O PANDA, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY

This is my comment in NINAMORI’s blog:
http://ninamori.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html

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This is my reply to Zeren in my blog:
http://celinejulie.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/imitation-of-life/

Hi, Zeren, since you mention the San Jose Cinequest Film Festival, I assume you are in USA, and may not know the Thai social context of the animation PANDA, so I would like to give you some information about it.

PANDA is about a psychopath panda bear going on a killing spree and he kills lots of penguins. I don’t know the real intention of the director of this film, but this film makes me think about the following things:

1.First, I think the director may want to satire the loveliness of pandas and penguins. The loveliness of penguins is made famous by the films MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (2005, Luc Jacquet, A+) and HAPPY FEET (2006, George Miller, A+/A), which international audience know well already.

2.As for the loveliness of pandas, I think some international audience may not know about this crazy thing in Thailand. I don’t know if the following things have some influences on the director of PANDA or not, but I think it is interesting to know anyway.

2.1 A few years ago, some pandas were brought to a zoo in Thailand. They are very lovely and the Thai media paid much attention to them.

2.2 Then the media paid attention to the question if the pandas would have sex with each other or not. The people hoped that the pandas would have babies, but before that they had to have sex with each other, but the pandas here seemed to be not enthusiastic about sex.

2.3 Then a Thai song became very very famous. It is called “ME PANDA” (PANDA BEAR) by Hairo, and the lyrics of the song is about a guy who wants to go to see the pandas in the zoo, wondering if they eat pizza like human beings. I think the song is totally silly but totally funny. Then many versions of this song were made, including a transvestite version !?!?
http://www.jabchai.com/main/view_joke.php?id=6622

2.4 I think the song ME PANDA might have inspired the director of the animation PANDA. The song ME PANDA is also the inspiration of another Thai hit song called FAMILY ME PANDA, by Nong Benz. The lyrics of the song are very funny, because the singer asks the panda couples not to commit adultery. The singer also prays that the child of the panda couples should not be a homosexual !?!?. I have ambiguous feelings for this song. Surely the song is kind of homophobic, but at least the song accepts the fact that a homosexual panda can be born naturally.

I think all of this is a useless fact, but the panda fever in Thailand makes me laugh. So I take this chance to write about it in my blog.