GROTESQUE PARODY AND QUEER FAILURE: RETHINKING FORM, GENDER, AND OTHERNESS IN RADEN LANDAI

This article offers a critical re-reading of Raden Landai, a Thai satirical poem from the early Rattanakosin period, through the lenses of Camp aesthetics, Queer theory, Psychoanalysis, and Russian Formalism. Traditionally dismissed as comic literature, Raden Landai is here reconsidered as a complex text that parodies courtly literary conventions and reflects on gender, identity, and ethnic marginality. Through close textual analysis, the study identifies three aesthetic strategies: (1) parody of epic structure and poetic style; (2) destabilization of normative masculinity through exaggerated desire and queer misrecognition; and (3) stylized representation of ethnic otherness especially through the figure of the khaek. These strategies reveal how theatrical excess, grotesque imagery, and misaligned desire can operate as cultural critique rather than mere farce. Rather than rejecting tradition, the poem subverts literary expectations from within, offering a performative space where canonical forms are reimagined. By foregrounding failure, vulgarity, and comic exaggeration, Raden Landai presents parody not as trivial entertainment but as a vital aesthetic practice that interrogates cultural norms. This interdisciplinary reading contributes to broader discussions of gender, form, and marginality in Southeast Asian literature and repositions the poem within contemporary discourses on literary parody, queerness, and cultural representation.