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Bed Friend Should’ve Been Put To Sleep
Two things I honestly can’t believe: 1) My first review is going to be on this drama and 2) I sat through all of the episodes.
First things first: If you love this drama but are close minded, don’t read further because you won’t like what I have to say. However, if you love this drama but are open to seeing it's flaws (imo), please proceed. And finally, on the contrary to both, if you absolutely hate this series, either don’t waste your time reading or see how many things we agreed on. Got it? Good. Let's get messy because god, this drama is. (spoilers ahead for Bed Friend, Tharntype, and Love In The Air)
Important note: The rest of this review contains mentions of multiple forms of ab*se. If you are not comfortable with that topic, I don't recommend proceeding.
It's dramas like Bed Friend, Tharntype, and Love In The Air that are the best contenders and biggest examples for one of the many problems in the BL film industry (specifically Thai BLs) and whose obsessive fans make me lose faith in…well, just about everything. That problem, while shockingly is hard for some (the fans) to pick up on, is the masking of SA and/or using SA as a means of characterization, not development. Now, now, don’t come at me and say that Tharn, Sky, and Uea were SA’d for a deeper reason because to the lengths that these series go to continuously bring up the assault (not that it is to be ashamed of, but the show doesn’t do anything respectable with it) is insane. Ex. 1) In Tharntype, Type tells Tharn about his SA experience and they grow closer; only by this point, the viewer probably forgot that just a few episodes before, Tharn SA’d Type at night in their dorm room. Viewers might have missed this if they don’t fully understand what SA can look like—it happens in different forms. 2) In Love In The Air, after Prapai stalked Sky and they finally got together, Sky was tricked by his ab*sive ex-boyfriend into seeing him again. After Prapai saves him, Sky tells him what happened in his past relationship, and the show depicts multiple scenes of the ab*se that are certainly hard to watch (seriously, what was that for? we just watched another scene of his ex attempting to SA him and they proceed to show us more?). While these are not the same shows, it proves that toxic and flawed depictions of how shows deal with assault is continuing and increasing. I could go into more detail, but for times sake of both you and me, I'll just focus on Bed Friend from this point forward.
Uea is our *main* main character. Most of the story is seen through his point of view with flashbacks from his past and he gets most of the screen time. He seems to not like socializing too much, but he does when needed due to his job and his friend, Jade. He likes to avoid being the center of attention, he’s not confrontational, and he keeps his feelings and problems to himself. He’s suffered through a multitude of ab*se (like being locked in a bathroom by his mother, be*ten by his mother, attempted SA from uncle twice) that is still ongoing (financial ab*se from mother, attempted SA from his ex-boyfriend, predatory relationship with his boss and mental abuse when he sees his uncle during visits home). It is easy to feel empathy for Uea, pain for his situation, and hope that he meets someone very deserving of him.
But instead we got King. King, a fellow co-worker of Uea, is masked as Uea’s saving angel, the one good thing in his world, his knight in shining armor, his escape from his dark and damaging past, etc. You get the point. Therein lies my previous point of masking SA: You know how their relationship really kicks off? A one night stand. With Uea. Who was drunk…. What was the reason? What was the reason?! Uea was clearly concerned, guilt ridden, confused, and distraught as we see him wake up next to a sleeping King. Not something I personally wanted for our love interests to start their, well, love. For a show that had a character go through the amount of trauma that Uea did up until this point (and more comes later), you would think (I guess, hope) that he would be a promoter for self-advocacy, body autonomy, and overall thought-out decision making when it came to something as personal and deep as sexual intimacy. And maybe he would be, but we never see this thanks to King and Uea being drunk. While the show tried to make it seem like Uea initiated the event (King stayed a little too close to Uea on the bed, imo), it doesn’t matter because King says “you’re really drunk” to him, and they proceed to do the deed?!? Knowing he isn’t sober?!?!! Bye. I should have checked out after this but instead, I got in too deep and needed to see how this series would fall apart and disappoint me more.
I know people are probably screaming at me saying, “King was the causality for Uea’s healing! King saves Uea from other assaults so many times! King blah blah yadda yadda yo gabba gabba.” Maybe, sure. Even so, I so deeply wish they took this into a different direction. Uea’s “healing” is now not a result of his recognition of his self-worth or his realization that one shouldn’t deal with his circumstances alone, but instead because of a friends-with-benefits relationship that he started because he was lonely and hurt by his ex-boyfriend cheating on him and who later tries to SA him so he uses these feels, WHILE DRUNK, as the motivator to sleep with King?!?! WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO SAY HERE, MANDEE CHANNEL?? PLEASE, HELP ME UNDERSTAND BC I. DON'T GET. IT.
The SA scenes aren’t a plot point (a moment in your story that impacts the character or the direction of the story in some way) or a plot device (a storytelling tool or technique that is used to propel a narrative). It’s…there isn’t even a storytelling-based word to describe it other than unnecessary. The directors and writers clearly are obsessed with inducing a shock factor but what such an act truly does is degrade the potential meaningful message of the story. It was impactful, but in the worst of ways. (Would have been "better" if it only happened once (like with the uncle) and that being the sole message surrounding Uea's character: you are not the bad thing that happened to you.)
Okay, taking a breather for a sec…side note: UEA'S AB*SE ISN’T EVEN MENTIONED IN THE SYNOPSIS. Viewers (myself included) most likely went into this series expecting an office romance with enemies-to-lovers, but what we got was a sorry excuse for chemistry, acting, an actual deep plot, a logical narrative, and we got the use of ab*se for shock. If you resort to consistently using ab*se to make your reader feel SOMETHING good for your character, I suggest- no I BEG you to switch out of a writing career. With the three drama’s I mentioned before, and more that I am sure are currently in production, we really don’t need to see more media with this narrative.
Okay, sorry, my review is getting a bit long so time to speedrun this (plus I don’t want to give this any more energy):
Transitions:
Some of the transitions feel SO. AWKWARD. The characters either say too much, too little, or there’s an awkward pause (I literally watched the last 3 eps on 2x speed). Also, sometimes, what characters are saying makes me think I missed a whole thing of dialogue. It could be because I’m watching it in English, but idk (ex. Uea and King’s argument in ep 7).
Cinematography:
The cinematography is the pinnacle of average. The only pretty shot was the beach scene at the end of ep 4 and beginning of ep 5.
Acting:
It's not great. It’s not the worst I’ve seen. But it’s not great. Sadly, the only actor that had a very good performance was Uea’s younger self (everyone else kinda pissed me off).
Conclusion:
I'm giving this series a 1.5: A 1 because I can't go any lower, but a + .5 because Uea’s younger self did very well in his role.
While I ask that viewers stray from this series so we are not increasing views therefore increasing these half-baked/toxic relationships and gaslighting stories anymore, I can’t stop you. So, if you do end up sitting through 420 minutes aka 7 hours aka 10, 42 minute episodes, don’t simply waste your time and, instead, reflect on the content you are consuming, how it aligns with you, what you’re watching it for (emphasis!!), and think about who or what does this really benefit.
If you made it this far, I deeply apologize for making you think about this series any longer. I'm going to throw myself off a cliff, pray I live but wake up with amnesia so I forget this series. Bye! xx
First things first: If you love this drama but are close minded, don’t read further because you won’t like what I have to say. However, if you love this drama but are open to seeing it's flaws (imo), please proceed. And finally, on the contrary to both, if you absolutely hate this series, either don’t waste your time reading or see how many things we agreed on. Got it? Good. Let's get messy because god, this drama is. (spoilers ahead for Bed Friend, Tharntype, and Love In The Air)
Important note: The rest of this review contains mentions of multiple forms of ab*se. If you are not comfortable with that topic, I don't recommend proceeding.
It's dramas like Bed Friend, Tharntype, and Love In The Air that are the best contenders and biggest examples for one of the many problems in the BL film industry (specifically Thai BLs) and whose obsessive fans make me lose faith in…well, just about everything. That problem, while shockingly is hard for some (the fans) to pick up on, is the masking of SA and/or using SA as a means of characterization, not development. Now, now, don’t come at me and say that Tharn, Sky, and Uea were SA’d for a deeper reason because to the lengths that these series go to continuously bring up the assault (not that it is to be ashamed of, but the show doesn’t do anything respectable with it) is insane. Ex. 1) In Tharntype, Type tells Tharn about his SA experience and they grow closer; only by this point, the viewer probably forgot that just a few episodes before, Tharn SA’d Type at night in their dorm room. Viewers might have missed this if they don’t fully understand what SA can look like—it happens in different forms. 2) In Love In The Air, after Prapai stalked Sky and they finally got together, Sky was tricked by his ab*sive ex-boyfriend into seeing him again. After Prapai saves him, Sky tells him what happened in his past relationship, and the show depicts multiple scenes of the ab*se that are certainly hard to watch (seriously, what was that for? we just watched another scene of his ex attempting to SA him and they proceed to show us more?). While these are not the same shows, it proves that toxic and flawed depictions of how shows deal with assault is continuing and increasing. I could go into more detail, but for times sake of both you and me, I'll just focus on Bed Friend from this point forward.
Uea is our *main* main character. Most of the story is seen through his point of view with flashbacks from his past and he gets most of the screen time. He seems to not like socializing too much, but he does when needed due to his job and his friend, Jade. He likes to avoid being the center of attention, he’s not confrontational, and he keeps his feelings and problems to himself. He’s suffered through a multitude of ab*se (like being locked in a bathroom by his mother, be*ten by his mother, attempted SA from uncle twice) that is still ongoing (financial ab*se from mother, attempted SA from his ex-boyfriend, predatory relationship with his boss and mental abuse when he sees his uncle during visits home). It is easy to feel empathy for Uea, pain for his situation, and hope that he meets someone very deserving of him.
But instead we got King. King, a fellow co-worker of Uea, is masked as Uea’s saving angel, the one good thing in his world, his knight in shining armor, his escape from his dark and damaging past, etc. You get the point. Therein lies my previous point of masking SA: You know how their relationship really kicks off? A one night stand. With Uea. Who was drunk…. What was the reason? What was the reason?! Uea was clearly concerned, guilt ridden, confused, and distraught as we see him wake up next to a sleeping King. Not something I personally wanted for our love interests to start their, well, love. For a show that had a character go through the amount of trauma that Uea did up until this point (and more comes later), you would think (I guess, hope) that he would be a promoter for self-advocacy, body autonomy, and overall thought-out decision making when it came to something as personal and deep as sexual intimacy. And maybe he would be, but we never see this thanks to King and Uea being drunk. While the show tried to make it seem like Uea initiated the event (King stayed a little too close to Uea on the bed, imo), it doesn’t matter because King says “you’re really drunk” to him, and they proceed to do the deed?!? Knowing he isn’t sober?!?!! Bye. I should have checked out after this but instead, I got in too deep and needed to see how this series would fall apart and disappoint me more.
I know people are probably screaming at me saying, “King was the causality for Uea’s healing! King saves Uea from other assaults so many times! King blah blah yadda yadda yo gabba gabba.” Maybe, sure. Even so, I so deeply wish they took this into a different direction. Uea’s “healing” is now not a result of his recognition of his self-worth or his realization that one shouldn’t deal with his circumstances alone, but instead because of a friends-with-benefits relationship that he started because he was lonely and hurt by his ex-boyfriend cheating on him and who later tries to SA him so he uses these feels, WHILE DRUNK, as the motivator to sleep with King?!?! WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO SAY HERE, MANDEE CHANNEL?? PLEASE, HELP ME UNDERSTAND BC I. DON'T GET. IT.
The SA scenes aren’t a plot point (a moment in your story that impacts the character or the direction of the story in some way) or a plot device (a storytelling tool or technique that is used to propel a narrative). It’s…there isn’t even a storytelling-based word to describe it other than unnecessary. The directors and writers clearly are obsessed with inducing a shock factor but what such an act truly does is degrade the potential meaningful message of the story. It was impactful, but in the worst of ways. (Would have been "better" if it only happened once (like with the uncle) and that being the sole message surrounding Uea's character: you are not the bad thing that happened to you.)
Okay, taking a breather for a sec…side note: UEA'S AB*SE ISN’T EVEN MENTIONED IN THE SYNOPSIS. Viewers (myself included) most likely went into this series expecting an office romance with enemies-to-lovers, but what we got was a sorry excuse for chemistry, acting, an actual deep plot, a logical narrative, and we got the use of ab*se for shock. If you resort to consistently using ab*se to make your reader feel SOMETHING good for your character, I suggest- no I BEG you to switch out of a writing career. With the three drama’s I mentioned before, and more that I am sure are currently in production, we really don’t need to see more media with this narrative.
Okay, sorry, my review is getting a bit long so time to speedrun this (plus I don’t want to give this any more energy):
Transitions:
Some of the transitions feel SO. AWKWARD. The characters either say too much, too little, or there’s an awkward pause (I literally watched the last 3 eps on 2x speed). Also, sometimes, what characters are saying makes me think I missed a whole thing of dialogue. It could be because I’m watching it in English, but idk (ex. Uea and King’s argument in ep 7).
Cinematography:
The cinematography is the pinnacle of average. The only pretty shot was the beach scene at the end of ep 4 and beginning of ep 5.
Acting:
It's not great. It’s not the worst I’ve seen. But it’s not great. Sadly, the only actor that had a very good performance was Uea’s younger self (everyone else kinda pissed me off).
Conclusion:
I'm giving this series a 1.5: A 1 because I can't go any lower, but a + .5 because Uea’s younger self did very well in his role.
While I ask that viewers stray from this series so we are not increasing views therefore increasing these half-baked/toxic relationships and gaslighting stories anymore, I can’t stop you. So, if you do end up sitting through 420 minutes aka 7 hours aka 10, 42 minute episodes, don’t simply waste your time and, instead, reflect on the content you are consuming, how it aligns with you, what you’re watching it for (emphasis!!), and think about who or what does this really benefit.
If you made it this far, I deeply apologize for making you think about this series any longer. I'm going to throw myself off a cliff, pray I live but wake up with amnesia so I forget this series. Bye! xx
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