Leiden University Student Repository

Maas, Natascha (2023)

Series wai is not just a Thai version of Japanese Boys' Love

Master thesis | Asian Studies (60 EC) (MA)

An average thought is that Thai Boy’s Love (BL) is just like any other BL in other countries. BL stories are love stories with a male same-sex romance. This thesis shows that Thai BL, called in this thesis series wai, is an innovative and hybrid subgenre within the BL genre. The transmedia popularity and the focus on masculinity and gender roles cause the subgenre to be different from the Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese BL subgenres. The transmedia popularity shows that it is not only about the series, but mainly about the imaginary couples. The research found that series wai reflects the ideals of siwilai, namely, “romantic monogamous heterosexuality.” This makes series wai innovative and hybrid, as it is not about the series only and it combines society ideals with series which do not follow the ideal society at the first glance.

Series wai

Thailand

Boys’ Love

BL

tv-series

Author

Maas, Natascha

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

History, Arts and Culture of Asia

Supervisors

Crandol, M.E.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en