lietk12

@thebigofan The undercurrent of what happened here - someone's sexual orientation is called into question, so it's funny to force them into a situation against their sexual orientation and against their consent - is homophobic rape (also/formerly called "corrective rape"), which is a really serious and pervasive form of violence, especially against queer women where misogyny is a strong component of why/how it happens. It deserves to be taken seriously. Ignoring this to only "relax and enjoy the show" would feel like bad taste to me, and I say this as someone who is enjoying other parts of the show so far :/

I'm cautiously eager to see where this series goes with its portrayal of misogyny and homophobia. I hope Tonhon will be challenged on the toxicity of how he performs and polices masculinity. You can see some roots of that in his family's banter, which must've been included at length for a reason. If this series treats these issues critically and gives Tonhon character growth while still being a comedy (maybe by having some viewers accept things as part of the comedy and then later calling it out, the way GSP did with Judit's "ally"ship), that will be quite impressive. I hope the writing has the ambition and execution, and it's going to be a big problem for me if it doesn't. The writers didn't have to create the scenes they did in ep 1+2 to make a funny series with the same characterization of Tonhon - but because they went there, I think it's totally fair to judge how responsibly they treat it in the overall storyline.

A few more notes:
- I love Ai and Nhai's chaotic gay energy. And on top of that, I like that this show is giving us comedy about how weird being among straight men in social situations can be, and comedy about the risks of passively going along with toxic masculinity instead of shutting it down early (Ai, clearly uncomfortable: "How did we get to this point?") - because for me, the next most logical response besides laughing about it would be crying about it.
- Is Chonlatee the walking embodiment of "I'm baby"? I just want to protect him and his adorably campy dancing lol
- The show has an opportunity to do something interesting with the contrast between Tonhon+Chonlatee and Ai+Nhai, where the latter seems like a gay couple who are already an item rather than a "BL" or uke-seme couple. We'll see if the writers take advantage of this or waste it.
- I keep getting distracted from the subtitles because of Toptap's amazing facial expressions and the way he acts comedically with his eyes.

GSP brings together the best of indie LGBTQ filmmaking with the best of the BL genre, and in doing so it blazes a new trail for what LGBTQ storytelling can look like. A few notes and reflections from the last episode:
- Even if the relationship is an open ending from a BL lens, I would argue that the series got a really happy ending from an LGBTQ media lens: Vlad has gotten some closure and moving-on from his previous relationship with Aldous (which seemed to be the thing driving so much of his emotional insecurity in EP 7) and seems more able to set boundaries about his needs before pursuing a relationship, while Karl is in a much happier and self-affirming place with his queer identity, his professional dreams, and his journey as his own person rather than his brother's shadow. And both of these put Karl and Vlad in a much healthier position to do a romantic relationship in the future, if they should choose to do that. I think so much of mainstream culture (and also especially BL world and also especially gay culture) treats being single as not a happy ending, and that's really such an oversimplification.
- I really appreciate the way GSP treated coming out and romantic relationships between people in different places of identity disclosure, because it's a common issue. GSP has demonstrated that bringing in the deeper struggles and complexities around this issue can make a story so much more powerful. With series in the past two years (four examples off the top of my head: Kinou Nani Tabeta, Dark Blue Kiss, Life Senjou no Bokura, and Quaranthings) exploring this in various directions, I feel hopeful that we'll get series which continue to deepen the conversation.
- GSP and ITSAY are both series which create a lot of conflict and dramatic tension without relying on villains, and by making all characters sympathetic and (generally) likable if flawed. This also reminds me of the structure and characters of the indie-LGBTQ Filipino webseries Hanging Out (2016) - I wonder how much of the difference comes from genre/marketing factors (BL vs. indie gay/queer). Regardless, we need more stories like this in BL.
- The scene between Tito Santi and Karl was really powerful for me as a representation of an intergenerational non-romantic relationship between two queer people. There are many reasons for the conspicuous absence of such relationships in LGBTQ communities - in a gay Asian American context, three big factors are the loss of so many people to HIV/AIDS in the '80s and '90s (which is really an intergenerational trauma that I don't think we've collectively been able to work through), ageism in gay cultures, and differences in how generations experienced what being gay or queer means. Because of this gap, so much wisdom and collective history has been lost and will be lost. So I love the wisdom Santi shared with Karl, both as biological family and as queer family. And in a way, it was also Juan Miguel Severo reaching across generations and speaking to younger queer people.
- Anna is so wonderful and I hope we'll get to see more of her if S2 happens.
- Drunk Vlad's playfulness reminds me of my boyfriend's personality when he's drunk, I love it ehehehe.

Between I Told Sunset About You and Great Men Academy, Nadao Bangkok's treatment of gender and gender expression makes me feel more understood as a nonbinary person than anything else I've seen in the world of BL/BL-adjacent media :')

If I compare what this show achieved (in terms of story, characters, and emotional impact/payoff) in 10 episodes of 10-15 min each vs. what Where Your Eyes Linger (angsty) or Mr. Heart (sweet & cute) achieved in 8 episodes of 10 min each, I think this story couldn't develop the characters as much or show as much depth to them because it tried to follow two couples rather than just one.

A question for everyone...am I forgetting some other show, or is this the first Asian BL series to depict a Western-style gay wedding (held in a chapel, walking down the aisle, exchange of rings, wedding cake, song, an MC, etc.)? Much of the plot revolves around events leading to a gay wedding, and it's interesting that the BL theme of "love conquers all" combines so smoothly in this show with "#lovewins"-style homonormative ideals (e.g. expensively-planned weddings, a certain kind of same-sex marriage presented as the solution to deeper issues, "we just want to live an ordinary life", etc.). I hope there will be funding for future Taiwanese series to take bigger creative risks with the story and themes than what we got here!

Before the gazebo, Santi and Vlad had that conversation about not pulling Karl out of the closet. But then when Karl panics after their kiss is witnessed and worries that Santi might out Karl to his father, Vlad leads with an assertion about Karl's visibility ("your uncle has always known, okay?...he told me that he sensed it a long time ago...so it's okay") rather than simply reassuring Karl that he knows Santi wouldn't tell anyone else. Vlad probably expected Karl to think that the gay uncle knowing about Karl's identity meant Santi would keep Karl safe in the closet. Meanwhile, Karl has been questioning what his feelings mean, and now he's even more worried because he hears from Vlad that what he had thought was an internal struggle has actually been decided and declared as an identity for him by someone else (Santi) based on his external visibility.

I see Vlad as initially saying what would he would've found reassuring and what he thought would reduce pressure on Karl to come out, but Vlad has a different way of understanding queer identity, visibility, and outness compared to Karl. And so they ended up talking past each other, which escalated into the back-and-forth about Vlad telling Santi about Karl, and Karl's feelings about Vlad, and they became more confrontational.

The difference in how Karl/Judit and Vlad understand what it means to declare themselves as gay/queer/ally/etc. is closely related with what Moonbyulie said below about intersectionality of queerness to social class, and with what the twitter thread linked above referred to about "implicit affirmation" vs. "out and proud" identity affirmation - the latter of which is linked to mobility and engagement with globalized and/or western cultural ideas+media about queerness. You can see this difference in the script with how differently how Judit confronted Karl vs. how Santi approached Vlad: Judit led with "so, what's going on between you and my brother?" (fishing for a declaration in the out-and-proud mode for identity), while Santi led with "I noticed you have things in the unit. I'm not going to ask what's going on between you and my nephew" (a statement of implicit affirmation). You could even compare Judit's "I am an ally" declarations (out and proud) to Anna's quietly supportive actions (implicit affirmation). Things could have gone more smoothly for both Karl and Vlad if Judit and Santi's approaches were flipped; this would also explain why the hints Judit dropped did not help Karl - indeed, when Karl answers Judit's question of "do you have feelings for my brother", he replies "not in the way you think", highlighting that difference. So I would argue that not only did Vlad and Judit have good intentions, but their comfort with a certain well-traveled, internationally-aware kind of gay identity was a big part of how they messed up in talking to Karl. Not a fundamental character flaw for them, but still an area for growth in understanding others.

I just want to appreciate some really interesting camera choices in the scene of Karl & Vlad's kiss, which looks so precisely timed that I think at least some of it must have been on purpose. The camera starts from behind the bench before they start the kiss (22:55), and then it cuts to be in front of the bench as they finish the kiss (23:29). Then Karl turns his head as if checking to see whether someone, e.g. us, witnessed the kiss (23:39). In response, Vlad, who had just been focused on Karl, turns his head (23:40); simultaneously -
and *with the same start and end times* - the camera focus is pulled back, so that we see Anna, Santi, and Judit staring from where we had watched Karl and Vlad start the kiss. And then we see them quickly turn around as if in embarrassment at intruding on such a private moment (on a sidenote, I think it's revealing that Anna and Santi briefly glance back at Karl & Vlad out of concern while walking away, while Judit does not look back).

So the first shot puts us in Anna+Santi+Judit's shoes, watching Karl & Vlad. Then, with the focus pulling in the second shot, it has us see ourselves through Vlad's gaze, revealing that we were watching Karl & Vlad's kiss with the same level of intrusiveness as Anna+Santi+Judit. And finally the second shot offers us an emotional response to internalize, i.e. guilt at violating Karl+Vlad's privacy combined with concern for them, by modeling those feelings through Anna+Santi's body language. I think this camera work, by changing our gaze from Anna/Santi/Judit's to Vlad/Karl's, could gently remind the audience that there are consequences for gay people from how viewers might gaze upon or intervene in gay relationships or interactions.

This builds on the ambivalent characterization of Judit in previous episodes and the ways the series has set up BL viewers to see themselves/ourselves in her behavior, e.g. gawking at Karl as he frisks Vlad, or wanting to see Karl + Vlad be cute with each other, or feeling giddy when they look cute with each other. Judit does similar things in this story as what the shipper characters, screenwriters, and viewers/fans do in many conventional BL series. But the kiss scene connects these behaviors not just to viewers who see themselves in Judit, but also to viewers who see themselves/ourselves in Anna or Santi, who all have different motivations and concerns but still all stared through Karl & Vlad's intensely private moment. And then GSP challenges that kind of normalized behavior by illustrating its stakes for realistic gay people, and by giving us opportunities to recognize our entanglement as viewers who are LGBTQ people (like Santi) or allies (like Anna) or self-declared allies (like Judit).