Abhisit didn’t seem to mind when Insects in the Backyard got pulled by the censorship board under his premiership. (Maybe he doesn’t like men in dresses?) Nor did he come out and express his horror when Ing K’s film Shakespeare Must Die got censored by the same board under Yingluck’s premiership. (Maybe he doesn’t like strong women?) Nor did he lambast the 2006 military dictatorship when the board censored Apichatpong’s Syndromes and a Century. (Maybe he doesn’t like movies where not much happens at all?)

To be fair, Thaksin and Yingluck didn’t come out in spirited defense of those films either. Not a single prime minister did. But those were just movies; indie, arty movies. The kind that don’t even really need to be censored because they never get screened in the malls, the kind that are lucky to get a two-week run at House RCA and only get watched by two spotty students and a communist farang. They win the occasional major international film festival award, but who really cares back here in Bangkok?

That’s not to say there’s no appetite for cultural entertainment in the Kingdom. It’s only that we vastly prefer lakorn to cinema d’auteur. And when someone messes with a TV series, that’s it, they have our full, undivided attention—and, it seems, Abhisit’s, too, as he came out arguing that seeing the finale of Nua Mek 2 is our God-given constitutional right.

And this brings us to our suggestion du jour. We’d like the rules governing censorship to be revised so that they only apply to intellectual works created by artists severely lacking funds or the means to broadcast their art. Entertainment on national television would, on the other hand, be completely free of interference. Governed as it is by sponsorship and ad revenue, we’re convinced television remains perfectly wholesome entertainment no matter what. And when it’s the kind of brave, thought-provoking lakorn on show in Nua Mek 2, you know it’s high time to come out in its defense.
 

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