#kww2020

#kww2020 Day 3: A Favorite Scene Passing the Bechdel Test

Song Ji-Won being the best Sunbae to Yoo Eun-Jae, Hello, My Twenties!

KDrama Women’s Week 

March 17 ~ “Sister Sister” ~ Jae In from One Spring Night

My favorite thing about Jae In is that, at the start of the show, she’s kind of easily dismissed as the flighty, irresponsible youngest daughter. But, as the show progresses, you understand that Jae In is amazingly strong and brave. Her sisters are stuck in horrible relationships and family circumstances. Jae In is the one that steps in to fight for them and alongside them. Whether it’s beating the crap out of her abusive brother-in-law (that scene!) or sitting alongside Jeong In as she faces their father, she is there to support them.

KWW2020 |  PART II

Day Three: #Favorite Relationship.

Jin Joo, Han Joo and Eun Jung (Be Melodramatic)

K-Drama Women’s Week: March 15-21st

Unfortunately I’m not good at the gif thing (credit to Kingdom for the screenshot), so you’re stuck with really poor photo-editing. Thankfully all of you out there are way better at this than I am, and I’m excited to see all of the really amazing and creative content you’ll all be putting out there, including gifs and photosets of quality. Please be mindful of respectful practices, like crediting people whose work you use, and having constructive discussions.

Just a reminder that there are not one, but TWO K-Drama Women’s WeekS this year, so you get TWICE the fun!

[Also “women” here is inclusive of non-binary folk, transwomen, etc. Please make an effort to include diversity whenever you can.]

Saturday, March 14th: BONUS-- “Soundtrack of Her Life”

Pick your favorite female-centric drama or character and explain why everyone should be watching it/them. Come up with a playlist that the character(s) might listen to, fits their personalities, and/or goes along with their storylines.

Now you have music while you work on the other prompts :)

Sunday, March 15th:  “Mother-in-Law Dearest” Favorite Mother-in-Law

You love them, you hate them, it’s the mother in law! They probably get the more ire from the average K-Drama viewer than pretty much any other character. Unfortunately, on top of being annoying or perpetuating sexist attitudes, they often aren’t the best people and try to pay-off half of the main couple. Here’s your chance to talk about MiLs you love to watch because they are simply awful, or maybe because they curb the stereotype.

Monday, March 16th: “In Another World, Another Time...”

If you had the chance to have two of your favorite female characters meet in one or both of the drama’s that they’re in, what would it look like? Maybe one character will tell the other to not make that horrible decision? Maybe that poisoning-mediated murder in your favorite sageuk (사극) won’t work? Would the two freak out on sight? Would there be time travel x2? The sky’s the limit here.

Alternative Prompt: A Favorite Scene Passing the Bechdel Test

Tuesday, March 17th: “Sister, Sister” Favorite Sister Character

Sorry for the bad pun (who here watched Sister Sister?), but it’s time to support the sibling characters! Who’s your favorite sister? The one who holds a horrible grudge for something that happened twenty years ago? The one who got fridged (ehem, [spoiler], I’m not over it.)? How about the BFF you have always dreamed of?

Wednesday, March 18th: “That Should Have Happened to Her!”

Here’s your opportunity to raise your grievances about storylines given to male characters that could have easily gone to female characters. Or you just want her to be King for once. Again, sky’s the limit. (Maybe you just  want her to be the side character so her life won’t be as awful.)

Alternative Prompt: Favorite female screenwriter or director

Thursday, March 19th: “Make her a genius” Favorite “Talented” Female Character

There are a dozen-and-a-half male characters that get called “genius” (which apparently gives them an excuse to be a jerk), yet this is less heard of with female characters. Who are your favorite “genius” characters that are recognized or unrecognized? Here’s an opportunity to explore talents that society may tend to downplay.

Alternative Prompt: Favorite Female Actress-- What kind of drama would you like to see them in that they haven’t done?

Friday, March 20th: “Yeah she’s a lady, what about it?” Favorite Use of Stereotype

Part of breaking the stigma of female existence is not just to support the bad*ss, gunslinging, “strong female character,” but to give women the right to be diverse in their self-presentation. This includes embracing traditionally “feminine” qualities! What are your favorite examples of women being feminine in K-Drama, and how does it enhance their character?

Alternative Prompt: Favorite Child Character/Actress

Saturday, March 21th: “She’s Just Misunderstood...I Think?” Least Favorite Female Character

Time to lawyer up and defend the maligned female characters, but not in the way you might think (Day 4 of the next KWW will fix that itch).  You know how people defend that terrible “oppa (오빠)” left and right? Here we are helping our “noonas/unnies (누나듵, 언니듵),” and so you get to talk about a character...you DON’T like. (Be honest!!) Remember that lady who made things extremely difficult for your favorite female character? Or did some very morally reprehensible things? Today is her day. What made you not like her, and does she have redeeming qualities? What might you have overlooked initially? 

Alternative Prompt: Free day!

#KWW2020 #Mother-In-Law Dearest

Two mother-in-laws sprang to mind with this prompt. Not because I think they swing a particular way on the Good vs. Evil spectrum, but because they were dealing with what I think are pretty common Asian Parent Issues. However, one mother’s scenario rubs me the wrong way. And the other I felt was handled surprisingly well. The third MIL I’m just briefly going to allude to cause I still can’t believe I watched the whole darn drama. And well, why not? It’s #kdramawomensweek!!! 

#MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD#

In episode 15 of When the Camellia Blooms, the male lead asks his mother something along the lines of “You liked - no, you still like Dong Baek, don’t you? You like her as a friend. But not as a daughter in law? Have you always been so shallow?”

Dong Baek is our heroine, the female lead. She moves to a new small town as a young single mother of a new born baby. She befriends Deok Sun, an older widowed mother, who had to raise her three boys on her own for many years. Despite their age gap, Dong Baek and Deok Sun become best friends. Doek Sun defends Dong Baek against the other mothers in the neighborhood who look down on Dong Baek cause she is beautiful, runs a bar, and is raising a son without a husband. That all changes when Deok Sun’s youngest son, Yong Sik, returns from the big city and immediately falls in love with Dong Baek.

When Yong Sik asks his mother in episode 15, why she likes Dong Baek as a friend but not as a daughter in law, her response boils down to, “No mother in the world would want her son to be with such an unfortunate woman.”

Sadly, this is not the first, or the last time, it comes up in the drama. It gets rehashed many, many times. Never to my satisfaction. However, I point out this scene, as opposed to the dozens of other times it is an issue because for a moment, I almost sympathized with the mom. This scene happens the episode after an attempt on Dong Baek’s life was made and Yong Sik got hurt trying to save her. I wanted to understand the mom then. I wanted to understand why this was being brought up YET AGAIN because beyond all the romance, the heart of the drama was about community and motherhood (the lengths that a mother will go through to protect her child).

But then I lost my sanity marbles. Cause the scene right after Yong Sik asks his mom if she’s always been that shallow - we see Dong Baek confronting Deok Sun, asking how long she’s going to continue to avoid her. And the mom replies: ‘I hate this. I hate it so much. It breaks my heart to think of my son raising someone else’s kid. I hate that he gets hurts trying to follow you around. And I hate that you cast a shadow in my son’s eyes.”

Not long after this, I mentally checked out of the drama except for scenes directly involving my OTP. But I don’t recall it ever really being resolved, just quietly sidelined in order to move other plot lines forward. So it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Deok Sun isn’t the worst kdrama mother in law in history. But she’s probably in my top ten for most annoying.

This next mom is from Hi Bye Mama and is unnamed. And so far we’ve only seen her once in flashback. I don’t know if the translation is off or not, but I got the impression that she is dead in present time and am not sure how big of a role she will play in future episodes since the drama is still airing.

In the drama, the main character Cha Yuri dies. We see in flashback how devastated her best friend Hyun Jung is from the loss. Hyun Jung has just given birth shortly before Yuri passes. So her child is maybe only a few weeks old when the funeral occurs. Hyun Jung wants to go to the memorial and pay her respects to her best friend but her unnamed mother-in-law tries to drag her back into the house.

The MIL’s argument essentially boils down to “Funerals are bad luck. Going to a funeral so soon after childbirth will result in that bad luck attaching onto you and your young child. Therefore you cannot go.” Hyun Jung isn’t the type to believe in superstitions anyway but she’s upset over her friend and can’t manage much more than sobbing “Please let me go mother, please.” The flashback ends with her husband coming out and holding the MIL back but not before she gets one last word in “Hey! What if something were to happen to your son?”

When we cut back to present time, it’s that same husband asking Hyun Jung is she feels resentful toward his mom cause she was always trying to tell her what to do and how to raise her child. Hyun Jung initially scoffs but gives a serious answer when she realizes her husband is not joking. ‘I understand how your mom was feeling then. Old people tend to be more cautious about what could happen in the future. And they have their own priorities. My mom would have done the same thing.”

Part of me recognizes that I hate the first because it interfered with my OTP and was dragged on WAY too long. And the other was relatable cause it was a short moment in time that added to the emotional resonance that Hi Bye Mama has been doing pretty well on so far. But boy did I hate both MILs. Which is a pretty amazing feat considering how dramaland is littered with Mothers and MIL who have done far more heinous things.

“Mother in Law Dearest”

Last year I talked about a mother who I thought was interestingly complicated (Bae Jong Ok as Park Sun Young in Bubblegum), and this year I was trying to think of one I legitimately like, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of a single time where I truly liked the mother in law, and sided with her. 

So I thought about another complicated mother in law, and landed on Kim Hae Sook’s portrayal in Marriage, Not Dating. She is a matriarch who knows everything that is happening and is doing her best to control all of it. And she knows she can’t. In fact, she spends the whole season slowly losing control of the facade she has built around herself.