There are many forms of violence in films with regard to culturally unique factors and differences in religion, or ethnic origin, which are expected to influence attitudes towards violence against women. In line with this context, film is a good source to study violence against women. This study examined violence against women in direct, structural, and cultural ways in ‘The Eternity’ (Chua Fa Din Sa Lai), a Thai film by Bhandevanop Dhevakul, a prominent Thai film director. A series of in-depth interviews with respondents was conducted in Thailand. The respondents were three policymakers, five academics, three NGO leaders, two film critics, two film directors, and a newspaper editor in Thailand. The data were analyzed thematically using the NVivo 10 software. This study discovered that violence against women persisted and was embedded in the film, which contained direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct violence appeared as raping, slapping, beating, and humiliation, while structural violence included inequality, primitive society, and power structure. Cultural violence was embedded as power acceptance, patriarchy, and marital bondage. The significance of this study is in providing a deeper understanding of the circumstances associated with violence against women in Thai films. This study may benefit the film industry and film classification by drawing attention to violence against women in films and thereafter minimizing it.

Introduction

Film is a medium with great potential as many people obtain their stories, narratives and myths from films (Kolker, 2006), and myths may come to be regarded as ‘natural’ or ‘real’ from watching films (Partridge & Hughes, 1998). From the onset, the influence of films on the audience has become an issue of attention. In this regard, Kolker (2006) and Louisyapong (2013) noted that films are not only entertainment. Moreover, there are many forms of violence in films with regard to culturally unique factors and differences in religion, or ethnic origin, which are expected to influence attitudes towards violence against women (Nayak, Byrne, Martin, & Abraham, 2003). Thus, film is a good source to study violence against women. In line with this, studies on representations of violence against women in films offer deeper analyses of the patterns or forms of violence that are found in films produced in the west or other countries (Bernard-Hoverstad, 2013). Problem Statement To study violence against women, better information on how various types of violence against women in different cultural settings and countries is required (Bernard-Hoverstad, 2013; Kilpatrick, 2004). Based on this premise, a deep exploration of the forms of violence towards women in different cultures and countries is required to understand them. According to Norsworthy and Khuankaew (2008), Schlein (2013), and The United Nations Children’s Fund’s (2000), Thailand is one of the countries that was reported to have a large number of cases of violence towards women. Therefore, this study analyzed and identified violence against women in Thai films as Thailand is a part of the world that has high levels of violence towards women. Due to the lack of information about several important aspects of violence against women (Kilpatrick, 2004), using broad definitions of violence against women is essential. However, from previous research on violence against women in the media, researchers employed definitions of sexual violence, and intimate partner violence to identify violence against women in media content (Carlyle, Scarduzio, & Slater, 2014; Cuklanz, 2000; Malamuth & Briere, 1986). It can be seen that previous studies focused on direct violence; however, structural violence and cultural violence have not been given sufficient attention. In order to establish a perspective on violence toward women, Galtung’s triangle of violence model, which divided violence into direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence was applied. Therefore, by studying violence against women in Thai films, using a model of Galtung’s violence to define violence, this paper presents a better understanding of the categories of violence against women, and the perspectives of respondents towards violence against women in film content.