The ideology of love in popular Thai tragic romance, 1997-2007

Abstract

This research aims at sutdying the ideology of love in popular Thai tragic romance during 1997-2007 in order to see the persistence and change of ideology of love in Thai society, as a result of the interaction between ideology of love in Buddhism and Consumerism in Thai society. The research is qualitative research. The major data are ten tragic romance in a form of films; The Legend of Warlord, Nang Nak, Behind the Painting, Maebia, The Whistle, The Letter Monrak Transistor, Dear Dakanda, Me Myself, and Love of Siam, but other types of popular narrative, such as television series and popular songs during 1997-2007 will be included, to support the major data and major argument in this research. The research is divided into two parts. The firs part explains the relation between tragic romance and ideology of love. Tragic romance has a role in giving its audience an ethical education. The audience will learn the ideology of love through and from experiencing tragic romance in the film. The second part shows the interaction between ideology of love in Buddhism and Consumerism. There are two ideologies of romantic love in Buddhism; love is suffering and love is a consequence of previous association, Pubbhesannivasa. For Consumerism, there are two main ideologies of romantic love; love is a goal of life and 'a must' for life, which can be concluded as love is the most important thing in life. From the data, popular Thai tragic romance persuades its audience to believe in love, to love, and focus on love as a 'need' for life. Although, love will cause suffering at the end, but this suffering is appreciable as long as the audience realize that they do love or are loved. Suffering from love is not presented as a suffering (dhukka) in life, but it is happiness. Hence, popular Thai tragic romance encourages its rudience to cling to the person they love and to use their love as a motivation to continue their life. Moreover, Love becomes another kind of commodity for consumption. Furthermore, the research also found that the idea of previous association in Thai Buddhism has been questioned and rarely presented in tragic romance. The idea of destiny (Brahmalikit) is more popular and is mentioned more often than previous association, but it is also questioned and doubted by average Thai Buddhists. Contemporary Thai tragic romance propagates the individualism or free will in love over the idea of predestined. Love is not a will from the past or the will of the divine, but it is a free will to love or not to love someone. However, the research also found that there is an emergence of the concept of compassionate love influenced by Buddhism (metta and karuna) in the data. Living together with goodwill is more important than being attached to one another. This shows that the ideology of love in Buddhism still persists and has a significant role in Thai society