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yourpintilts · 9 months

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Only Friends and Genre Theory

Well - I guess I'll start this blog off with post about everyone's (my) favorite series (it literally has not aired yet) of 2023: Only Friends.

Recently, the nominees for the ContentAsia awards were released, and my friends and I were celebrating the nomination of The Eclipse for Best LGBTQ+ Show (yay!) when a really interesting topic arose. Someone pointed out that Jojo Tichakorn's Never Let Me Go was chosen over The Warp Effect, which they felt was his better work in 2022. Regardless of your opinion on that (though, I agree), we wondered if The Warp Effect is even eligible at all. Of course, the category is LGBTQ+ Shows, but every single nominee is a BL.

I've noticed, in my perusing of BL Twitter and Tumblr that most fans seem to differentiate between BL, lakorns/dramas, and the LGBTQ+ genre, but nobody seems to define them. They are designating the genre by, for lack of a better word (although I consider it pretty accurate), the vibes.

I've seen the off-handed "I wonder what genre it will be" or "It seems like Jojo is leaning away from BL with this series" comment more than once about Only Friends. And really, it's hard to say at all when all we have is a trailer and cryptic social media posts from the cast and crew, but, uh, I'm gonna try. Sort of.

So, let's get into it: Is Only Friends going to be a BL, drama, an LGBTQ+ show, or something else entirely?

Alright, before we get into trying to put a label on the series, let's talk about the labels themselves: it's Genre Theory time!

So, what is genre? Well, most of us would consider it to be the category that we put a type of media or art into: country music, romance novels, etc. Genres help us differentiate amongst the huge sea of art, find patterns and create links between work, and, most practically, help us decide if we will likely enjoy something or not.

Normally, it's not much more complicated than that. Sci-fi, drama, noir, biography - each of these gives you a basic idea of what you're getting into, what tropes you might expect, or how you might feel while consuming it. But film theorists will be film theorists, and it's not actually that simple.

Let's take the horror genre as an example. At its face, we define films as horror because they follow certain tropes and patterns: things like jump scares, the final girl, dark and saturated style, slashers and paranormal, etc. But what about movies like Parasite or Get Out? These films rely less on jump scares and physical horror - it's their concepts themselves that are so scary. And so this is where sub-genres come in, in which Parasite and Get Out are labeled as psychological horror to further define them. And then there are films that just... don't seem to be anything at all. Something like (because I recently watched it) In Bruges, which mixes crime, drama, and comedy, but also never fully leans in to any of them. It sort of defies genre altogether.

So, that's the gist of genre theory. Basically, the point is that sometimes you can put a film or other piece of art in a category, and sometimes you can't.

But, let's be honest. We don't care about other movies. Let's talk about sexy, spectacular, groundbreaking masterpiece that will be Only Friends, and how we can apply genre theory in order to try to figure out what label best fits.

There are several different indicators of a BL, and Only Friends does fit some of them:

Most straightforwardly: the primary story in a BL is a relationship between two male characters. Of course, in this case there are six male leads (and who knows how many different pairings... TopSan, NickSan, RayBoston, and more have their advocates, some even seem likely), but the point is that the series is focused on their relationships together. Along with this, two of the three primary couples - ForceBook and FirstKhaotung - featured in the show are official pairings at GMMTV. BLs nearly always feature couples who have worked or will work together in multiple shows.

The series is also being produced by GMMTV, a company well-known for its stake in the BL genre, and it follows the logistical style of a 12-episode limited series.

But in several other ways, the show is in direct opposition to many of the components of BL. Some may not be intentional, or hard and fast "rules," but they occur so often that they are undeniably associated with BL as a genre.

As mentioned above, two of the lead couples are official pairings, but the other isn't. In fact, Neo and Mark both auditioned for their roles in Only Friends, and Director Jojo Tichakorn has spoken about his intention in casting them: to divert the expectation of clear masculine/feminine and top/bottom roles in queer relationships. The "seme" and "uke" trope, designating who gives and receives sexually (and usually indicating personality and relationship dynamics), has been pervasive in BL. It panders to the homophobic notion that queer relationships must still follow heteronormative standards. With NeoMark - and, as I believe, with all of the relationships in the series - Jojo will subvert that standard.

Also, Only Friends has a not insignificant amount of openly queer people writing, directing, etc. for the show. This certainly isn't the first time this has happened, but since BL began as a genre made by women and for women, Only Friends seems determined to be a series by queer people and for queer people.

And, because we've already established genre is not black and white, there are other aspects of Only Friends that blur the lines of its BL status. Only Friends seems to be much darker, grittier, and realistic the typical dramedy BL. We already know we will see smoking, drug use, sex, cheating, and according to Jojo, this is only scratching the surface. But, of course, the BL genre has evolved as of late, giving us shows like KinnPorsche, which also delve into such topics. So, while BL is largely more comedic and lighthearted, a darker series still can fit the genre.

Of course, there are many other characteristics of BL that Only Friends exhibits and opposes - I could be here forever if I wanted to list every single one, but we have less than a week until episode one, and personally, I want to watch the trailer a thousand more times before Saturday. So hopefully these examples gave you enough of an idea that Only Friends sort of straddles the line of BL (but also that BL itself is incredibly difficult to define, especially as it continues to evolve).

What about the LGBTQ+ genre - can Only Friends better be defined by this? Likely, yes, but my answer is so because the LGBTQ+ genre itself is even vaguer than BL.

(Some even argue that it isn't a genre at all. That's a post for another time.)

Shows labeled as LGBTQ+ are often done so because of a few defining characteristics, usually occurring at the same time: the show features LGBTQ+ characters, depicts LGBTQ+ themes (coming-of-age, acceptance, found family, etc), and is broadly accepted as such by the queer community. Only Friends certainly does the first two, but the third might be a bit trickier than it seems. With the divide between the LGBTQ+ and BL genres, some audiences will argue it fits one over the other.

And perhaps there are some important differences: the LGBTQ+ genre exists on an international scale, with media added to the queer canon from all over the world. Comparatively, I'm not sure I can think of a show outside of Asia that has been labeled as a BL. The LGBTQ+ genre does tend to be more diverse in gender and sexuality than the typical gay male leads in BL, too - BL does stand specifically for Boys' Love while LGBTQ+ encompasses any form of queerness.

But if we're focusing on these standards, I think Only Friends checks these boxes as well. The show seems to clearly be a test for a less conservative international market. And it is more diverse than just gay male leads; Namchueam is sapphic, Jojo has indicated that Ray is bisexual, and Yo is played by Jennie, a trans woman. Sure, there can always be more diversity, but this is absolutely a step forward compared to past, and many current, GMMTV series.

After positioning Only Friends next to the BL genre, then the LGBTQ+ genre, I would love to be able to make a judgment and wrap this all up in a neat little bow.

Actually, that's a lie. I don't want to do that - I am the complicated film theorist I was talking about before. So, it's a good thing I can't, isn't it?

Ultimately, Only Friends is a show that is here to break boundaries, to subvert expectations, to give us something we've never seen before in Thai, or maybe even international, entertainment. It would be an injustice to the series to try to put it in a box, to ignore its little nuances out of convenience.

It doesn't matter whether Only Friends is a BL or LGBTQ+ drama. We should be looking at the show holistically, taking it in as it is rather than through the lens of the things we come to expect from a specific genre. Genre can be useful, yes, but we can't get too held up on applying it where it may not be productive.

And yet (plot twist!), it sort of... does matter? It matters, not in the sense of changing what the show is, but changing the way we perceive and discuss it. The implications that come with a BL series are different than those of an LGBTQ+ series, even though both genres are difficult to define and are ever-changing.

The conversations we have about how innovative Only Friends is, its place in Asian versus international culture, whether it can be considered a success or not, if it's "good" representation and who gets to decide that... all of that is a product of the genre we label a series with. And I'm not really here to argue whether that is a good or a bad thing; like I said, genre can be useful, and fun - there's a reason specific genres remain popular! What I hope this post sparks is external and internal conversation about why we label, and how that might do a service and/or disservice to the media we engage with. Think about the way that you, personally, want to interact with Only Friends and shows like it, accept it, and then challenge it.

#thai bl #firstkhao #forcebook #neomark #only friends #only friends series #gmmtv

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