I think my longest standing opinion about BL remains that SOTUS and SOTUS S are truly one of the greatest queer series ever made.
There have been very few series that have had more depth and nuance than SOTUS and its sequel. Also what i enjoyed about it was the way that it seemed to tackle important questions without assuming that it already knew the answer beforehand ?
SOTUS decided to use hazing as an entry point into a larger conversation about hierarchy and power structures in general, which was truly fascinating to watch. In fact we get shown many conflicting opinions on hazing in the show and all of them are treated, if not equally then atleast with an interest in understanding where they come from.
To start with , Kongpob is virulently anti hazing in SOTUS to the point that he's willing to fight against the entire power structure of his seniors no matter the personal repurcussions because to him hazing is an exploitative system. Arthit on the other hand is pro hazing and believes that if one sticks to the hierarchy and honors it, the system does protect you because thats been his experience with it. Kongpob on the other hand hates the system because it tries to over ride people who struggle to exist in it and his rebellion is more for others than himself because as is apparent Kong is the exact kind of person that the system ends up loving. He's charismatic and intelligent, well spoken and capable of rallying people around him. And yet he deviates from what everyone expects by caring more about how the people who struggle to find a place in the system deserve better than what they get.
SOTUS is all about how the system [ and even Arthit to an extent ] dont really understand what to make of Kongpobs insistence on equality and democracy and his brand of radical kindness and empathy that would have seemed very out of place both in Thailands [ and south asias] sociopolitical climate then. And while it is slightly weird to see Kongpob capitulate and become the head of the hazing squad after all of this in SOTUS S,we see also the nuanced reasons why he accepts the position as well.
Kongpob, like many before him believe, that maybe if someone with good intentions managed to infiltrate the system then they would be able to reform the system from the inside out. But while in many other pieces of media with the same approach the answer is either one of two extremes. Either that the system in itself is a corrupting influence and the person who tries to reform it instead becomes its greatest enforcer OR that you can actually change the system by superhuman feats of endeavour but for that you literally need a Messianic figure that comes once in a million years. However, in sotus s neither of the expected results occur.
Right off the bat, Kongpobs chapter as the head of the hazing squad is markedly different from every other version thats come before him. He is extremely interested in what his juniors have to say about the squad ; asking for feedback especially from the kind of people the system usually would have trodden underfoot . He allows space for dissent and doesnt let people misuse their position on the squad. He tries to find the gaps where the squad can help the freshman and tries to fiil them to the best of his capacity. Kongpob truly tries to show up for his juniors across the board and by the end of the show it is extremely clear that they love and appreciate him for it .
And yet it becomes very obvious by the end of the series that both Kongpob [and us ] are forced to come to the realization that exploitative and hierarchical power structures unfortunately are rotten to their core . And no amount of superficial and temporary fixes [ no matter how sweeping] will ever really be able to fix the actual rot of a system. It then becomes obvious that the only way forward is to break the system and build a new one , a better one from scratch. But SOTUS S allows this realization to come slowly and remain mostly as subtext.
SOTUS and SOTUS S are extraordinary because they remind us that our existence as queer people is interwoven with politics because we end being on the margins [ and sometimes completely outside ] of the legislative frameworks of society. So it becomes our moral obligation not only to reimagine the system for ourselves but for everyone else. SOTUS and SOTUS S remind us that queer love is inherently political and revolutionary ; which honestly isnt an angle that we even see talked about in many QLs anymore.
SOTUS was a sociopolitical queer show that happened to have a love story as its beating heart. Which is extraordinary because there have been barely any shows that have tried to ask the same kind of questions SOTUS and SOTUS S did back in 2016 even today , 10 years later.
SOTUS had the kind of heart that you cant replicate with a giant production budget. It was lightning in a bottle and God am I happy that I was around to watch it happen š„¹š„¹š„¹
Love these mfers though šš
[P.S this post was actually in reply to a fantastic post on sotus by @maybe-boys-do-love ; but tumblr kept eating my tags so i had no choice but to make my own post to get my thoughts out ššš]
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