I finished watching the final episode 12 of GAP: The Series a couple of days ago. Here are some final thoughts on the show. (WARNING: This includes spoilers for episode 12 in particular.)

There are others better placed than me to do a comprehensive review of GAP, so I’ll just say that I enjoyed the show and looked forward to watching it each week. I have to confess though: I see a lot of fans commenting as if GAP were the greatest yuri/GL/lesbian series ever. I don’t normally watch live-action LGBTQ+ series, so I really can’t do an intelligent comparison, but this seems more than a bit overblown. I mean, what are they comparing it to?

In any case, I see GAP as an interesting hybrid: on one level it’s a glossy romantic drama (with some comedy sprinkled in) that bears more than a bit of resemblance to soap operas, telenovelas, Kdramas, and (the Thai equivalent) lakorn. But it was also consciously designed to promote a political message, albeit in a low-key suitable-for-the-mainstream way. See in particular the very interesting comments by Saint and P’Chen of IdolFactory, the production company that created the series, in which Saint claims “Every time I create a series . . . I see it as building/improving the [LGBTQA+] community.”

GAP follows a playbook for promoting LGBTQ+ equality that’s familiar from the US marriage equality campaign, but with a Thai-specific twist. There is the act of coming out, and having pride in oneself and those one loves; as Sam says in episode 9 (after Mon frets about what others might think of a public display of affection), “I just want to hold my lover’s hand.”

There’s also the classic “love is love” message, delivered by Saint himself in the final episode, when as “Sir Phoom” he drops in to pay his regards to Sam’s grandmother after she tells Sam to live her life as she chooses: “Love will always find a way. It transcends gender and sexuality.”¹

And, finally, there is the impact of having someone who was previously in opposition—namely Sam’s grandmother, and to a lesser extent Kirk—change their mind and endorse what they previously condemned. (In a US context, see Barack Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality, which people have claimed helped win the Black vote in the 2012 referendum in Maryland, where I live.)

GAP’s political message is adapted to Thai sensibilities. I’ve seen some people online protest that Sam won her freedom only because others permitted it, i.e., through Kirk’s change of heart and his intervention with Sam’s grandmother. Where is the righteous rebellion against heteronormativity and those who enforce it (men like Kirk, but also women like Sam’s grandmother)? Well, that occurred at the end of episode 11, in the form of Neung’s epic rant. But though cathartic for the audience (and perhaps for Sam herself), it was not the key that freed Sam from her fate.

That instead came about because Sam was a dutiful and loving granddaughter and showed her filial piety in the most extreme way possible, choosing to bury forever her chances for happiness in deference to her grandmother’s wishes. Prompted by Kirk’s comments, her grandmother then behaved as an elder should behave in a hierarchical family system (but often does not), taking note not only of her granddaughter’s obedience but also her unhappiness, and deciding to release Sam from her familial obligation in order to promote her ultimate well-being.

The result is to my mind the most dramatic moment of episode 12 (even more dramatic than the wedding), as Sam drops to the floor and kowtows to her grandmother, then hugs her while on her knees before finally standing to face her. Her grandmother then reciprocates by attending Sam’s wedding to Mon, sitting in the front row to bear witness to their vows and—by her presence—publicly endorse their relationship.

Sam and Mon’s story is thus not a story of rebellion against society’s strictures, but of society recognizing the desires of some of its children and evolving its attitudes to acknowledge and accommodate them. This is reinforced by Sir Phoom’s conversation with Sam’s grandmother, in which he seeks to calm the concerns that Sam’s grandmother has, and in particular emphasizes that his own aristocratic parents know about Sam and Mon’s relationship and are happy to see them together.²

Is this the much-sneered-at “respectability politics”? Why, yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s an approach that Saint and his colleagues presumably thought was most likely to be successful in the context of Thai society: to emphasize the loyalty of LGBTQ+ Thais to that society and its traditional norms of respect and deference, and to ask in turn for themselves to be recognized as full and equal members of society. And from Saint’s public comments it seems that GAP was created in large part to be a means to that end.

[This post and its associated comments were originally published on Cohost.]

The genre we call “yuri” originated in Japan, but some of its most interesting manifestations are in other nations in East and Southeast Asia, where it is typically marketed as “GL.” One recent example is the live-action Thai television drama GAP, also known as GAP: The Series (to distinguish it from the novel on which it is based), Pink Theory, and other names.

GAP is currently being broadcast weekly on Thai TV Channel 3, and then afterward being made available on YouTube with English subtitles, starting with episode 1, part 1. It’s an example of what’s sometimes called “shakaijin yuri”: yuri stories featuring adults doing adult things. In the series, one of the two main characters, Mon, starts her first job at a small media company run by the other main character, Sam, an older woman whom Mon has idolized ever since she was a child. However, Sam does not remember ever meeting Mon (or at least doesn’t admit to it), and their relationship gets off to a rocky start before love starts to blossom.

It’s a pretty good series overall, and well worth watching if you’re a yuri fan. I’m not going to attempt a review; Erica Friedman already posted one on the Okazu blog, and I basically agree with her assessment. Instead I wanted to comment on some other aspects of the series and how it came to be. (Warning: This will contain some minor spoilers for the first two episodes.)

First, while for some time now Thailand has been cranking out live-action BL series, GAP is apparently the first yuri/GL series produced in the country. It was created by a relatively new production company, Idol Factory, headed by 24-year-old Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana (nicknamed “Saint”). Saint became famous starring in the 2018 Thai BL series Love by Chance, produced by GMMTV (the 800-pound gorilla of Thai BL production companies), and then went off on his own to found Idol Factory.

Idol Factory’s first production was the popular BL series Secret Crush on You. That series, set in a high school, featured a side couple played by Sarocha Chankimha (“Freen”) and Rebecca Patricia Armstrong (“Becky”). GAP features the two in the lead roles, with Freen playing Sam and Becky playing Mon, with other actors in the Idol Factory stable playing various supporting roles.

It’s a credit to Saint and Idol Factory that they followed up their first BL series by taking a chance with a yuri series. That bet has apparently paid off, at least with international viewers: the first two GAP episodes have each racked up between one and two million views on YouTube, comparable to the two to three million views for each of the episodes of Secret Crush on You (which has been out at least seven months now).

Second, it’s interesting to see the mix of yuri tropes and social commentary in the series. The setup is reminiscent of Maria Watches Over Us, albeit translated to an office setting: a younger and relatively naïve but spunky young woman (our Yumi equivalent) meets an elegant and seemingly emotionally cold older woman from a very wealthy family (species designation tsunderensis sachiko). Meanwhile the older woman’s family disregards her own desires and expects her to enter into an arranged marriage with a man who presumably will take over her firm.

In GAP the main antagonist is Sam’s grandmother, who has given Sam a deadline of one year to make her business successful or quit it in favor of marriage. The grandmother has already interfered with the lives of Sam’s two older sisters.

Sam’s fiance Kirk appears to be another antagonist. He is a co-owner of Sam’s firm, but does nothing except drop by occasionally to hand out snacks to the employees and curry their favor. He seems to be positioning himself to take over full control of Sam’s firm, but is going about it in a low-key way that suggests that this is just the natural order of things. (See also the scene in the second episode where Sam offers to drive Mon home, and Kirk ends up taking the wheel of Sam’s Porsche Carrera, relegating Sam to be a passenger in her own car.)

A side character worth noting is one of Sam’s friends, someone whom in the West we’d characterize as a butch lesbian. But I presume that in Thai terms she’s actually a “tom” (for “tomboy”); I mean, her nickname is even “Tee.” The relationship between toms and their partners (“dees,” for “lady”/“ladies”) doesn’t necessarily conform to the Western butch/femme stereotype; for a fascinating discussion of the differences, see the paper “The Romance of the Queer: The Sexual and Gender Norms of Tom and Dee in Thailand,” by Megan Sinnott, included in the book AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities.

The final thing worthy of note about GAP is how it applies to yuri/GL live-action series a common marketing strategy used in Thai BL productions, that of the khu jin, or “imagined couple.” The basic idea is that instead of fans shipping idols on their own initiative (with production companies then possibly responding to that), Thai production companies (in a strategy pioneered by GMMTV) create idol couples already “pre-shipped.” In other words, production companies encourage fans to think of the idols as couples on-screen and off- from the time that they debut. For a good introduction to this phenomenon see Thomas Baudinette’s talk “Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture” and his forthcoming book of the same title.

In the case of GAP the khu jin is Freen and Becky. They have very good chemistry on-screen and off-screen as well—although the point here is that there is no such thing as “off-screen,” since even seemingly unrehearsed interactions (many of which can be seen on YouTube by searching for “freenbecky”) have to be seen in the context of an Idol Factory marketing strategy to promote them as the company’s star GL couple. If GAP is successful (and it appears to be so far) then we can expect to see a lot more of Freen and Becky in future Idol Factory series.

Other Thai production companies are dipping their feet in the yuri ocean as well: GMMTV has a schoolgirl yuri series 23.5 debuting in 2023, starring Pansa Vosbein (”Milk”) and Pattranite Limpatiyakorn (”Love”); like Freen and Becky, they previously appeared as a side couple in BL productions before getting their own GL series. (You can find them on YouTube by searching for “milklove”).

There are other Thai GL series announced and on the way as well. It remains to be seen whether Thai production companies can create a “GL machine” to match the current “BL machine” (as Thomas Baudinette refers to it), but it will certainly be fun to watch them try.

Mightfo ([@Mightfo][]) - 2022-12-02 12:15

Fascinating! Also, I had no idea that Thailand made a lot of BL and yuri! Thanks for sharing this.

Frank Hecker ([@hecker][]) - 2022-12-02 12:19

You’re welcome! Thailand is actually the biggest producer of BL live-action series in all of East and Southeast Asia; Thomas Baudinette notes in his talk that in 2022 there were over a hundred Thai BL series produced, and that Thai BL series have now achieved widespread popularity in Japan, the country where BL was born.