Slap & Kiss Dramas and What Makes Them So Popular

by Ceki, November 22, 2015

Slap and Kiss Dramas

and What Makes Them So Popular?

WARNING: this article contains sensitive and mature content! Beware if you find violence of any kind too disturbing!

Hello there! Let's explore the world of dramas that belong to the Slap and Kiss genre and some of my theories on what makes them so popular nowadays. This article is closely related to my previous one: Patriarchy, Abuse and Gender Roles which deals with condoned abuse in Asian dramas in general.

Slap and Kiss dramas? What are they exactly?

Believe it or not, slap and kiss dramas have evolved into a genre of their own. They are mostly exclusive to Thai lakorns (popular soap operas in Thailand) but they are not uncommon in other Asian dramas as well. Of course, this trope is not restricted to Asian entertainment industry only but let's focus on it for now.

The phrase "slap and kiss" tells you everything: it is about a love-hate relationship (mostly revenge-oriented) in which couples bicker, fight, argue, and then end up kissing or having sex (I would rather call it being raped because the woman is usually being forced by the guy). Their hate relationship begins due to a misunderstanding or simply because one of them is a douche-bag; goes through the phase of slapping/raping and kissing and ends up with the couple being married and having their "happily ever after". Tragedies are not so common but also not impossible.

New Tales of Gisaeng

There are two types:

01. Slap then kiss

A guy gets slapped first for either saying something nasty or doing something in the past and after that he kisses the girl or she kisses him. It is believed that the adrenaline and rage lead to passion and lust and at that moment the couple realizes their love. It is less common than:

02. Kiss then slap

As shown in these gifs, it is usually the guy who forcefully kisses the girl and then gets a slap. He's kissing either to punish her or to vent his frustrations and lust while the girl slaps him to defend herself. A romantic way to show male dominance over female purity, don't you think?

Piang Chai Khon Nee Mai Chai Poo Wised

What Makes Them So Popular?

Theory 1:

Having in mind that passionate scenes which include sexual content are 99% forbidden on Asian channels, people tend to root for the ones that allow such content, even in its violent form. Asian entertainment industry is still pretty much patriarchal and the women who are passionate and who openly show their needs are usually looked upon or portrayed as villains in dramas.

Therefore, the only way to portray physical intimacy would be to have a man force himself upon a woman so she would still keep her role of being pure while he would get satisfied. To sum up, when a heroine is forced upon, she can pass off as being "pure" and "innocent" while providing the sexual thrill at the same time. This kind of disguise won't be needed anymore once the society, especially women, start to accept the fact that sexuality is normal.

Theory 2:

Many believe that hate is not the opposite of love but of apathy. A couple's constant bickering is interpreted as frustration due to some kind of misunderstanding, which results in lust (the examples would be all of the gifs in this article).

But is that reason/excuse enough for violence and abuse? Whether it's directed towards a male or female, it is always destructive for a healthy relationship and it tends to repeat. Is it really okay to forcefully kiss someone in order to show that person how you may or may not feel? Is that the only way to interpret lust and physical intimacy in dramas?

Theory 3:

There is probably a minority of those who actually really enjoy violence or perhaps do not mind it and see it as romantic and normal. Just as there are those who enjoy gore movies, there are also those who like violent domestic stuff, I guess.

Theory 4:

Probably all of these theories blended together.

My opinion:

Even though some would say that these slaps are deserved, I beg to differ and to say that violence should be used only in self-defense or as a foreplay between couples who enjoy it; and we should not have double standards and say that as long as the woman is slapping the man, that makes it okay. However, in most of these dramas the woman is mostly physically assaulted so she slaps the guy in rage and self-defense. The guy usually does it only out of rage and frustration. I can watch them out of curiosity but I do not find them romantic and normal.

Consequences

A normal human being should be able to differentiate between fiction and reality, however, we know that is not always the case. When you see a specific way of behavior that gets repeated throughout the years, you tend to normalize it unconsciously in your mind, especially if you are young and your critical thinking is not developed at all. Therefore, being fed with constant scenes in which abuse is condoned as romantic (since most of them get married, have kids, and the poor ones become rich), one may get easily manipulated into thinking that it is okay to normalize such behavior.

The simple format of such dramas makes their audience shy away from normal critical thinking, which, according to some Thai critics, even contributed to bad political scene because people have become "dumb" in a way and unable to think critically and for themselves.