The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.148  Wednesday, 4 April 2012

 

From:        Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Subject:     “Shakespeare Must Die” Banned in Thailand

 

[Editor’s Note: My older daughter Melissa passed this story on to me from the Huffington Post Online. –Hardy]

 

Thailand Bans ‘Shakespeare Must Die’: ‘Macbeth’ Film Adaptation Deemed Offensive

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/thailand-shakespeare-must-die_n_1402258.html

 

By Thanyarat Doksone 04/ 4/12 10:03 AM ET AP

 

BANGKOK — Thailand’s film censors have banned an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” saying it could inflame political passions in the country where it is taboo to criticize the monarchy.

 

The Thai-language film “Shakespeare Must Die” tells the story of a theater group in a fictional country resembling Thailand that is staging a production of “Macbeth,” in which an ambitious general murders his way to the Scottish throne.

 

One of the film’s main characters is a dictator named “Dear Leader,” who resembles former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose ouster in a 2006 coup sparked years of political turmoil between his supporters and critics.

 

Censors at the Culture Ministry issued a brief memo Tuesday saying that the film could not be distributed in Thailand because it “has content that causes divisiveness among the people of the nation.” The memo did not specify which scenes were deemed offensive.

 

But, Ing K., the film’s director, said the censorship committee objected to anti-monarchy overtones in the film as well as politically charged content, including a scene based on an iconic photo from Bangkok’s 1976 student uprising showing a demonstrator being lynched.

 

“The committee questioned why we wanted to bring back violent pain from the past to make people angry,” Ing K. said in an interview Wednesday. The censors also disliked the attire of a murderer in the film, who wore a bright red hooded cloak – the same color worn by the pro-Thaksin demonstrators known as the “Red Shirts.”

 

The director called the ruling “absurd” and a reflection of the fear in Thai society.

“I feel like we are heading to a very dark, dark place right now – a place full of fears and everyone has to be extra careful about what they say,” Ing said.

 

She said the character resembling Thaksin could represent any leader accused of corruption and abuse of power. “When Cambodians watch this they’ll think it’s Hun Sen. When Libyans watch it they would think it's Gadhafi,” she said.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Ing K. said she plans to appeal the ban.

 

Trailer available here: http://youtu.be/vd6JEk6Imco

 

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