This is a rather late ask because I didn't really know how to articulate my thoughts, but I'll try my best because I really do want to hear what you have to say.
A while ago you made a post praising Poom Phuripan's acting, saying that he feels less like a manga uke and more like "a gay twink who stans Ariana Grande," and I wanted to know what you meant by that. Like, what makes the difference to you?Is it that the manga uke doesn't really act gay,
or maybe honestly doesn't even act like a person in general? Kind of like character archetypes such as the tsundere, where obviously you can write those characters really well, but other times they can fall into just being an archetype instead of feeling like an actual human being, if that makes sense.
I kind of have a similar critique of the possessive seme. There are definitely authors who write that type of character really well, but of the time they're written as this really suave, cool, hyper-masculine guy, and the writing kind of hyper-fixates on those traits of dominance and masculinity.
But because of that, the seme doesn't really feel like a character sometimes because they don't really focus on the more loser-ish or pathetic aspects of that kind of behavior. Like, sometimes the dude is basically just an incel. I think a lot of heterosexual romance does this with male leads too.
I know they probably write them that way because it reaches a wider audience and, obviously, it sells, but I also think it kind of reflects back onto the audience. Whenever a seme actually shows flaws that don't fit into that image or shows the setbacks of masculinity, dominance, or power, it suddenly becomes a lot harder to romanticize them, and people start acting like they're the worst person ever. So I guess I was wondering if that's kind of what you meant.
Like, when you said Poom feels more like a gay twink than a manga uke, were you talking about the fact that he feels like an actual person with his own personality and mannerisms rather than just embodying an archetype?
THIS QUESTION HAS ME VIBRATING WITH EXCITEMENT! THANK YOU!
So, a lot of people treat this manga style versus realistic style as an issue about dehumanization—and then take that to an ethical question about dehumanizing or fetishizing queer people. But I see it as a difference in genre!
Realism is a genre that is interested in depicting people with “psychological complexity,” meaning they are to be seen as holding both negative and positive traits and thoughts at once, and are often experiencing emotional conflict and contradiction. Many see this as a reflection of “reality,” but how do we know humanity’s always been like this lol and how do we know the genre isn’t influencing behavior, or perhaps that both the genre and our behavior aren’t both reflections of something else like the available technology in this historical moment? Basically, my point is that Realism and its depictions of people is a genre, not necessarily a truth about reality.
Now Japanese manga and its theater and cinema traditions are MUCH less focused on realism as a drama. BL specifically comes from shoujo manga, which follows a lot of similar rules to melodrama. Thai lakorn and kdramas are all operating within similar genre approaches, too. One of which is “flatter” and “exaggerated” characters. They can change their minds and behavior during the story, but at any single given moment they’re going to either be a good guy or a bad guy, not both. It’s simple, and the story’s rarely interested in a complicated reason why people are like that. And who’s to say we can’t go about real life with some of this simplicity (or we at least know some people who seem to)? These characters might have just one really defining character trait instead of a whole bunch. They’re archetypes, meant to be easily identifiable to the audience for maximum emotional impact. Which brings us to the uke archetype.
I actually hold the manga uke performance type I’m talking about here (although there’s actually quite a variety of uke types) in really high regard because it has developed a narrative approach to bring subjectivity to effeminate characters. I called these types of stories simplifying, but the ukes in BL mangas are the leads with the most complexity, and their feelings and thoughts are given the most weight and dynamics in the story! That just has barely happened in any kind of fictional media including gay fiction! These ukes receive the same treatment as their shoujo female lead counterparts, and that’s revolutionary!
The way this has been adapted into live-action performance is a very specific smiley, boyish and (literally) wide-eyed approach to acting the roles.
This isn’t inherently a bad thing. They are quickly conveying to the audience the innocence and vulnerability of the character with an unmistakable performance style—and this shoujo-like genre is supposed to use the quickest methods for conveying that information to the audience. Some might be more effective to you than others (Tonliew recently reignited my appreciation for the potential of the manga-uke in Fourever You: Beside the Sky), the style itself is not the problem. You have to be willing to accept that this genre has entirely different goals and methods to reach those goals in mind.
But, live-action has also found other approaches to the uke, which I made up a list for here. These rascals and seducers, etc. can avoid the effeminacy and naïveté of the manga uke that I’ve been laying out here. What I find so fascinating about Poom’s performances is that he’s not playing the other uke type characters. He’s pretty much playing everything that I’ve described above, he’s wide-eyed and smiley and so dumb, but somehow—perhaps it’s his age, perhaps it’s the contrast of his more masculine features and build—his performance remains in the realm of realism rather than exaggeration.
He fuses the realism and the archetype. Because, as much as we might value psychological complexity as a sign of “mature” media, and as much as ukes from manga BLs are a romantic fantasy, stupidly naive pretty boys are also a part of reality. Dumb twinks are real people with real feelings and problems. Poom portrays that. And not just in the most he gets to squeal. I’m talking about where his eyes go when his character’s thinking, or his head tilts, and even how his line readings sound. He makes his characters compelling and complicated without sanding down their daftness or their effeminacy. And I believe this derives from his acting work and not his own disposition because he doesn’t carry it into his interviews, and I’ve seen him play characters who aren’t like this at all. It’s just masterful to me and important as someone who values the treatment of effeminacy in media (and the ways it can impact viewers experiences of it in the world).
Someone ask me some other time to talk about some of the actors who do this fusion well with semes (which I think is more common than ukes), or you could just go ahead and let me know your own lists of such things!
