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On romanticising abusive behaviours
7 Apr 2025 10:29 amMy 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 )
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 )
