Thailand, Western Cinema, and Imagery: Misrepresentation, Exoticisation, and Reclamation

In this book, Andrew Russell explores Western media’s fascination with images of the East by focusing primarily on Thailand as a case study. Russell argues that Hollywood’s representation of Thailand still relies heavily on an Orientalist gaze filled with stereotypes that exoticise and eroticise both the country and its people. Furthermore, he also addresses the impact this has had on Thai filmmakers, who have at times utilised a process of erasure by reducing national specificity in their films to prime them for global export, building on previously successful waves from other areas of Asia, like the J-Horror cycle, that made way for their inclusion in the Western marketplace. Despite these trends, however, this book finds that Thai filmmakers are reclaiming the imagery of their country and people in the arthouse sector, utilising critically divisive slow cinema aesthetics to address pertinent allegorical content. Ultimately, this book argues that through an understanding of the context and culture of production, we can gain new understanding of important political, factual, and artistic history that reveals a unique version of Thailand not previously seen on Western screens. Scholars of film studies, Asian studies, cultural studies, and history will find this book of particular interest.

Andrew Russell is lecturer in the School of Film, Media, and Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth.