Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Anime embraces Boys' Love, highlights queerphobia
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 04/10/2025
» A rural village in Kubitachi, Japan, is humming with the sound of summer. Cicadas sing in deafening chorus. Sweat drips in the sweltering heat. Against this backdrop, two young lads savour melting ice cream on carefree days.
The human lens
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 24/09/2025
» An encounter with a girl beaten by a teacher moved Gauri Gill to write a story for a political weekly. However, her idea was set aside for lacking an angle that would engage urban readers and Gill decided to take a month-long sabbatical from work.
Queer Film Festival calls on Southeast Asian auteurs
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 04/08/2025
» The second edition of the 29 Queer Film Festival is now accepting submissions until Aug 15.
Communication breakdown
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 29/07/2025
» Athipat Boonleang, a deaf gay rider, was on the way to deliver a parcel. Confused by the customer's location, she sent a text message to no avail. She contacted an online sign language interpretation service only to find that it is suspended.
Evolving language
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 21/04/2025
» During a medical check-up, Pin consulted a doctor about receiving gender-affirming care. In an ideal setting, a sign language interpreter would communicate with her by painstakingly finger-spelling the concept "hormone". But when such assistance was not available, she and the doctor resorted to writing on paper.
Struggling to survive
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 23/05/2023
» You are what you eat, but some do not have the privilege to choose. Nai, who is skinny and short for his age, lacks more than just a proper diet. He has been abandoned by his mother, and his father is serving a jail term. As a result, his uncle has kindly taken him into his own family. But like others, he is living from hand-to-mouth, so providing his nephew with a balanced diet from the five food groups is difficult. Due to a lack of variety in their diet, slum children, though not starving, are suffering from malnutrition.
Challenging the norm
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 07/11/2022
» Yaoi or Boys' Love (BL) has grown from an underground to mainstream fictional genre. It emerged from women's manga comics in Japan in the 1980s, which portrayed the relationship between young boys based on the seme (active) and uke (receptive) dichotomy. Through an informal fan network, the transnational phenomenon came to Thailand in the early 1990s and a subculture was formed online.
Weaponising Thainess with numbers
Oped, Thana Boonlert, Published on 03/06/2022
» The feud over an online campaign calling for Thai numerals to be scrapped in official documents isn't just about pragmatism -- it is a clash between the two ideologies which underpin Thai society.
Thai, Japanese animation rooted in nationalism
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 20/05/2022
» Despite similarities in attachment to religious faith and openness to foreign influence, Thai and Japanese animation for teens feature contrasting protagonists and therefore reflect different kinds of nationalism, students of children's literature found.
Dr Dolittle Prayut does little but talk
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 27/12/2021
» Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha made ludicrous headlines again when he broached the subject of animals during his official visit to southern border provinces. It is not surprising that the macho general again doted on creatures. A few years ago, he shared a photo of him in casual clothes and a cuddly dog on his lap. However, his interaction with animals in provincial trips often lands him in hot water.