On romanticising abusive behaviours
7 Apr 2025 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elisheva_mMy review of a Channel 3 comedy lakorn อกเกือบหักแอบรักคุณสามี (My Husband in Law)
As a lakorn, this was alright. Not great, and they got lazy with several things like the gay and lesbian side stories and a late ungrounded reveal about the ML. And just no on using ridiculous straight boy fears of gay men hitting on them as a recurring punch line.
The problem, which many won't care about because it's all so normalised, is the type of rom com they crashed into it. The kind where abusive behaviours in the ML are magically transformed into happily ever after by the FL's enduring love.
Most viewers will just see this as adding drama and excitement, making his transformation all the more neuro-chemically rewarding for them. Many will dismiss it as "just fiction" or cite the mantra that they know the difference between it and reality, as if everything bouncing around in our brains stayed neatly in its assigned box. Our subconscious minds don't really work that way. Stories are powerful and we are narrative beings.
So when writers and directors make stories which parallel the kinds of things women (and sometimes men) in abusive relationships tell themselves - he'll change, he's doing this because he loves me, it will get better if ... - which keep them locked in the relationship, turning them into romanticised tropes, these stories cumulatively reinforce and normalise them. It's already hard enough to break free from an abusive relationship as it is. If you don't understand this, count your blessings.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The writers here had to have known what they were doing too, what with the density of controlling, manipulative and coercive behaviours they piled onto the ML (restricting her movements, contact with friends and internet, stalking her - getting into her house, love bombing her when she's finally gotten free as just a few of the egregious red flags) and the overtly, impossible to miss abuse from Phondech to Yada. How close they walked to rape before backing it away. He still forced alcohol on her to get her drunk, when she said several times she doesn't drink, because he saw it as a way to get something he wanted.
There were times I wondered if they were subverting these tropes, which is what kept me watching longer than I should have (the irony of that, maybe they'll change, eh?), especially with the gender inversions they brought in or Yada's struggle to get free from both her husband and father and live for herself. But in the end, they whole-heartedly embraced the dangerously false narrative of an abusive man changing because a woman loves him. He still has his temper though, and centred his own emotions when the woman he "loves" was trying to get her head around her life-threatening health condition, the one he chose to hide from her. Consistency in character from the writing there, but also an indication that his "change" is self-serving. But it's a happy ending because rom com.
Stories don't need this to be compelling or entertaining. They could have made something different with Mew Nittha still sparkling as delulu sunshine. Let Mark Prin start as withdrawn and grumpy if you must, but give his character a real reason for it, not one he then turns on the FL in a late episode. Crash a rom com into a lakorn and use lakorn exaggeration to really examine and challenge toxic tropes.
There is so much more they could have done, maybe seemed to be heading in the direction towards doing, and this would have been better for it. Mew's comedic talents especially deserved more.
As a lakorn, this was alright. Not great, and they got lazy with several things like the gay and lesbian side stories and a late ungrounded reveal about the ML. And just no on using ridiculous straight boy fears of gay men hitting on them as a recurring punch line.
The problem, which many won't care about because it's all so normalised, is the type of rom com they crashed into it. The kind where abusive behaviours in the ML are magically transformed into happily ever after by the FL's enduring love.
Most viewers will just see this as adding drama and excitement, making his transformation all the more neuro-chemically rewarding for them. Many will dismiss it as "just fiction" or cite the mantra that they know the difference between it and reality, as if everything bouncing around in our brains stayed neatly in its assigned box. Our subconscious minds don't really work that way. Stories are powerful and we are narrative beings.
So when writers and directors make stories which parallel the kinds of things women (and sometimes men) in abusive relationships tell themselves - he'll change, he's doing this because he loves me, it will get better if ... - which keep them locked in the relationship, turning them into romanticised tropes, these stories cumulatively reinforce and normalise them. It's already hard enough to break free from an abusive relationship as it is. If you don't understand this, count your blessings.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The writers here had to have known what they were doing too, what with the density of controlling, manipulative and coercive behaviours they piled onto the ML (restricting her movements, contact with friends and internet, stalking her - getting into her house, love bombing her when she's finally gotten free as just a few of the egregious red flags) and the overtly, impossible to miss abuse from Phondech to Yada. How close they walked to rape before backing it away. He still forced alcohol on her to get her drunk, when she said several times she doesn't drink, because he saw it as a way to get something he wanted.
There were times I wondered if they were subverting these tropes, which is what kept me watching longer than I should have (the irony of that, maybe they'll change, eh?), especially with the gender inversions they brought in or Yada's struggle to get free from both her husband and father and live for herself. But in the end, they whole-heartedly embraced the dangerously false narrative of an abusive man changing because a woman loves him. He still has his temper though, and centred his own emotions when the woman he "loves" was trying to get her head around her life-threatening health condition, the one he chose to hide from her. Consistency in character from the writing there, but also an indication that his "change" is self-serving. But it's a happy ending because rom com.
Stories don't need this to be compelling or entertaining. They could have made something different with Mew Nittha still sparkling as delulu sunshine. Let Mark Prin start as withdrawn and grumpy if you must, but give his character a real reason for it, not one he then turns on the FL in a late episode. Crash a rom com into a lakorn and use lakorn exaggeration to really examine and challenge toxic tropes.
There is so much more they could have done, maybe seemed to be heading in the direction towards doing, and this would have been better for it. Mew's comedic talents especially deserved more.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-07 10:37 am (UTC)I am absolutely exhausted and burnt out from fruitless attempts to minimise misreadings or correct misunderstandings once I finally understand what they are, so I'll just say this:
If toxic relationships are your bag, you probably won't find this lakorn satisfying in that regard either.