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THAI
VOLLEYBALL TEAM TRIUMPHS IN THE IRON LADIES
 In
1996 a mostly gay Thai volleyball team, the first of its kind,
won the national amateur championship. The Iron Ladies
(Sa-ree-lex), a film based on the story with clips
from some of the games as credits roll, won Audience Awards
for best feature film in the New York and San Francisco Lesbian
& Gay Film Festivals. Volleyball competition in Thailand
starts within various geographic districts and then progresses
to the national level. When the film begins, a very masculine
Mon (played by Sahaparp Virakamin) is disappointed that the
coach does not select him for the District 5 team because
he is gay. However, the coach becomes unavailable for unexplained
reasons, so the athletic coordinator names a replacement,
Bee (played by Siridhana Hongsophon), a lesbian. Bee insists
on selecting her own team, so everyone has to try out again.
Bee then picks Mon, several straight players, and a much more
effeminate gay, Jung (played by Chaichan Nimpoonsawas). The
macho straights, however, revolt, insisting that they will
not play with gays on the team. Bee then asks Mon and Jung
to recruit other gays, and they locate various friends, even
going to an army boot camp to get Sergeant Nong (played by
Giorgio Maiocchi) and to a gay cabaret for transsexual Pia
(played by Gokgorn Benjathikul, the only non-straight among
the main six characters). They round out the team with a straight
guy named Chai (played by Jessdaporn Pholdee) and a law student,
Wit (played by Ekachai Buranapanit), whose parents do not
know that their only son is gay. Bee then adds three effeminate
Buddhist monks, April, May, and June (played by Phromsit and
Suttipong Sittichumroenkhun and Anucha Chatkaew), as reserve
players. The point of the film is not just that gays can win
a national championship, but to focus on how gays fit into
Thai society, a theme that previously was a box office failure
in the Land of Smiles.
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[According
to Thai Buddhist beliefs, everyone is reincarnated, so gays
and lesbians must have done something very bad in a previous
life to be so punished that they do not fit into the norm.
Some Thais accept gays, others merely tolerate them, many
look down upon them, a very few are openly intolerant, but
there is very little gasbashing because of the view, intimated
in the film, that those with hostile attitudes may end up
gay or lesbian in the next life. Although two recent Thai
prime ministers are rumored to have been closeted gays, out-of-the-closet
gays and lesbians have been increasingly prominent in business
and sports within Thailand in recent years.] The Iron
Ladies, directed by Yongyoot Thongkongtoon, depicts
a range of attitudes and behaviors within the team, from masculinity
to femininity, but quite early we hear the view that gays
are especially blessed because they incorporate personality
characteristics of both sexes, not merely the bland components
of just one. Perhaps the major surprise in the film is how
straight people of all ages in Thailand are enormously amused
by the antics of the most effeminate, a contagion that passes
onto filmviewers quite early in the movie. When sports officials
are displeased that "real men" are not on the team,
Coach Bee retorts that true sportsmanship involves fair play,
and at one point the audience repeatedly chants "Iron
Ladies" to ensure that the team will not be disqualified.
Later, we view how Wit’s parents try to remove him from
the team after he appears on television; nevertheless, he
soon returns, determined to live his own life. We see how
transsexual Pia’s boyfriend Chat (played by Pakorn Vipatawat)
get engaged to a woman, bringing anguish to Pia, though Chat
later confesses his mistake to Pia. After the team does poorly
after team captain Chai tells those who wear make-up not to
do so, he relents and the team rebounds, showing that stripping
identity from effeminate gays robs them of their will to do
their best. The philosophical way in which gays rationalize
abuse is especially impressive, notably when Coach Bee remarks,
"Triumphing over yourself is the greatest triumph of
all." Frequently showing how the team draws strength
from Buddhist principles, The Iron Ladies may
well be the most profound film of all time to popularize the
virtues of Buddhism. The Political Film Society has nominated
The Iron Ladies as best film exposé of
the year and best film on human rights. MH
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