Thai Gender Role Conflicts: A Case Study of the Thai Melodrama the Fallen Leaf

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Advanced Research in Social Sciences and Humanities

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Thai Gender Role Conflicts: A Case Study of the Thai Melodrama the Fallen Leaf

Lu Ying

 

ABSTRACT: 

Thailand’s gender culture is famous for its diversity. With the development of the Internet, LGBT culture, as a subculture, has achieved the status of popular culture. It has also spread to the outside world utilizing cultural products such as TV dramas, books, and so forth. However, its development has also been accompanied by the contradiction and conflict of gender roles. By browsing through research on LGBT, it can be noticed that many people are still biased. From a neutral point of view, this paper explores the gender role conflicts in the Thai melodrama The Fallen Leaf, including masculinity and other factors. It can be found that at first, parents’ divorce will influence the children’s masculinity because a father is the masculine role model in the family. Second, the parents’ guidance plays a vital role in establishing a children’s gender awareness. Third, children’s self-identity is also affected by the environment, experience, and other factors. This melodrama also contains stereotypes about transsexuals. From this research, it can be noticed that Thai audiences have a higher tolerance and inclusiveness of transsexuals and transgender people. It is helpful for people to understand the causes of gender role conflicts in contemporary Thai society to understand the LGBT population from a more balanced perspective.

keywords: Masculinity; LGBT; Thai gender role conflicts; The Fallen Leaf.