Why Thai Girl Love shows are built different, and why it matters. Part I: How we got Thai sapphic cinema

Storytime.

Nobody believed this guy will succeed. He even had to borrow money from his family to sponsor the show — which is not some sort of common practice in the industry of Thailand. He was just very, very motivated. 

Those of us interested in the sapphic culture in any respect, as well as those involved in fandoms, know the old discussion surrounding sapphic content: there is no audience. Nobody wants to watch or read sapphic romance. It's very niche. As an author, you cannot do anything exciting with two women, because you "cannot help but feel sorry for them", and mlm content allows for experimentation and dark, thrilling themes (this statement has historical basis — Japanese women started writing and drawing yaoi precisely for that reason. It allowed for darker themes than straight romance mangas).

What did Saint say to that? Fuck you, trends. 

Who did Saint not say fuck you to? The future audience. The first teaser they made was a flop. It had male gaze. Maybe not insanely obvious one, but enough for the Thai sapphic community to say: this sucks. Really. Remake it or get the hell out of here. And the team listened. They remade the trailer. Educated themselves — properly, not on paper (remember what I said about pure intentions?) — and made what is now known worldwide as GAP the series, an adaptation of a novel by a sapphic romance author Chao Planoy (passport name: Phetphailin Rattanam) infamous for being problematic. That's right. Another issue people had with adapting GAP into a show was that it was a novel by a sapphic version of Coleen Hoover. 

(They continued to adapt her novels, by the way — maybe GAP's success was difficult to overlook, or maybe she has made a deal with a sapphic demon — but often changed pretty much everything about her characters to make them resemble villains just a tiny bit less. For example, book version of May from Pluto pretty much has nothing in common with her TV show counterpart). 

What a team to save sapphic TV culture — and potentially play a role in the recent marriage equality bill adopted by Thailand. 

Now there isn't any lack of Thai GL: good, bad, and ugly. Flops and successes. 

But what about the storylines and the tropes? What made GAP such a success? What makes other Thai GL so different? 

I will try to formulate my thoughts in Part II: what do I think of respectfully stealing borrowing as an aspiring sapphic romance author? Why do the tropes they use work? What framework are they using?..