Student Life at International School Bangkok

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Student Life at International School Bangkok

PantherNation

Student Life at International School Bangkok

PantherNation

Living Up To The Reputation

Living Up To The Reputation

On November 6, 2016, a video of a Thai actor, Nott Akanat, punching a motorcyclist on Charoen Krung Road surfaced on the Internet and went viral. His reasoning behind this outburst was apparently a way to relieve his anger after the motorcyclist scraped the rear light of his Mini Cooper and tried to get away after doing so. In reality, the motorcyclist was not trying to flee, but was knocked off balance by an unrelated taxi and was just trying to go after that taxi.

Even though the motorcyclist was trying to explain this to Nott,screen-shot-2016-11-23-at-9-05-35-am the latter did not listen and the motorcyclist was forced to krab (kneel down and pay respect) to Nott’s vehicle. This caused the phrase “krab rot gu” (kneel and pay respect before my car) to become the most popular hashtag on twitter.

As a consequence for his outburst, Nott was fired by GMMTV, one of the largest entertainment corporations in Thailand. Thawip Sutthi, a police officer in charge of the investigation, stated that the police are trying to contact Nott to acknowledge the physical assault charges which include a jail term of 3 years and/or a maximum of 6,000 baht fine. This raises the question: “Does Nott really deserve so much punishment?”

There are several people who think he deserves the three year sentence. One of the students who believes this is Panop Phongpetra (10). He states that “Nott deserved three year sentence because as an actor, he needs to be a role model for the Thai youth; however, from this incident, it is clear that he is not a good role model. Not only that, but in Thai culture, we perform the “wai” to only humans, not objects.”

screen-shot-2016-11-23-at-9-45-56-am

However, one good reason why Nott should not be sentenced to jail is because “he already received a lot of negative comments and has already received enough punishments,” as stated by Daniel Nardone (10).

Daniel believes that the motorcyclist “should not have left” because during that moment, Nott thought he was “trying to screen-shot-2016-11-23-at-9-12-17-amflee.” Daniel adds that the people that were watching and witnessing what was happening “should have actually stepped forward, rather than recording a video and posting it on the social media.”

In conclusion, I do not think that Nott deserves this much punishment. Many people may claim that since he is a celebrity, he should be a good example for the youth, which is true. However, looking at this from another point of view, celebrities are also human. They have feelings and they can make mistakes. If the person who punched the motorcyclist was not a famous actor, then no one would actually care and the person would have surely not been sent to jail. Therefore, I believe that Nott deserve forgiveness and Thai people should give Nott a chance to prove himself to the public that he can be a true role model.

Jeff Manthananon

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  • C

    Conor DUFFYNov 23, 2016 at 9:01 am

    Yes, a very interesting piece. It makes me wonder if Nott’s reaction to the motorcyclist (i.e. making him bow down to his car) is not rooted, in some way, to the social hierarchy here in Thailand, where the rich upper class may feel they have the right to treat lower class citizens disrespectfully. I can agree that Nott may be angry that his car was scraped, but to belittle and de-humanise the culprit in this way seems to send the message that, for him, the tail light of his Mini-Cooper is worth more than the dignity of the motorcyclist.

    Reply
  • P

    Punn P.Nov 23, 2016 at 8:16 am

    Really interesting piece.

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Living Up To The Reputation