The Underbelly Of Mental Health In Thailand

[brahmburgers]

I have a TV that's used only for videos. Last night, however, I had no video so I did a rare thing: I switched to network TV, hoping to maybe find something non-annoying. No dice: Instead I got mesmerized by what seemed to be a solid half hour of end-to-end ads - nearly all of which were for various skin whitening creams and deoderant. At least three showed pretty women (are there any other types on TV ads?) purposefully showing their underarms. I then realized I've been very far out of the loop, as I didn't have a clue that underarms were currently such a big fashion statement. I also don't know what this has to do with the tons of vanity products that are thrown in the trash every day at airport check-ins - but I think there's a connection somewhere.

I went back to the video store. Didn't find anything. All the farang movies were either comedy, violence, calamity or some hyper-dramatized meld thereof. The Thai choices were much the same, but worse. I perused the covers of a wall containing about 100 Thai titles: Nearly all had pretty young girls - some had pretty boys. Roughly 60% of the labels had pictures of blood splatter. It's what the selections didn't include that was most troubling:

There was nothing remotely to do with non-fiction, history, religion, real nature, inventions, designing, biographies, spiritual endeavors, how things work, science, how-to-do or make things, crafts. In a nutshell; every one of the thousands of selections in the entire video store were dramatized fiction - no exceptions.

This is what occupies the great majority of Thai minds every evening and much of each day. It's bad enough for adults, but how many of their children are screened from seeing such pap? I would venture it's a tiny minority. So we've got tens of millions of toddlers and young children soaking up about 1,000 hours of screen screed each year. Actually, much of that is katoy shenanigans - which Thais can'tr get too much of. (I came to that sad opinion whlie being stuck in long distance buses while katoy comedy TV shows would show non-stop for hours and hours).

My tiny village of a few dozen people, has at least six adults who walk the streets - seemingly mindless and going nowhere. They walk up to the end, turn around, and walk to the other end, ad infinitum. There are others who sit and stare all day from their porches. Could this be a microcosm of mental illness silently wafting through Thailand? I don't know, but allowing kids to watch hours of scary and violent movies every night is sure not going to help in the equation.

[simon43]

I'm sure that the total rubbish that is shown on Thai TV is responsible for a lot of 'personality' issues. For a start, why do most female actors seem to spend their time either screaming hysterically, falling down steps in a completely unreal manner, or lying in a hospital bed seemingly close to death but with no apparent sign of any medical instruments/equipments in the room?

Simon

[dee123]

when my wifes glued to her evening fix of Thai soap it gives me an hour's rest-bite,......long may these classic drama's continue!

[brahmburgers]

the irony has been pointed out a hundred times but it's worth repeating:

The gov't censors will blur out a cigarette or a bared breast - but allow all manner of sicko mutilations to be viewed unhindered.

Methink it's has to do with the Thai gov't blindly following social imperatives of the good ol' USA. You'll note that nearly all America's restrictions have been embraced by Thai authorities note for note: in regards to psychoactive drugs, legal drugs, sexual mores, abortion, tobacco, you name it.

Even hemp which is seen to be a beneficial and useful non-psychoactive plant by most countries in the world, is banned in Thailand. Why? Because that's official US policy - and Thailand cannot help but follow the U.S.

P.s. I'm a yank and I love my home country, but that doesn't stop me from seeing blatant hippocracies where they show their shaggy heads.

[Orion76]

The gov't censors will blur out a cigarette or a bared breast - but allow all manner of sicko mutilations to be viewed unhindered.

I saw this Chinese movie on the Asian Movie channel once. Two gangsters were beating up a prostitute in a public bathroom. They slammed her head into the sink and against the wall until her head split open, the scene was pretty long. Blood spatters everywhere over the white tiled walls, big puddles of blood on the floor, brains hanging out of her skull, it was very violent and gruesome.

So the girl is dead and one of the gangsters lights up a cigarette, and that's the part they decided to pixel out....

Smoking's bad mmmkay?

[Sulaphat]

A number of years ago the Bangkok Post ran a feature about which themes and topics are allowed to be the subject of Thai soap operas and which ones are not. If I remember correctly, almost anything that would cause a person to think and perhaps examine and question social or political issues of any import were not allowed. So it is not only what does or does not get pixelated out of the entertainment that is the issue.

[geevlus]

I live in the UK. About 3yrs ago I stopped watching TV completley. Believe me, for nation that spends most of its spare time slumped in front of the Moron box this is looked on as somewhat strange to "Britain on the couch". At first my head became clearer and clearer, but then I started to think a bit, things like How much of my childhood, teenage years etc were spent watching this crap? All the other things I could have achieved etc. But the most startling thing is how aware I have become of the dominance TV has over the peoples heads around me, it's scary.

[sonicdragon]

I live in the UK. About 3yrs ago I stopped watching TV completley. Believe me, for nation that spends most of its spare time slumped in front of the Moron box this is looked on as somewhat strange to "Britain on the couch". At first my head became clearer and clearer, but then I started to think a bit, things like How much of my childhood, teenage years etc were spent watching this crap? All the other things I could have achieved etc. But the most startling thing is how aware I have become of the dominance TV has over the peoples heads around me, it's scary.

After spending a few months this summer in the UK (and partly as a result of the atrocious weather) watching way too much terrestrial television, I decided to do the same. I have cancelled our UBC/truevisions subscription, which pleases me very much since I have a strong dislike for that company and it's incredibly poor service.

I am now in the process of trying to wean my wife off the seemingly endless drivel of thai soaps. Unfortunately we have a TV in our bedroom and she refuses to remove it. Previously I would watch the latest rubbish on star world or another repeat of something on bbc entertainment downstairs untill she fell asleep. With at least one baby in our bedroom at night, and often two, I am using this as ammunition in my argument that she ceases to watch while the little ones are in the room. It should be an easy argument but she fights tooth and bone with all kinds of feeble excuses in order to keep the TV on, eventually (reluctantly) retiring downstairs to do so.

Seems to be quite an addiction.