Gap: the Series
I mentioned that I've been having girls' nights with myself on the couch watching sapphic media. Last time, on the 2oth, I watched some of a show that I saw a Facebook ad for, Gap the Series: a Thai lesbian rom-com. I posted a picture of myself settled in to watch TV, then I wrote about it in two sections. In the second part, I made a bunch of notes about how completely off the rails the relationship in this show and why I don't know if I can keep watching it. First, my couch-selfie! I'm having more instances, after almost two years on HRT, of looking at myself and feeling ok-to-good about how I look, even when I'm not trying very hard. (And I wasn't trying very hard here: I was sick and my hair was a mess!)
--Part I
Miriam is feeling icky and went to bed early. I'm still coughing too much to lie next to her, and I'm still having some trouble being alone with my thoughts at night. So I'm having another girls night on the couch and watching a Thai lesbian rom-com!
It's been a long time since I watched anything live-action, and yep: still face blind. I couldn't tell many of the characters apart out of context to save my life!
It's kind of melodramatic, and rather silly. The younger woman in the dyad at the centre of the plot met the older one once like 10 years ago as a kid, and has been so enamored with her that, even though they've never met again until now, she gets so lost in flights of fancy when seeing her picture that she is totally unaware of people calling her name multiple times right in front of her.
But the worst part, as Miriam pointed out, is a sort of normalization of abuse in that the younger woman, who had finally been hired by the older woman's company after working at that goal all through school, is treated in really, truly awful ways by the older woman, who is awful to her employees as well.
So I certainly can't unreservedly recommend it. This is not a healthy start to a relationship and shouldn't be anybody's model of one! But I'm going to watch some more of it anyway, cognizant of the real issues here, because it's kind of ridiculous, has cute girls kissing, and is a good distraction.
If you had told me even a year ago that this is what I'd be doing with my evenings sometimes, I wouldn't have believed you. This second puberty thing is quite a ride.
--Part II
I'm kind of nonplussed that people talking about this show online are saying how great it is to see GL/lesbian/yuri media in Thailand, and how wonderful it is and how it will hopefully herald a coming age of sapphic queer media. This relationship is a burning dumpster that overturned when the train it was on crashed, and many reviewers seem serenely unaware of this. Some example review snippets:
"The chemistry between the two main actresses are off the charts, the dialogue is so good it has me blushing watching the episodes and counting down the time until the next episodes"
"The stand out for this drama is the immediate complexity of the two leads; both having flaws and issues they both must overcome. Their chemistry on screen is unrivaled by any other lesbian show out there. It perfectly captures the queer experience of discovering your feelings for another woman and falling in love for the first time."
"Gap is literally the best GL ever tbh their connection and chemistry is on another level everything they do feels so real."
---
So, in reality, this show is brick-on-the-gas-pedal accelerating into ridiculous melodrama and I kind of love it. Notes from just the first quarter of episode 2:
===CW for domestic verbal/emotional abuse===
*Why did Sam wear a bra and jacket to dinner? Like, is that seriously *not* lingerie?
*Boss parked her car in a spot reserved for "super car parking". There are multiple spots reserved for super cars? (Also she drives a Porsche 911 Targa: is that really a supercar? I'm not a car girl, but I don't think it is.)
*The dog is in the opening credits in every episode, with his actual name *and* character name!
*Transition time for Sam to go from "I'm going to cut off your hair because it got tangled in my super-fancy bracelet you living piece-of-shit of a new employee" to "I'm going to put a jacket over your shoulders outside my car, then grab you by the lapels and pull you right up to my face and stare longingly into your eyes for a good 3 seconds while not quite kissing you" - About 4 in-world hours.
*Face-blindness time: is this the guy who was basically harassing her in episode one about not going out with him (she was not taking his shit, by the way), or is it a member of her family? I don't know!
*Oh my gammicism. Why is Sam messed up? Because her grandmother is so much more abusive and controlling. Sam's older sister wanted to be an artist and grandma *burned all her pictures in front of her sobbing granddaughter while her while house staff held the sister in place*. Holy shit. She says Sam has one more year to be successful or she has to close her business and marry some dude named Kirk who she's engaged to.
*And her other older sister was basically kicked out of the family on her 25th birthday because grandma was like "your birthday present is this guy you're going to marry" and sister told grandma she was in love with a woman. The melodramatic dysfunction is off the charts.
*One of her friends is an actress and is warning Sam not to give in or she'll end up like the woman in this "melodrama" she was acting in. Sam agrees, except for "the melodramatic plots". I think the show is making fun of itself?
*This is better than her other friends who are like "maybe you should give in so gramma can stop messing with your life." Right, because letting her define your life completely is totally different from messing with it.
*One of her friends says they should all curse gramma to death. I'm here for this solution.
*Sam told Mon to text her when she gets home. Mon thinks Sam didn't mean it and didn't want to annoy her. Sam is *pissed*
*Wait: Sam has a chat on her phone called "Mon's My Idol"? Did she put that there after giving Mon her number? She's her "idol" after less than a day?
*And now Mon's at home, looking at her creepy collection of pictures of Sam, saying to herself: "the gap between Lady Sam and I grows bigger, the closer we are" and "when did she get engaged? Are there other things about her I don't know?" And I'm like, since you haven't talked to her in like 10 YEARS, there's probably A LOT you don't know! "Does she really not remember me?" Probably not since you met her ONCE for like FIVE MINUTES, TEN YEARS AGO. Also, maybe the gap would be a *little* smaller if you actually texted her like she explicitly asked you to and you explicitly said you would?
*Oh my geraniums! Mon just noticed that that Sam has sent her this LONG STRING of stickers of an angry teddy bear standing in front of flames. It's filling up her entire screen and I am *losing it* trying to not to laugh too loudly and wake Miriam. And Mon's like "Is she upset I didn't text her?" YOU THINK?
*And she is STILL sending more burning teddy bear stickers!!
*Mon responded and apologized for not texting, saying it was late and she didn't want to bother her. And Sam responded with "It's late, have some manners." This relationship isn't just failing to communicate: this relationship strapped its communication to an out of control locomotive and sent it flying off the tracks into a gorge with an exploding boiler a la Back to the Future 3.
I think I'll stop here with the notes, but I really need to find someone to watch this with. It's so over-the-top and I need someone to share this thing with.
---
Interesting linguistic note:
*Gramma never is mentioned by name: they all call her Honorable Lady Grandmother. People keep talking about Honorable Lady Sam too. And this is kind of interesting to me, linguistically. People joke about old-school English translations of Japanese martial arts films referring to everyone as "honorable so-and-so", I think because that was how honorifics like -san or -sama were being translated. But in anime now, at least, they just leave all the honorifics alone because people know what they mean. I wonder if something like that is happening with the Thai translation, and whether, if Thai media becomes popular in English-speaking countries, if something like that will happen there too.
====
ETA: So it stays mostly the same through to the second half of episode three, but then there are serious consent issues being raised by Sam abusing the power imbalance between she and Mon. Worse than the work abuse. I'm going to have to think about whether I want to keep watching this. And for now, I'm off to bed.