Homophobic Movie “Distortion” True To Its Name Toward Gay People

[pjbradley]

Homophobia in Thai movies has risen to the next level, as seen in “Distortion” (Khon Lok Chit).

Instead of the usual portrayal of gay men as stupid and silly men dressing as women, objects of ridicule and the butt of jokes, “Distortion” offers us a badly written tale with multiple gay characters, all of whom are either/or:

1) rapists;

2) prostitutes;

3) clients of prostitutes;

4) promiscuous.

Of course all the straight characters are upstanding people; all the gay characters reside in the demimonde, and they all wind up dead.

Normally I wouldn’t bother checking out a Thai movie since they’re nearly all rubbish, but director Nonzee isn’t the typical Thai crap artist: he knows how to wield a camera, and he employs a great editor and cinematographer. Further, the movie won a script-writing award, which in itself says nothing in this country, but with Nonzee on board, I thought maybe it had a chance.

The story starts out promising; the last 30 minutes are the worst soap-opera-melodramatic dreck you can’t imagine. And it says little for the immediate future of psychology here that the so-call writer studies psychology at a university. Just what we need: another homophobic psychologist in training.

As the gay body count rose, I thought of The Celluloid Closet, Vito Russo’s book and documentary by the same name (published 1981; revised 1987; documentary released 1996). In it, he describes the near 100% mortality rate of gay characters in Hollywood over the decades through the 1980s, as gay people became more visible in society and straight society became more threatened by that rise. Those straight fears are played out on screen.

As gay people gradually assert their proper place in Thai society, will we see a straight backlash in more Thai movies as in “Distortion?” Will gay people be demonized, instead of being merely being laughed at, with all the jokes at our expense?

What do we think?

Thanks for your thoughts, Paul

[Jingthing]

Thanks. Gotta catch that one as I'm writing a paper for sociology class.

Slightly more seriously, I'll watch it and probably comment later.

Usually I don't mind gay villain characters per se in movies, as some of us in real life ARE villains, just like everyone else.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Jingthing

[Ijustwannateach]

There are very few positive or even realistic gay Thai movies. They're still in clown cuckoo land, mostly, with the Kathoey obsession, or otherwise morbid 'nothing good can come of this lifestyle' films associating gays with disease and/or criminality.

[Jingthing]

Oh, I can't see it now because its out of the theaters here in Pattaya. I reckon it wasn't much of a commercial success. I think it played one week here. Oh well.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

Maybe it was called "Distortion" for a reason.

According to the Thai reviews its a "psycho-thriller":

Synopsis: A grisly murder on a hot day in Bangkok sets in motion a psychological horror involving four people haunted by nightmares, repressed memories and the darkest past. Keun is a psychiatrist well-known for criminal profiling. He’s sent to help solve the murder and at the crime scene, he meets Tien, a forensic scientist with a traumatic childhood. During the investigation, Keun meets Kwang, a 19-year-old woman whom he first met 9 years ago. Back then, Keun was sent to treat Kwang after she witnessed her father killed her mother. Kwang confessed that her father, a soldier, had been molesting her. Keun and Kwang go to visit Kwang’s father at the prison. But they’re told that the soldier killed himself years ago out of shame. After that, Keun’s mental health is severely disturbed. He suffers from hallucination and sees a spirit dressed like a soldier. Then the second murder happens. The body was horrifically brutalized the same way as the first. Tien, who was once harassed by nightmare about the death of her mother, brings Keun to see a monk. Keun begins to believe that maybe the ghost of Kwang’s father is after him.

Keun asks Kwang to go under hypnosis, and to his shock, Kwang reveals that as a child she was never molested by her father. Keun goes with Kwang to meet her boyfriend, Key, who’s also Keun’s childhood friend. Key believes that actually, it was Keun who implanted into Kwang’s head the story of her father molesting her. Key recalls that, when he and Keun were 13, the two friends were lured into a forest and raped. The incident left a scar on Keun and that’s why he tried to trick Kwang to believe that she was raped. Keun confesses the truth in a press conference. He’s sued by the relatives of Kwang’s father. On the way to the police station, Keun reveals the identity of the serial killer to Tien. Keun has withheld that information because he wants the third victim to be killed first.

After seeing the police, Key takes Keun to the Boy Scout camp where they were raped as children. It’s revealed that Key is the serial killer who’s taking revenge on the men who raped them. He has kidnapped the last rapist and locked him up. But Keun helps the rapist escape into a forest. Key catches up with them. The rapist reveals that it was only Key who was raped, and it was Keun who helped lure Key to the rapists. Keun then confesses that as a child he was molested by his stepfather and wanted to inflict the same pain to others. Key’s consumed by rage and starts beating Keun violently. But Tien appears and shoots at Key. Keun spends the rest of his life in a mental asylum. He’s become a madman who lives his life in perpetual hallucination, never to emerge into the real world again.

Apart from people who are "1) rapists; 2) prostitutes; 3) clients of prostitutes; 4) promiscuous", I can't really imagine what other sort of characters you'd expect to find in that sort of movie, gay or straight.

Edited June 1, 2012 by LeCharivari

[pjbradley]

Maybe it was called "Distortion" for a reason.

According to the Thai reviews its a "psycho-thriller"...

Apart from people who are "1) rapists; 2) prostitutes; 3) clients of prostitutes; 4) promiscuous", I can't really imagine what other sort of characters you'd expect to find in that sort of movie, gay or straight.

This is a fascinating post, because it's not the movie I saw. It appears that this synopsis comes from the original screenplay or treatment. There's no "press conference," for example, or "boy scout camp," or any scene in any "forest." This simply isn't the movie that was shot and distributed. You certainly won't see anything like this in the trailer, which implies a straightforward serial murder mystery.

[pjbradley]

Usually I don't mind gay villain characters per se in movies, as some of us in real life ARE villains, just like everyone else.

No one can dispute that bad gay people exist; we've probably all met one or two who wouldn't qualify as model citizens.

And I wouldn't want movies to be nothing but unrealistically sweet propaganda; that dictatorship-like mentality is for the tin-god censors at our so-called Culture Ministry.

Having written that, however, we cannot ignore the reality that, like it or not, all creative works exist in a social context. That's why, for example, cartoons teasing the wealthy in magazines like The New Yorker can be seen as funny, whereas if the magazine ran cartoons making fun of the impoverished, it would be seen as cruel.

Given the non-stop, 24/7 life-affirming support of heterosexuality, straights can easily take hits for being villains or whatever. Given the near non-stop, 24/7 invisibility of gay people in media, gays don't have it so easily. And in a movie where every gay character is sleazy, and every upstanding character is straight (not that every straight character is upstanding), it can't be coincidence. This movie simply reinforces that overwhelming sentiment in Thai society of gay people being inherently defective.

[Jingthing]

I get it but really my usual bottom line is was it a good movie or not ...