absolutelyBangkok archive · News & Media
Originally published June 12, 2009
New results are in. Hollywood star
David Carradine, who postmortemly rose to real fame after his quirky death in a Bangkok luxury closet and the spreading of gory photos, did not commit suicide. Most probably. That’s what a Dr. Michael Baden, the doctor who performed a second autopsy on Carradine, told U.S. media.
What Thai police initially ruled as a suicide and then an accidental suffocation by means of a sex-solo-gone-wrong, read: by auto-erotic asphyxiation, may indeed be just a simple banal accident. Because we also learn that no mysterious ladyboy had left the room in a hurry as hotel surveillance footage indicated no one entered Carradine’s room before he died.
Honestly, I had never heard of Carradine before his death. His movies are not my cup of tea. But within days he has become an archetypal Bangkok icon, further cementing that overused Bangkok cliché: “The location of death, however, (was) no shocker. Bangkok,” the trusted Huffington Post ’s Greg Barrett tellingly wrote.
“The Thai capital isn’t exactly known for the missionary position,” we read. “The city and the nation are (in)famous for things recreational, not conventional.” Pointing to what Carradine is all about: With his strange death Carradine further erodes Thailand’ not only tarnished, but caricature fame.
Slowly we uncover many deeper layers under Carradine’s abstruse death. Barrett by the way is none less than the author of The Gospel of Father Joe, the legendary Catholic priest in Bangkok’s Klong Toey Slum. And all of a sudden Carradine becomes even involved in Thai politics and the kingdom’s global image per se.
Some two months ago Barrett had been contacted by a New York City consulting firm hired by the Royal Thai Government: “The firm had phoned to interview me two months before Carradine’s death,” says Barrett. “A representative explained that Thailand’s policy makers wanted an assessment of the country’s global image. How is Thailand viewed by foreigners and how much polish is needed to make it shine world class?”
“Political coups and pedophilia fugitives aside, I told the interviewer, if you judge Thailand only by its beaches, luxury hotels and shimmering new $3 billion Bangkok airport (makes Washington’s Dulles International look almost third world), Thailand is a jewel of Asia. Outside looking in, it should be top drawer and first world. But even the farang who only sees Thailand dressed in its Sunday best knows the dirt that’s underneath. Carradine may have died in a closet but Thailand has no skeletons. We all know.”
No skeletons.
Add the “leaking” of crime scene and autopsy shots (details in our first Carradine post) and the general state of Thailand’s tabloid media lurching “between lurid and deferential,” as we read in MSNBC’s World Blog.
Carradine’s violated privacy will not change one iota of perception within Thailand.
Politically, socially, economically — as Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra recently so eloquently put it:
In Thailand, the law of the jungle prevails.
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