TV channels' portrayal of sexual violence harms our society

[webfact]

BURNING ISSUE
TV channels' portrayal of sexual violence harms our society
Chularat Saengpassa

BANGKOK: -- A few years ago, BEC World executive director Pravit Maleenont vowed to limit violence in TV Channel 3's series for the sake of society. Female activists - firmly convinced that violent acts shown in soap operas promotes violence in society - warmly welcomed this.

Alas, things remain much the same. One of the most frequent forms of violence in TV series these days involves rape. Even though these series don't say rape is good, they are guilty of normalising sexual violence.

This was reflected in the most recent series, "Samee Tee Tra" (Registered Husband). It has kept millions of Thais glued to the TV every Wednesday and Thursday in recent months.

In a recent scene, Nampheung - a lead character playing a seductress - was seen crying and terrified when a client attempted to violate her. Indeed, the scene could have been omitted.

Though the scene was a part of Nampheung's strategy to win a man, this could have been changed to something else.

Rape is referenced in numerous series. Mostly, it involves the two lead characters. The female lead character is kept in the house and raped.

At the end of the series, the rapist said he did it out of love. At the end, the two resolve their conflict and live together happily ever after.

Would that happen in real life? Rape as the equivalent to the emergence of a soul mate?

Morally, no matter what the circumstance is and no matter who the victim is, rape is unacceptable. If a man is to win a woman's heart, it is definitely not this way.

Morally, all people should say no to these scenes.

Perhaps, they are too familiar with the teaching that anyone doing bad deeds deserves bad treatment.

It explains why some viewers pardon male characters who rape female characters out of love. It also explains why some viewers had no sympathy for Nampheung.

"It serves her right," is one of the most common comments. This is an alarming sign - TV series, though inadvertently, have been justifying sexual violence against women.

TV series can be used to promote moral standards. A man should be encouraged to stand up to

something wrong.

Yet in Samee Tee Tra, Nampheung refused to lodge a complaint, saying she felt ashamed.

It is a fact in Thai society that many girls and women keep sexual attacks secret to avoid embarrassment and stigmatisation.

Even worse, in some series it's not hidden and men say that the victim deserved it because she wore a sexy outfit.

It is also a fact that whenever a real life rape occurs, I have often heard people, particularly men, asking if the victim wore revealing clothes and whether she went out at night.

Women and girls, no matter how they are dressed, are protected under the law. No one deserves to be attacked because of the way they dress or the places they visit.

Instead of questioning the victims, society should condemn sexual attackers. People should also review why so many members of Thai society fail to feel for the victims.

It explains why rape cases are rampant in Thai society, when attackers are not as harshly dealt with as they should be.

According to the Public Health Ministry, there were 31,866 reported rapes in Thailand last year, or 87 rapes per day on average. In other words, there was one victim every 15 minutes.

How can sexual violence get to this point?

It is incomprehensible that TV series keep including scenes of rapes or attempted rapes.

Something really is wrong here. By recognising leading male characters who rape a lover as heroes, many male viewers may simply come to the conclusion that they can rape a woman they love because it is a way to get happiness.

It is imperative that we change such attitudes or else one day tolerance of sexual attacks will soar so high that no woman will feel safe, even inside her home.

TV producers, screenwriters, and novelists can wield much influence. Their work can reach large audiences.

By producing morally-sound content and embracing a zero tolerance for sexual attacks, they should be able to make a big difference in this country.

Producers and writers, please don't just say you're simply delivering what people want to watch, or read. As members of this society, you must be socially responsible.


-- The Nation 2014-04-01

[patekatek]

Yet this country which allows the violence on television or in movies, will censure a person smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol, or pointing a gun in movies. I was watching a movie the other day on True. A person was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick and it was not censured. But the same person who did the stabbing then lit a cigarette and the cigarette was blurred out. It is so contradictory I find it hard to believe. It's like the Thai government hired a medieval priest from the 15th century to come up with this form of censorship.

[Bluespunk]

'At the end of the series, the rapist said he did it out of love. At the end, the two resolve their conflict and live together happily ever after'

Great message, boys, just great.

What sort of idiot comes up with this type of reasoning?

[Bluespunk]

"It explains why some viewers pardon male characters who rape female characters out of love. It also explains why some viewers had no sympathy for Nampheung."

It explains nothing, but raises a number of worrying questions.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Bluespunk

[bonobo]

My wife and her 10-year-old niece love Channel 3. I walked by while they were watching a show and a male character was assaulting a female character, beating her badly. I was appalled by the degree of violence and asked what it was all about. The niece offered that the woman deserved it because her boyfriend had "seen her talking to another man."

[animatic]

Sadly TV both reflects existing negatives in society for dramatic effects, but also sets visible standards of behaviour within society. Mostly because the theoretical real life role models are not worthy of following in far too many cases.

To say TV's job is to deliver a moral message is obsequious to a narrow point of view, one that believes societal control via media is the medias many business and reason to exist. Yes there are glaring contradictions on Thai TV which leave us mystified.

Why not just not allow any more smokers in scenes,

but allow actual kissing between adults of age of consent,

and not blur smoking and physical affection in 40 year old movies?

It is as if they don't believe any of the Thai public can act rationally and not go out an parrot it,

if they see something on TV.

But just as certainly decades of violence against women,

and the HIDING of mutual affection between men and women,

has lead to a warped expectation of how the genders should interact.

And of course most of the violence relating to sexuality has a large percentage of alcohol involved...

This being where rationality goes out the window.

[ginjag]

My wife and her 10-year-old niece love Channel 3. I walked by while they were watching a show and a male character was assaulting a female character, beating her badly. I was appalled by the degree of violence and asked what it was all about. The niece offered that the woman deserved it because her boyfriend had "seen her talking to another man."

Thai soaps are a load of codswallop, the violence is non stop, physical and more bad in my eyes at times is the non stop female mouthing and aggression, hate expressions, educating the young especially to be the same.

The other side as well is the scenes with the largest houses with state of the arts+ lavish furnishings as though it was normal in Thailand. Every shot taken by the camera of actors shows that they have come out of a makeover/hairdressers parlour.

Outside in the massive entrance and driveway are the steady stream of--BMW,MERCS,RANGE ROVER,MINI. Very few farm tuk tuks.

All the clothes worn are straight from top fashion houses, and to cap it all the actors have never been to drama schools as we know them, OTT expressions, overdramatic movements, absolutely ridiculous.

These are not suitable for general viewing, if they were the acting is for the very young-joke.

I would suggest most actors are selected from well to do families to get on you do not need to be an actor. How many of the actors come from poor backgrounds ????

That's my opinion like it or lump it. ginjag

[Donnie Brasco]

Agree completely.

This stuff both brutalizes the zeitgeist and inures the population to the seriousness of the problem.

The guy who rapes out of love in these stories is always a few links higher on the food chain and so in this Thai pii/nong setup the audience (mostly women) will be cheering for him to prevail.

In our "series" in North America, series tailored to the fear-addled, consumer-conditioned zeitgeist most of us have come here to avoid, we are in far worse danger.

The social conditioning in regards to all aspects of western society is much deeper and much more prevalent.

I'd be more than pleased to get into it but . .,. . . . . . (ahem, cough ;-)

(Ah yes. What was I thinking ? "Dancing With the Has-Beens" will be on in a few minutes.)

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit. . . . "

[american12bthai]

there are about 90 reports of rape daily.... 90 reported.... and nothing is done about any of them. do you think they will report it again? no.

do you know what i would like to see normalized? women cutting off mens ... umm. junk. that would be nice.

[DrTuner]

Yet this country which allows the violence on television or in movies, will censure a person smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol, or pointing a gun in movies. I was watching a movie the other day on True. A person was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick and it was not censured. But the same person who did the stabbing then lit a cigarette and the cigarette was blurred out. It is so contradictory I find it hard to believe. It's like the Thai government hired a medieval priest from the 15th century to come up with this form of censorship.

These brainfarts are usually the result of letting some petty government official have his/her way in small matters in order to pass some other deal which benefits some big shot. Same the world all over, makes absolutely zero sense and leads to a nanny state.

[zoroastra999]

Sexual violence? I hate having ALL forms of violence thrust down my throat. I see it regularly on tour buses - people being burnt, murdered and ripped apart - all in glorious technicolor and at deafening volume. We are a captive audience and we have no choice but to watch it. Is this 'entertainment'? Is it okay as long as there isn't a woman being raped? (If it includes a man being raped then that's no problem, I guess)

At any given moment there are thousands (if not millions) of kids engrossed in interactive computer games that involve carving people up, gunning them down or turning them into charcoal. But that's okay - as long as there aren't any women involved.

I detest violence against women, against men, against animals, against the planet we live on. I detest gratuitous violence in all it's forms - and I detest the fact that we can't seem to escape from it.

Spare us the crap about women as if they were the sole 'victims' in this insane world - because that is part of a growing (and quite hideous) campaign to demonize men. Please don't be fooled by it!

[Halion]

Whats the problem here ? The truth will set you free. Simple art imitating life.

[Kru Baa]

Oh man! this is good stuff. I needed cheering up today.

[bangon04]

"At the end of the series, the rapist said he did it out of love. At the end, the two resolve their conflict and live together happily ever after.

Would that happen in real life?"

In the Isaan village, 2 underage girl members of our extended family have been lured / abducted, raped made pregnant and married as a courtship ritual. As long as they promise to marry and pay compensation to the parents, then it seems to be normal acceptable courtship behaviour. It must predate the TV soaps, and it is still going on today. The Headman negotiated the settlements and the police turn a blind eye.

So we must assume it is Thai culture.....

Edited April 1, 2014 by bangon04

[Krataiboy]

Television, the contemporary opiate of the people, used to dumb us down and divert us from more important issues.

Anybody who believes "the box" is just entertainment and has discernible effect on the way they think or behave should ask themselves why advertisers and governments spend billions of dollars every year on television propaganda.

Turn the wretched thing off for a few days and reclaim your life. It worked for me.

[Donnie Brasco]

'At the end of the series, the rapist said he did it out of love. At the end, the two resolve their conflict and live together happily ever after'

Great message, boys, just great.

What sort of idiot comes up with this type of reasoning?

A "bottom" ;-?

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit. . . . "

[Thai at Heart]

My wife and her 10-year-old niece love Channel 3. I walked by while they were watching a show and a male character was assaulting a female character, beating her badly. I was appalled by the degree of violence and asked what it was all about. The niece offered that the woman deserved it because her boyfriend had "seen her talking to another man."

I am.glad I have taken my daughter away from this idiocy and nonsense.

[ubonjoe]

Removed a off topic post and a reply to it that attempted to bring politics into the topic.

[hgma]

i come to the point that these soaps are just a reflection of what rerally boiling in Thailand

just the other day i told my wife that the image of amazing and smiling thailand would be completely tarnished if a foereign channel would got these soaps on air in the most popular spending tourist countries.

disgusting primitive and denegrading scripts.

[HughJass]

Rape is legal in Thailand, according to Thai soap opera. Whenever rape occur it's because...

the girl is evil and deserve to get raped as punishment.

if the girl isn't evil, she's already in love with rapist and it isn't rape at all, actually.

If the the girl isn't evil and doesn't love the rapist already, she will discover joy of Sex and eventually fall in love with rapist anyway.

If the girl isn't evil and will never fall in love with rapist, she will give birth to a very graceful child (ussaully a protagonist of the soap opera). This is rare case, actually. Most of good girl will get rescued on time (unless the rapist is a good guy, irony?).

[Donnie Brasco]

When bent at the waist most rapists will fit snugly into a plastic hundred litre drum.

I say "snugly" because there has to be just enough room between the rapist's scummy corpse and the walls of the plastic drum he's been provided.

Don't fret too much about this.

In the end, after his tackle has been removed there'll be slightly more room than the rapist himself could ever have imagined.

This wiggle room will accommodate the cubic meter or so of concrete that'll be needed to keep the barrel on the seabed.

"Good" Thai rapists are always careful to sexually assault girls they perceive as slightly lower than themselves socially or girls from slightly tainted backgrounds.

Sadly, well-bred or not, an earnest pump-boy's self-serving assumptions may occasionally prove to be wildly unfounded.

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit. . . . "

[Sayonarax]

This a burning issue right now?

Can i have my ticket to denial land? I could think of five more important things that needs every ones attention right now.

[mok199]

• this is the root of thai woman subservantcy....it is programed from birth,and then reinforced with movies and soaps and life....the cycle of abuse will never end,the ''cute ''thai male with the stupid hair and the female features will alwasys be the true desire of thai woman.....thais love thais......

[Jim walker]

Most people with a brain have the intelligence to realise that TV is a fantasy similar to a movie and not reality it’s only a programme made to entertain and make the programme maker money, but continually pumping drivel violence guns sex and murder into children’s heads they will eventually get brainwashed and think it is reality and we must behave like this to be respected and treated like normal adults, that’s why we have parents to teach us as children what is right and what is wrong even in a TV programme.

[tomyummer]

The biggest contradictions of violence and sex and Thailand's hypocritical cultural standards can be found on Bangkok's trifecta streets of Patpong, Cowboy, and Nana, areas of Pattaya and Patpong Beach, and the general state of politics right now. Who needs TV?

[ggt]

simply delivering what people want to watch...

This is precisely what the media strives for...Thais love their soaps...the more trashy, violent, and filled with sexual situations...the better...

And...oh yes...don't forget the foreigner...is almost always portrayed as a moronic villain.....

[Benmart]

there are about 90 reports of rape daily.... 90 reported.... and nothing is done about any of them. do you think they will report it again? no.

do you know what i would like to see normalized? women cutting off mens ... umm. junk. that would be nice.

Violence in response to violence is a sad choice. Advocating genital mutilation is repulsive.

[Cricketnut]

My wife and her 10-year-old niece love Channel 3. I walked by while they were watching a show and a male character was assaulting a female character, beating her badly. I was appalled by the degree of violence and asked what it was all about. The niece offered that the woman deserved it because her boyfriend had "seen her talking to another man."

Bring back the good old days when the whole family would sit down together and watch TV. Many a fond memory. In saying this, I think if your married or in a partnership, sit down together and ask what is really good for ourselves emotionally and mentally. It has been well documented that what we watch is what we become. Or another one the old man used to love was, tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are. Its only now in my 30s I appreciate these sayings now.

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE 8.2 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Cricketnut]

• this is the root of thai woman subservantcy....it is programed from birth,and then reinforced with movies and soaps and life....the cycle of abuse will never end,the ''cute ''thai male with the stupid hair and the female features will alwasys be the true desire of thai woman.....thais love thais......

NOT my wife

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE 8.2 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Acharn]

<snip>

It is as if they don't believe any of the Thai public can act rationally and not go out an parrot it,

if they see something on TV.

<snip>

Yes, that's what "they" believe. That's why I don't want to see "them" destroy the 2550 constitution, as bad as I think it is. That's why I don't want to see "them" disenfranchise the citizens. That's thy I don't want to see "them" impose a "neutral Prime Minister," or a "democratic" appointed council of "good" people. I have an idea of what kind of people "they" would consider good.

I do kind of wish the TV directors would show less violence against women, and it does seem to me they've been showing an increasing number of rapes over the last ten years or so. On the other hand I've always doubted that people actually adopt behavior they see in video games or TV shows. I think the shows are reflecting real life, not influencing it. Sorry about that, because I really love Thailand, but there does seem to be a lot of violence against women and it seems to be accepted. "Don't interfere, this is between a man and wife!" And everyone stands aside.