#taewondo

This week’s homework got me thinking about the representation of women in sports as portrayed in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, a coming-of-age drama based loosely on the real-life story of Korean weightlifting Olympian Jang Mi Ran. Actress Lee Sung Kyung plays Kim Bok Joo, an aspiring weightlifter with a tomboy-ish and bubbly personality who, along with her tight-knit weightlifting team at her sports college, muddles through the growing pains of being a young adult. On first impression, I was pleasantly surprised that both genders are equally represented - there’s a male and a female coach, and Bok Joo’s team is an equal split between men and women too. There’s a great sense of camaraderie between the athletes as they’re often shown eating and training together, cheering each other on.

However, while Jang herself was consulted during the script-writing process, being a romantic comedy meant that weightlifting as a sport actually takes a bit of a backseat in the show. Instead, as I was watching, what I couldn’t help but notice was that Bok Joo’s identity as a weightlifter actually served to magnify the issue of body confidence, and the intense scrutiny that surrounds women’s bodies in South Korea.

For starters, the media was abuzz around how Lee gained more than 5kg for the role. Some media outlets and netizens criticised the casting of Lee for the role because despite her weight gain, she her slim build still wasn’t representative of real female weightlifters such as Jang, who competed in the +75kg category. At the same time, it was also seen as a risky career move for Lee, a model-turned-actress, as she would have to sacrifice her figure for what would be her first lead role in a drama. Luckily, it was a gamble that eventually paid off, as the drama aired to critical acclaim, winning two MBC Drama Awards and gaining a huge cult following among young viewers. 

Interestingly, the issue of weight is an ongoing theme in the drama itself when Lee’s character, Bok Joo develops a one-sided crush on a doctor at a weight loss clinic. She signs up for his slimming program in secret just so that she can continue to meet him, which obviously starts affecting her lifting as she needs maintain muscle. A particularly poignant scene at the end of episode 9 sees Bok Joo’s secret exposed in the most painful way - halfway through a weightlifting competition, she spots her doctor crush cheering for her in the audience. She narrates: “We lift heavy lumps of metal. In that moment, we can’t help but show our veins popping out, our faces getting red, our double or triple chin, and our belly fat sticking out from the belt. It’s so ugly. It’s not something we want to show the guy we like.”

The raw look of conflict on her face is especially heartbreaking, because despite completing her lift successfully and winning the tournament, her tears came from a place of humiliation and embarrassment. It’s not that she’s ashamed of her own strength, but at that moment, she firmly believed that to follow her dream as a weightlifter would also means giving up the hope of ever appearing attractive in front of someone she likes. Sadly, Bok Joo’s belief is still a deep-set one in many parts of Asia: that being muscular and athletic is at odds with being attractive and feminine. For many women, especially in South Korea, there’s a huge pressure to conform to a set of very narrow beauty ideals: namely, that they should be tall, slim and pale. What Bok Joo doesn’t realise is that her strength is precisely what makes her special and lovable.

As such, I felt this drama was groundbreaking in many ways. It’s probably the only K-drama or K-movie that I can think of that has female protagonist specialising in such a male-dominated sport. Weightlifting is portrayed as a profession that both men and women can participate in, and that women are respected for their physical strength (not in spite of it) and treated just like their male counterparts. I was also impressed with how they tackled the issue of body confidence in a very positive way. Unlike other K-dramas like Oh My Venus and 200 Pounds Beauty which features plus-size female leads who only find love and happiness after losing weight, Bok Joo finds someone who loves her for her strength and her athleticism. More importantly, she also learns to love herself for who she is, muscular thighs and all - and that’s probably a lesson in body positivity we should all be learning too.