Thai Movie Ban Shows Respect for King Supersedes Freedoms

BANGKOK, Thailand — The college student was looking through videos at a sidewalk stall in the Patpong red-light district, his eyes sweeping past stacks of X-rated films. Unable to find what he wanted, he whispered something to the vendor.

The vendor reached under the counter, glanced around to make sure no one was watching and handed a pirated disc to the student, who slipped it inside his shirt. The young Thai gave him a 100-baht note--about $3.50--and hurried away, aware that if he was caught with it he could face a 15-year prison sentence.

“This is hot, the hottest item around,” said Bhichai, the student, who asked that his full name remain confidential. “I want to see it. Then I’ll decide if it’s OK or not.”

What Bhichai carried under his shirt had no steamy scenes. In fact, it didn’t even contain a passionate embrace or an untoward glimpse of flesh. Indeed, 20th Century Fox’s “Anna and the King,” starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat, a Hong Kong actor best known for his action roles, is tame stuff for a city that embraces the pursuit of hedonism.

But the movie--banned by Thailand’s Film Censorship Board as historically inaccurate and insulting to the monarchy--has unleashed a firestorm of debate, not over its artistic merits but over whether it is appropriate for one of Southeast Asia’s most open, tolerant and democratic countries to dictate what Thais can read or watch.

In this case, most Thais say yes, protecting the monarchy’s image is more important than safeguarding media freedoms.

“I’m proud we’re a liberal, tolerant society,” said dentist Eakachai Chunhackeewachaloke, “but I think the government made the right decision. Educated people would understand this is a Hollywood production; uneducated people might not. They might be influenced by an inaccurate portrayal of our highest institution.”

The 1997 constitution guarantees freedom of the media. But the censorship board--six of whose 11 members are police officers--banned the showing or distribution of the film, a remake of the 1956 musical “The King and I,” under a 1930 statute forbidding anything that “disturbs the social order.”

Three people have been arrested for selling or buying the disc and could face charges of insulting the monarchy. Though the disposition of their cases has not been revealed, Thai media have reported that “it is known” that the king doesn’t want anyone convicted for offenses related to the film.

The 1956 original, which starred Yul Brynner as King Mongkut, portrayed the 19th century monarch as a pliable and uneducated buffoon.

But even Thais who have seen “Anna and the King,” often in Singapore, agree that Chow brings dignity, wisdom and manliness to the king’s character; that Thai culture is conveyed as being rich and deep; and that the landscape scenes are breathtakingly beautiful. (The movie was filmed in Malaysia because Thailand refused to let Fox shoot here.)

At the heart of the discomfort with “Anna” is that reverence for the monarchy and Buddhism is the glue of societal cohesion in Thailand, the only Southeast Asian nation never to have been colonized. The current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, 72, the ruler since 1946, is Mongkut’s great-grandson and venerated by Thais for his good deeds as well as his birthright.

The historical inaccuracies of the film are beyond debate. Anna Leonowens, a British widow who came to Siam, as Thailand was then known, in the mid-1800s to tutor Mongkut’s children, seldom saw the monarch, much less had him romance her. Nor, scholars say, did she influence Siam’s moves to end slavery, enter the international market or become a more modern society.

But she did, nearly 150 years after writing her diary, get the Thais asking important questions: Does a respected monarchy need to be protected by a law under which slandering the king is punishable by 15 years in prison? Should freedom of speech have limits? Why isn’t historical fiction an acceptable form of entertainment and education?

“People say, ‘Think of the money Thailand lost by not letting them film or show “Anna and the King” here,’ ” said censorship board member Patamawadee Jaruworn, a professor of film and a fierce advocate of media freedom who voted to ban the movie. “And I tell them, ‘Money’s fine, but we have to think of the dignity of our nation first.’ ”