Creativity that leaves one agog

They're trying to drill into our heads a new buzzword: Creative economy. And we're being lulled into joining in the government's reverie that Thailand will now produce celebrated fashion designers, famous chefs, star singers, Cannes-winning filmmakers, four consecutive Miss Universe winners, etc.

We will become, as promised by Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot, "the hub of creative industry in Asean", and the government will "enhance the economic value of creative industry from 12 to 20% of GNP by 2012".

To accomplish all that - and in just three years! - the Abhisit administration earmarked 5 billion baht in September to develop human resources and infrastructure.

Great. It will be a lavish buffet table.

In truth, Thailand has already produced celebrated fashion designers whose clothes are slung from the racks of Parisian boutiques, star chefs with booked-out restaurants abroad, and Cannes-calibre directors who are continually persecuted by the conservative cultural agencies.

The government is right when it says the big money to be spent on the creative industry will focus on developing human resources, but what's scary is whether they have a clear idea how to do it. Whether they realise that to encourage the environment of flowering creativity, they need to open the valves and let the juices flow, or that no matter how they devise a populist term for it, the gist of the whole "creative content" project is to give importance to artists and their art. And, most importantly, whether the state realises that they cannot measure the success solely on the financial returns, especially within the span of just three years.

A naked example of the authority's confusion - or is it cluelessness? - about this whole creative brouhaha is the fact that at least two movies have been censored, and one banned, in the past two weeks despite the new ratings system and the promise of "creative freedom".

Look at the new Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in Pathumwan, which is labouring to get a firm footing. Some ministers still pine for a TV series based on the premise of Tom Yum Goong even though Korea has forgotten about Dae Jung Guem and already moved on.

And please, I'm tired of having to repeat to the Tourism Authority of Thailand for the 153rd time that the Bangkok International Film Festival is NOT ranked ninth on the list of the world's biggest film festivals. Creativity has a lot to do with imagination, but sir, not delusion.

To begin with, how can we foster the creative atmosphere amid primitive-minded censorship? Don't the two concepts cancel each other out?

Frighteningly, it's political content that pricks the censors even more than iced nipples, proving that the concept of critical art is not permitted here in this awesomely creative land.

A new Thai horror film Haunted Universities (I know the title doesn't give us great hope about the creative industry, but anyway) was ordered to cut two shots that show a soldier shooting at university students in an event that refers to the Oct 14 uprising, which left the university haunted.

Despite the new ratings system, the Culture Ministry's committee demanded the scene be cut, or else the film would be banned since the shots threatened "national security". Can you top that? So the shootings never occured? Blindfold yourself, not us.

Then two days ago, a Thai film This Area Is Under Quarantine was banned, again, mainly for its inclusion of the footage of the Tak Bai incident (this footage, however, has been available at flea markets everywhere in this country for years).

The filmmaker is Thunska Pansittivorakul, who was honoured as Silpathorn Artist by the Culture Ministry itself two years ago, and thus the ban exposes the cultural hypocrisy as well as the flaws of the new Film Act.

Thunska's movie, a provocative melange that deals with gay and Muslim issues, will be liked and hated in equal numbers, but that's no reason to stop it being shown - especially at a film festival where there can be no more than 40 (mostly crazy) people at the screening.

And in case you haven't heard: if you're making a video of your wedding, according to the new law you have to submit it to the ratings board first! Likewise, films made at film schools to be shown for the instructors to grade will, officially, have to go through the censors, too. That's the most creative idea we've heard in this country, and no doubt we'll lead Southeast Asia in our creative glory very, very soon.

• Kong Rithdee writes about movies and popular culture in the Bangkok Post real.time section.