2521: coming of age
in response to the illogical takes floating around some corners of the internet after the ep.12 kiss, i want to explore the show’s portrayal of the experience of “coming of age”. this is partly a thinkpiece about seungwan, yi jin, and hee do, and partly an argument against some absurd opinions i’ve been seeing lately. please enjoy!
coming of age as coming into the social self
this show is fascinated with the liminal existence of people in their twenties, caught between lingering in their teenage self and entering an approximation of adulthood that might come at the cost of who they really are. poised on this threshold where society often expects us to leave more than we are willing to sacrifice, seungwan and yi jin present us with two parallel paths of resistance.
when we first see seungwan, it’s through the eyes of the world: the perfect student whose talent and effort will get her high on the capitalist ladder. but as we slowly peel back the illusion, like flakes of yellow wallpaper, we bear witness to the bleak world beyond, plagued by the ennui of endless study that drains her very desire to live.
only the presence of jiwoong in her life, the knowledge that happiness does not have to be achieved but is always within reach, saves her from erasing the part of her self still capable of being young. it’s jiwoong’s daily resistance to adhering to social structures that fuels seungwan to reject the social conditioning she’s been subject to her entire life, the rule that claims that she is a person only if she is a member of an inherently oppressive society.
in the subversive space of her pirate radio show, the real seungwan comes alive: the seungwan who is free to define the world for herself, to invent and negotiate meaning without the threat of future social ostracization breathing down her neck. it is here where her private self can triumph over her social self for good, and where she is brave enough to call out society’s bullshit and stand by her views no matter the consequences to her social image.
by rejecting the corrupt structure of the educational system, seungwan asserts her identity as a “rebel teen” free to question and criticize the world as it closes in on her. even her new hairstyle is an act of resistance, a loud rejection of the neat haircut valued by a society which punishes individuality and rewards brainless uniformity.
when seungwan enters adulthood, she’s a critical thinker fighting to maintain the values integral to her inner self.
when we meet yi jin at twenty-two, his transition into adulthood has been so sudden that it’s left him reeling, a lost boy looking for a way back to his teenage self, for his ability to dream and enjoy life. far from an actual adult, yi jin is forced to simulate adulthood by a society whose mistakes are somehow his to bear as he stumbles under the weight of becoming the biggest emotional and financial supporter of his family. yi jin wears adulthood like a pair of too-big shoes, and every step spells pain.
it’s only when hee do shows him that it’s still okay to take off the shoes sometimes, and run barefoot across the grass, that he begins to feel comfortable in the guise of his adult self. it’s only when she teaches him how to dream when the whole world doesn’t believe in you that he dares to reach for the stars again. it’s her signal of joy, sent through the static of the tv screen, that pulls him out of the despair of the pohang fish market and makes him dream again.
hee do saves yi jin: she saves the youth inside him that society tried to kill; she saves yi jin’s belief that he is worth saving, that he can save himself.
and when society comes for her, with its relentless glare of the camera flash and its leering appetite for ratings, it’s his turn to save her, to put her above the trappings of his new profession and choose their relationship over his standing in society. his bond with hee do helps him save another key piece of his self: his ability to resist authority despite his financial need to please it.
yi jin is still entering adulthood, and we still don’t know the outcome of the conflict between his personal self and his public self. but his ability to dream and to remain a youth around the taeyang squad are powerful weapons against the invisible violence of society.
coming of age as coming into the private self
while yi jin and seungwan grow into subversive members of adult society, hee do experiences a much more private, but no less dramatic change: the arrival of her adult self.
she puts it best in the last episode: she’s already grown up, but still growing; she’s already an adult, but is still a youth. her incredible emotional maturity has been shining since the start of the series, and her goofiness has not been fading, but rather blooming out of awkwardness and into charm.
but the most important change the show portrays her journey through is her sexual awakening. you know, the very natural thing we all experience and that some segments of the audience have been unbelievably weird about.
hee do’s sexual awakening is not a new plotline: it’s a story the show has been telling from the start. it’s in the moment we saw her crush on the male lead in full house, and in the moment she had to draw the characters kissing to mend the rift in the comic book. it’s in her sudden awareness of yi jin after their fencing match, and in her decision to date for the sake of testing the realism of the romance in the comic book. it’s in her panic at developing a crush for yi jin, and in her inability to gauge whether her feelings are large enough for the name of love.
the girl fascinated by the idea of romance has now grown into the adult initiating a romantic relationship with her best friend of two years.
the show has always been masterful at representing this change, but its storytelling genius shines best in the new year scene, a brilliant embodiment of hee do’s transition from her teenage decade to her adult millennium. one of the most impressive features of hee do’s first kiss scene is how very anti-romantic it is, where “romance” stands for the glorification and embellishment of romantic relationships by media such as full house for public consumption.
no feature of the editing, the setting, or the score creates a romantic atmosphere in this scene. there’s only two people sitting on the bare floor with their backs pressed against a faded green wallpaper, turning to the tv so they won’t have to acknowledge that they just chose to spend the potential end of the world together. only the weight of yi jin’s words when he says that he doesn’t mind the world ending in this moment; only the honesty of hee do’s action when the countdown starts. only the booming of the bell like a heartbeat in the silence between them; only the flickering light of the tv painting their shadows red and blue.
the lack of editorial interference permits the lack of an audience; it renders the scene so realistic it might as well be a memory of the viewers themselves. and the lack of exaggerated attempts to create a romantic atmosphere by the actors, such as the casual delivery of yi jin’s line and the spur-of-the-moment action of hee do, conveys the fact that the characters’ feelings and gestures are a helpless expression of their hearts.
hee do and yi jin don’t need to playact romance; they are experiencing the real thing. their feelings are as real as the anxiety still present between them when the kiss ends, as the confusion they will need the next episode to untangle.
yi jin not kissing her back then and there is not an act of him somehow being the bigger adult: it’s a natural reaction to being absolutely stunned by the na hee do who has been turning his world upside down for two years now. it’s a habit of holding back from expressing his feelings for her, from even thinking about crossing any physical lines in the same quest to protect their relationship that she shares.
to preserve this feeling that they never called friendship, both yi jin and hee do held back for so long that it became a reflex, and it took one act of bravery to begin to change the physical expression of their feelings.
to deny yi jin and hee do the agency to participate in sexual activity is to deny them the right to be human. to deny hee do the ability to “know what she’s doing” is to deny her the right to grow up.
because no matter what absurd statements the lay audience makes to keep her in the past, what hee do wants for herself is change.
