Dirty dancing leaves everyone in a spin

Describe the online community any way you want – powerful, fickle or suspicious – but, overnight, it has all but redeemed the most controversial Thai female teen singer of the hour and put a well-loved celebrity on a pillory of hatred and anger. Ja Turbo, whose real name is Nongpanee Mahadtai, had put on a show that made Michael Jackson’s crotch-grabbing move look like a teasing act in a parents’ day performance. The YouTube clip of her show has attracted 15 million views and counting. Naturally, she came under fire from left, right and centre. Until Woody came along, that is.
He invited “Nong Ja” to his show and asked some hard-hitting questions, some of which, critics say, were his own thinly-veiled commentaries. Woody was joined by two like-minded commentators who helped create an impression of holier-than-thou adults character assassinating a helpless teen who had been forced to be naughty and bitchy to stay competitive in a fierce nighttime entertainment business.
The rest, as they say, is history. The online world re-evaluated and then embraced her while turning against him. If the compassion showered upon Ja was amazing, the extreme hostility towards Woody was shocking. He has been cursed, scolded, scorned and virtually torn to pieces on YouTube. Tens of thousands of stinging feedbacks prompted the TV host to clarify his stand, which probably has made things worse.
In defending himself, Woody suggested that people should not judge him based on that one broadcast interview, where many things had to be taken into account. “If you ask me what I think of her personally, I like her a lot. But you have to understand that, on TV, you’ve got to keep your style in asking interview questions,” he said.
That was what Ja tried to say during the interview, albeit in a stammering, emotionally-stricken manner. After Woody said, “What got to me was the question why our country has this kind of woman”, she replied, her voice shaken, “It was just a show. It’s a job. An honest job. If I had been able to choose, I would not have chosen this kind of life. I’m not that good looking and I don’t sing that well. In this business, I needed to find a selling point.”
Misguided about a “selling point”, maybe, but what the audience saw was a naive girl being totally truthful about what she did and why she did it. My younger brother played in a pub band and I know exactly what she was talking about. When bands auditioned for contracts, the first thing prospective employers demanded was that female singers and dancers be scantily dressed. The dirtier the dance, the better the chance of getting the job. Like it or not, that’s the way things are.
“It doesn’t matter if you play like the Scorpions or are terrible as hell,” my brother told me. “The first thing a pub-owner is interested in is near nudity in your show. Every band now has to employ sexy singers who are not afraid to appear all but naked. The way Nong Ja is dressed in that video is a modest version of what’s been going on in various pubs around the country.”
Putting Nong Ja’s clip on YouTube does not expose her. It exposes what countless struggling young artists have to go through to stay afloat in the cutthroat entertainment business. The girls have to seduce to survive. Some of them are having fun in the process. Nong Ja was giggling while performing was what described during the Woody talk show as “the lowest form of art”.
Perhaps it’s too early to call the growing support for her in the online community a solid sign that Thai society is becoming far more liberal. Maybe Woody inadvertently helped turn it around for Nong Ja. She did not insist that it was the right thing to do. All she did was innocently ask for sympathy, and that might have been a straight shot to the heart. Public fire was redirected and it was Woody who had to bear the brunt of it. 
In his self-defence, Woody said viewers might not even have thoroughly watched the talk show before passing judgement. In her self-defence, Ja said that her controversial dance “did not reflect who I am”. In a world where judgement is passed increasingly quickly and easily, both of them are most likely right. Each, however, has a different lesson to learn.