On Documentary Film in Thailand

In September 2012, the strangest and longest-running Thai TV documentary show came to an end, to the dismay of many and the relief of others. The program had been aired non-stop, 24 hours a day, on a special cable channel, for nearly three years beginning in 2009. Viewed from an Animal Planet-inspired angle, it could be labeled a wildlife documentary featuring a family of caged animals; from a Warhol-filtered lens—though I doubt the producer had Andy in mind when he conceived it—it was an experimental exercise in extreme voyeurism, a cross-species surveillance of the most shameless kind, or maybe, just maybe, a fabulous parody of Big Brother.