Death in Thai Ghost Films from the Decade of 2550s B.E. to the Early Decade of 2560s B.E.

Abstract

        Death seemed to be neglected in the past, but today death significantly becomes part of cinematic storylines. Drawing on a notion of cultural studies, film constructs a meaning of death with social power. Therefore, from my narrative analysis of 12 film texts from the decade of 2550s B.E. to the early decade of 2560s B.E., this research project reveals how Thai ghost films ideologically represent death.

        My analysis found that Thai ghost movies can be divided into three groups of subgenres: (1) ghost films about a committed suicide; (2) ghost films about murder; and (3) ghost films about a new value of death. Portraying death to be scary, the first and second groups indicate that if any apparent character commits suicide or is murdered, (s)he will become a spooky ghost. The film language always uses a setting that is dark, dull, shadowy, and gloomy. However, any love-based or gratitude-based suicide will be more acceptable. As for the third group, the plotlines can also be categorized into 3 subgroups: (1) ghosts with sex, disease, and politics; (2) ghosts with resistance to sexual power; and (3) ghosts with youth subcultural power. All these three types of ghost characters communicate a new value of death, suggesting that death does not mean termination; that death is intertwined happily with living people; that death is colorful; and that death is socially constructed. In this sense, with the use of cinematic language, settings are imagined to be bright and lively with a slow-speed camera movement, a use of humor and a symbolization of death.

        Death in films is represented and divided into 12 categories in three groups. In the first group, death is viewed to be negative and horrifying; namely, (1) painfulness, being tortured and scariness, (2) a way to escape from suffering, (3) loss and being departed, (4) suicide with revenges, and (5) power of vengeances. In the second group, death is signified positively; namely, (6) being devoted to love and gratitude, and (7) death by nature. And in the last group, a new value of death is represented as: (8) an intertwinement between dead and living people, (9) romantic love, (10) colorful death, (11) living with suffering from being hated, and (12) symbolized death.

        The representation of death in films reproduces and maintains 4 ideologies: (1) dominant ideologies, e.g., Buddhism, animism, moralism, hybridity between traditional and new death; (2) ideologies about persons, e.g., sex, youth, love, family; (3) ideologies about society, e.g., nationalism, politics, economy, heath; and (4) cinematic ideology. While different subgenres of ghost films evidently define death in a different way, the representation of death is still based on film industry and social practices to a certain extent.