Ravana: Communication of Meaning and Intertextuality in Popular Culture

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to analyze Ravana in the context of popular culture during the period between 2014 and 2018. The primary texts included Ravana featuring in King Rama I’s rendition of Thai Ramakien, mural paintings along the galleries of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, as well as Khon of the Fine Arts Department, indicating intertextuality between Ravana and literature. Meanwhile, the secondary texts were Ramakien series in graphic novels, an animated movie “9 Satra: The Legend of Muay Thai,” and a television commercial “Thailand is awesome” used for promoting tourism of Thailand. Intertextuality was conducted to analyze social contexts and types of media. External patterns were physical appearance, skin colours, clothes, weapons, and scenes with the appearance of Ravana. Internal patterns were, on the other hand, character, abilities, backgrounds, roles, and messages conveying meaning of Ravana, including convention, extension, reduction, and modification. Decoding was utilized to understand recipients of messages, and interpretation was employed to know Ravana in popular culture’s media. In-depth interviews were carried out with certain message recipients including academics, media production professionals with varied ages, genders, educational levels necessary for a basic understanding of Ravana, social class (occupations), political standpoints, and cultures.

The study revealed that Ravana in popular culture and high culture shared intertextuality in terms of patterns and messages in the form of convention, reduction, and modification. The study could also identify cultural hybridization in the form of amoeba pattern in the graphic novels “Ramakien,” butterfly pattern in the animated movie “9 Satra: The Legend of Muay Thai,” and coral pattern in the television commercial “Thailand is awesome” for cultural inheritance and reproduction of cultural products representing Thainess. As for recipients of messages, they were found to be able to read and interpret meanings based on their varied political standpoints and cultures. Specifically, those adopting political standpoints and supporting conservatism tended to decode and interpret the same point encoded by senders through preferred reading in order to maintain original intertextuality in the graphic novels. Moreover, negotiated reading was employed to preserve the main character of Ramakien in the animated film. Oppositional reading was also used with encoders. This was to maintain intertextuality of the originality which was the core of Ravana Khon in the television commercial to preserve high culture inheritance. As for those who hold liberalism, they appeared to decode and interpret the same point encoded by senders through preferred reading in all media types, taking into account purposes, social contexts, types of media, and media recipients targeted by business.