Thailand's award-winning soap opera "The Power of Shadows" featured a controversial storyline, according to the Associated Press. The good-looking lead character drunkenly rapes the main female character. He says he's sorry, she forgives him, and as all fairy tales go, "they live happily ever after."
This is not an uncommon theme in Thailand's television world, but the recent rape and murder of a girl on a train in Thailand has caused anger towards popular culture's message that rape is acceptable, or worse, encouraged.
Director Sitthiwat Tappan said that rape scenes aren't just rating grabbers, but that they serve as PDAs, according to the AP.
"There might be a scene where a woman is dressed sexy, and she walks past a man who has been drinking, and it shows on his face that he's aroused and wants her," said Tappan. "In the end, she succumbs to the physical power of the man. Scenes like this try to teach society that women should not travel alone or wear revealing clothes ... And men shouldn't drink."
The Public Health Ministry reported that it received 31,866 calls from victims of rape or sexual assault in one year, but only 3,300 rape cases were filed by the police.
The rape culture is even apparent in Thai language. There are two words for rape: one for nonconsensual sex that a man uses to make a woman fall in love with him, and a separate word for the criminal act of rape.
Durex Thailand had to pull a condom advertisement that said, "28 percent of women who resist eventually give in."
Thai actresses are caught in the middle of the script and the romanticism of rape. Pimthong Washirakom played a character who is raped by a police detective. Washirakom said she thought of the 13-year-old that was suffocated and thrown off the overnight train.
"I felt like the girl in the news," Washirakom said. "I thought of the 13-year-old girl, and tears started running down my face."
Her tears, along with extra violent portions of the rape, were edited out of the show, "The Rising Sun." Some cast members were upset about the change, but Washirakom said the measure was necessary.
"Sometimes, viewers don't have the right judgment and might imitate what they see," the up-and-coming actress said. "Our society is deteriorating every day, so we have to cut certain scenes off. Kids are definitely watching this show. Why would we let them watch a rape scene?"
