Sporty Little Number
Audiences are lapping up a controversial Thai film that deals
with gay and transsexual issues
By ROBERT HORN Bangkok
Yongyoot
Thongkongthun was prepared for anything. Days before the premier
of his first feature film, producers at Tai Entertainment
warned the young director that audiences might have trouble
with his movie, Satree Lex, or The Iron Ladies as it is known
in the West. It was certainly a gamble: a sports movie and
a comedy, genres that don't often appeal to Thai moviegoers.
Riskier still, the lead characters include a lesbian and five
katoey-a Thai term that covers transsexuals, transvestites
and effeminate gay men. Says the 33-year-old Yongyoot: "I
broke every taboo in the business."
Thai audiences
ate it up. In its first two weeks, The Iron Ladies, the story
of the katoey-led volleyball team (named Satree Lex) that
won a national championship in 1996, reeled in $1.75 million
on its way to becoming Thailand's second-highest-grossing
film ever. It's "a major step forward for Thai films, which
are generally pretty awful," says Kiccha Buranond, a correspondent
for Dichan, a Thai women's magazine. "The characters are developed,
they're hilarious and they really touch your heart." Even
if the phenomenon of katoey athletes is uniquely Thai, its
appeal seems to be universal: The Iron Ladies topped the Hong
Kong box office on its release last September, and recently
the film opened in Australia, where it was voted most popular
movie at Sydney's Mardi Gras Film Festival.
Katoey are
everywhere in Thailand, working as fashion models, civil servants,
sales clerks, scientists, bank tellers. Thailand's best-known
sportsperson is surely Nong Toom, a transvestite kickboxer
who has been featured in Time and Sports Illustrated. Buddhism
doesn't demonize homosexuality, and Thailand has little of
the homophobic violence prevalent in, for example, the U.S.
Thais of all inclinations rooted for the real Satree Lex.
"Katoeys don't face a lot of serious problems here," says
Kokkorn Benjatikul, the only real katoey actor in the film.
That said,
Thais remain conflicted about homosexuality and katoey, and
the movie highlights that unease. "We're like the forgotten
orphans of society," laments Kokkorn's character, Pia, as
he faces discrimination from sports officials. In recent years,
the government has tried to ban gays from jobs at teachers'
colleges and told television producers to stop using katoey
characters. Despite winning the '96 championship, members
of the real Satree Lex were not allowed to play for the national
team: sports officials worried the presence of transvestite
players would tarnish Thailand's reputation. At the same time,
officials have tried to cash in on the katoey. The Tourism
Authority advertises transvestite cabarets as attractions.
Despite
the film's sympathetic slant, a few of the characters in The
Iron Ladies reinforce clichéd images of katoey, who are almost
always protrayed in Thai entertainment as one-dimensional
comic foils. But for every cartoonish character like Nong,
an amazonian army recruit with olive sparkle nail polish,
there are individuals like Mon, a striker struggling to overcome
his anger and alienation. Together, they're making sure The
Iron Ladies becomes the most widely seen Thai film ever-as
well as keeping open the closet door which slammed on the
real Satree Lex five years ago.
|
|
|
April 2, 2001 | No.
13
COVER
STORIES
Dread
Heads
Scared? You're not alone-millions of people suffer from debilitating fears.
But science is devising cures for every anxiety, from ablutophobia (fear
of bathing) to zoophobia (fear of animals).
THE
ARTS
CINEMA: In the Mood for Love delights and
mystifies
A gender-bending Thai film takes on the
world
BOOKS:
Calling from Carverland
TRAVELERS
ADVISORY
|
|
