I disliked QAF (which was a lot), but with GayOK - as with QAF - I soon became conscious that I had basically traded the puppy-love BL bubble for the Grindrised Gay Ghetto bubble. For this reason, it can feel just as airless and rarefied as a BL drama, despite its aspirations of realism and anti-romanticism. But, in the wider context of how successful this series is as a whole, that's a minor quibble.
There's more than enough emotional drama and interest in the story lines to sustain them for two short seasons. I certainly hope they make more seasons, the characters are definitely worth it. Nat in particular has an interesting trajectory through the two seasons. The writers have taken a lot of trouble to develop his multifaceted character. He's an unusual, original personality to begin with; good-hearted and empathetic but with a passionate temper. Seeing him deal with the difficulties that his life presents him with is fascinating, in no small part owing to his selflessness and empathy (which the other characters sorely lack). It might sound odd, but Nat, for all his flaws and virtues, is probably the closest approximation to a real human being I've seen in Asian TV shows for some time.
The series has high production values, and uniformly great acting. If you can overlook its unoriginality, this could be one of the best queer TV series you'll ever see. You might never want to watch another BL 'fantasy' again.
Rating: 15 out of 20. Thoroughly recommended.
Ending: Mixed! It depends on which of the six main characters you're looking at.
Best scene: so many to choose from, but Big's final Reveal to Oaff is hard to beat.
Summary: The series follows a group of six young gay friends living in Bangkok, over the course of about a year or so. Pom is a self-proclaimed nerd in a good job, but he is struggling to find a partner because of his insecurities about his appearance and effeminacy. He lives with his vain best friend Arm, who enjoys the single life and sleeping around, but he doesn't have much interest in anything other than himself. Oaff is in a happy long-term relationship with the much younger Big, although Oaff is starting to suspect Big of infidelity. Satang, who is katoey and identifies as female, is caustic and bitchy, but is also staunch and loyal, delivering advice to her friends with gobsmacking savagery. When Arm and Pom run into a long-lost acquaintance Nat at a cafe, Pom plucks up the courage and invites him on a date. Arm however has his own selfish plans for Nat.
It's refreshing to step away from the BL bubble and re-enter the 'real world' with this program. GayOK Bangkok takes a realistic approach to its portrayal of the life of Thai gays and trans in their twenties and thirties. For this reason, it made me think it was trying to be a Thai version of "Queer as Folk". This is true up to a point, but its main stated purpose is to educate its audience about gay men's sexual health issues through the depiction of the daily drama and trials of gay Thai men. This is really admirable, but it's even more so when you consider how well it blends this purpose into the screenplay. Before each episode begins, some of the main actors address the camera with general tips about HIV testing, condom use and how to access PrEP. (They provide the astonishing statistic that one in four gay men in Bangkok are HIV positive.)
The six main characters' story arcs aren't especially original, but they are involving. Realism is a relative term when you're talking about what's effectively a soap or melodrama, but after watching standard BL for several weeks, as I have, just about anything else you watch is realistic. Perhaps a truer description of GayOK would be to say that it's unromantic and disillusioned, and completely lacks BL's innocence and youthful fervour. It's not entirely without hope though. None of this is meant to detract from how fantastic this series is, but there's an awkward possibility to face up to here: these jaded qualities and the outlines of some of the characters appear to have been adapted from 'Queer as Folk', then placed within a Thai setting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, regardless of how much I disliked QAF (which was a lot), but with GayOK - as with QAF - I soon became conscious that I had basically traded the puppy-love BL bubble for the Grindrised Gay Ghetto bubble. For this reason, it can feel just as airless and rarefied as a BL drama, despite its aspirations of realism and anti-romanticism. But, in the wider context of how successful this series is as a whole, that's a minor quibble.
There's more than enough emotional drama and interest in the story lines to sustain them for two short seasons. I certainly hope they make more seasons, the characters are definitely worth it. Nat in particular has an interesting trajectory through the two seasons. The writers have taken a lot of trouble to develop his multifaceted character. He's an unusual, original personality to begin with; good-hearted and empathetic but with a passionate temper. Seeing him deal with the difficulties that his life presents him with is fascinating, in no small part owing to his selflessness and empathy (which the other characters sorely lack). It might sound odd, but Nat, for all his flaws and virtues, is probably the closest approximation to a real human being I've seen in Asian TV shows for some time.
The series has high production values, and uniformly great acting. If you can overlook its unoriginality, this could be one of the best queer TV series you'll ever see. You might never want to watch another BL 'fantasy' again.
Rating: 15 out of 20. Thoroughly recommended.
Ending: Mixed! It depends on which of the six main characters you're looking at.
Best scene: so many to choose from, but Big's final Reveal to Oaff is hard to beat.
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