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Wer Viewership and Queer Imag(in)ing: Thai Soap Opera Shadow of Love and Boys Love Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2024

Shi-Yan Chao ,
Palita Chunsaengchan  and
Thosaeng Chaochuti Open the ORCID record for Thosaeng Chaochuti [Opens in a new window]
Shi-Yan Chao
Affiliation:
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Palita Chunsaengchan
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, USA
Thosaeng Chaochuti*
Affiliation:
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
*
Corresponding Author: Thosaeng Chaochuti; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article brings film/media theory into Southeast Asian research through a revisionist queer approach. It contains two goals: addressing some recent developments about queer imag(in)ing in Thai media whilst reappraising the fundamental question of spectatorship via screen theory. Taking into account the more general issue of media specificity and the particular textual device of identity/gender-switch in several recent Thai television serials, we propose the notion of wer viewership: a mode of viewing practice that features viewer-text interaction through the perceptual-cognitive processes, and is characterised by wer/excessive aesthetics, multiple meanings, and diverse pleasures. Resonant with camp reading, wer viewership underlines how the viewer actively makes sense of the ambiguities about gender, particularly those along the extra-/diegetic interface. We use Thai soap opera Shadow of Love to illuminate the wer/excessive aesthetics rendered through its identity/gender play bordering on the extra-/diegetic divide, and the enhanced pleasures and meanings thus available to its extradiegetic active viewers. We stress, though, the expanded queer imag(in)ing in Shadow is not of total free interpretation, but is animated in relation to both the evolving discourses about gender/sexuality in Thailand, and the popularising homoerotic Boys Love (BL) media across Asia in recent years.

Keywords

Thailandtelevisionqueerwer viewershipBoys LoveShadow of Love
Type
Original Article
Information
TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia , First View , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright
Copyright © Chulalongkorn University, 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Institute for East Asian Studies

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