I know, I know. With this blog I am gonna create a bit of a stir, I am well aware of that. And that’s the reason why I want to stress very much that this is MY personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of the rest of Team BLDA necessarily.
With this quick disclaimer out of the way, let’s just dive into this big mess of a situation that is slowly driving me insane. Having been in the international BL community for quite a few years now I have seen this one particular trend getting worse and worse and it’s really starting to anger me. And it’s about the cultural arrogance of some fans in the BL fandom and it’s just not sitting right with me.
Cultural arrogance. What do I even mean with that? For me cultural arrogance is when people from other countries and cultures judge over another culture and what is seen as okay and working for them. I am not talking about heavy hitting stuff like forced marriage or FGM. I am pretty sure we can all agree when it comes to the bodily safety of another person, there is not much room for discussion. As a human we know this is wrong and just because something has been done for a hundred years in a community or culture doesn’t mean it’s okay. I am thinking for example about christian exorcisms that happened in my countries (UK and Germany) and again, I think we all agree that this is not okay, and no “tradition” or “culture” is an excuse for permitting these awful things.
But with globalisation going ramped up in recent years, I get more and more the feeling that people think that culture needs to be the same all over the globe. And I really mean THE SAME. It almost seems like just because we have the same shops all around the world we suddenly also all need to share the same values and ideas. Which for me is absolute bollocks. It’s wonderful that we are different. It’s wonderful that we all have different experiences and different upbringings. We all live so far apart from each other, and have different cultural backgrounds and traditions. I always felt that this is literally one of the most special things about humans and us living together. But again, more and more it feels like people just want everything to be the same.
So what does all this have to do with BL I hear you ask.
Well, for me it feels like more and more BL fans are also jumping on this bandwagon of just wanting everything to be the same and this very clearly is not sitting right with me. One example that always comes up again and again is the complaint by BL fans that Thai BL series shouldn’t use the words hubby and wife for a gay couple. It’s too heteronormative and it’s just washing away the fact that we are talking about two guys here. So far, so good. But it is a real fact that gay men in Thailand call each other husband and wife. It’s just a fact. Maybe it’s a way of feeling included in the mainstream idea of what a relationship should look like. Maybe it’s them trying to reclaiming the fact that even though they can’t get married, they are still the same as every other heterosexual married couple, even though legally that’s still not possible. I have NO idea where this whole thing came from and that’s exactly the point I am having with this entire debate.
I am a white woman from a European country. I don’t know SHIT what it means to be a gay man in Thailand. And if the gay scene in Thailand wants to call each other Tom and Jerry for heaven’s sake… Then it’s their decision as a group to do that. There is NO reason why I, with my little knowledge and experience, should put my nose in there. Because, no, this is not my fight. I can just accept what people in a certain community in a certain country want to do. It’s their life, I am just an observer. I have NO right to criticise. I can have a discussion, I can listen and I can ask questions. But I have NO RIGHT whatsoever to tell a gay thai man what to call himself and his partner.
And this phenomenon goes further. Another example that drives me nuts is when fans really go overboard with analysing the language of a show. How could they let this character say this particular thing? It’s wrong. How can they do it? And here I am, being able to understand a little bit of Thai, seeing that the issue is in a lot of the cases the subtitles. Because let’s be honest here. Thai is not a language that very easily can be translated to English. It has a different system, different way of articulating. It’s not like English and Latin where you can very precisely translate from a to b. Thai is different and I just can’t believe that so many fans don’t understand it. There are so many things lost in translation. So maybe we need to just step a bit more careful with yelling bloody murder if we don’t like something and maybe we need to have a bit of a closer look at the situation, to ensure we understand it correctly.
The case of Joong from a couple of years ago comes to mind. He said in an interview with turkish media that he is “a real man” and not gay. This obviously stirred up a huge controversy and people said that Joong was homophobic and had an issue with gay men. When in reality this 17 years old, inexperienced actor repeated a slang for not being gay from his country, Turkey. Now we can discuss if he should have known better, being in the limelight. But can we really condemn a young actor getting lost in translation? I don’t think we should as it’s not helping anyone. Is it worth having a discussion about this? Absolutely. Is it correct to hunt a young man for it with pitchforks and torches, demanding for him to be removed from his job? Nope! There is no way in hell you can convince me that this is a logical and working way forward. It’s just a hunt, nothing else.
I think for me the crux of all this is that in a way we, the international BL community, are guests in Thailand, China, Japan, Taiwan and all the other countries. Of course we should speak up if something is not right. Of course these shows and creators get things wrong, make things look better in the show then they would be in reality and so on. But we as interfans really always need to make sure we get our facts right. And sometimes we just need to keep our mouth shut and let people in these countries do things the way they want to and they feel fit from their cultural background.
I always felt that this is one of the strengths of BL. Back in the day the whole thing started in Asia. Then it moved over to Europe and America and finally we had a worldwide phenomenon on our hands. I have watched shows from Israel, Brazil, the Netherlands, Hongkong and so many other places. It has taught me so much about other countries, about their culture, about their way of looking at things. I always found it fascinating and it just really taught me tons and tons about the world and how different we actually live.
I really would hate for us to lose this over being maybe too lazy to recognise that not the whole world works as things do in our countries. Just because things work a specific way in your culture, doesn’t mean it would work for other countries. It doesn’t make things better or worse. It just makes them different. And there is nothing wrong with that.
I remember recently the whole international community screamed about Santa and Cooheart. There is an age difference and in some countries and cultures in this world this age difference between these two guys would be waaaaay too much and even illegal. But in Thailand where both were born, raised and live, it’s totally legal and not an issue. So yeah, of course, we can take a look there, we can speak about our experience, we can ask questions. But we can’t just expect for this to be seen worldwide as an issue and as wrong.
Again as I said above there are clearly issues that are so horrible that there can be no discussion about it’s legitimacy. It’s wrong and that’s it. If Santa were for example 10 then I am sure the entire world community would say that this is wrong and not okay. But he is 17 and the age of consent is different all over the world. And with 17 the age of consent in Thailand is actually not so far away from what we are used to in the western world. In my country it wouldn’t be an issue either. The age of consent is 16.
So why am I writing this whole long rant about cultural arrogance? I think it’s mainly to give people a reminder that our shows, the things we love most, are usually from a different cultural background. Of course we can discuss matters, we can talk about it. But sometimes the way we talk about it might not be the way forward. It might just be hurtful or plain wrong because we look at the issues JUST from our point of view that obviously is tainted by our own cultural background and the way we see the world.
We can’t forget that we are in a way visitors. It’s a little bit like being invited into the home of someone who presents you with their home country’s most famous dish and all you can do is make puking noises because it’s something you never have eaten or maybe it’s something you would never eat. But as a good guest hopefully you would just explain politely that this is not something you like or that it’s something you are not used to.
There is a way to discuss culturally sensitive topics and just claiming that the way you do things in your culture is the only right way is definitely not it. Maybe all I am asking for is to be a bit more sensitive towards other cultures and not to expect that a show from the other side of the world will follow every cultural rule or regulation you are used to from home.
We are visitors after all. And maybe sometimes we need to remember that we should behave like that as well.
First posted on BLDA
Your Heart's Content 