T hey are both about the lives of certain fami- lies and the dilemmas they face. They both have some predictable lines (“I love you!”, “Don’t you show your face around here ever again.”) and a considerably predictable ending. Yet, they are so different. This is a kind of soft power influenc- ing the 21st century utilizing television dramas and makes us ponder on the underlying ration- ale behind the seemingly subtle craze for Korean dramas and Western shows. True, Asian dramas are more melodramatic. There seems to be a tendency to overact or over exaggerate situations. If circumstance becomes sad, then it is absolutely, heart-wrenchingly sad. If it is happy, then the happiness escalates over the clouds of heaven. Despite all this, the fans still continue to watch it and worship the pretty boy and girl. But is it really reasonable to say the Korean viewers are obsessed with love lines? But is it actually justifiable that Korean scriptwrit- ers and directors do not know how to produce dramas without romance? And, on the other hand, are we ready to define all Western shows as realistic, practical and bears more resemblance to our daily life? Obviously not. Korean TV is fantasy and an escape from unpleasantness of real life. We can love, hate, throw shoes at the screen, like basically transfer our frustrations to the fictional characters. The basic story is unbelievable, if not ridiculous, like some young 90-day wonder who is a rich CEO of daddy’s mega-corp. Imagine this: your brother’s ex-wife’s cousin was kidnapped by an evil villain who was actually an alien having lived for three hundred years, and now you are in love with the handsome immortal. Does this sound like a real drama, or something you would find on daytime television? Yes, most of them are fairy tales, but such stories are fun and popular, so why does it matter? It is unarguable that Western dramas tend to be more real. The topics are those that could happen to the person next door. However, say for Ameri- can shows, there are sordid romance, murder and even demonic possession to make the show more compelling. Korean dramas tend to be much cleaner than their Western counterparts. And they always have an end. In the romantic and action- based comedies, romances are never explicitly displayed and swearing is mild, if translated at all. Love triangles are a frequent feature, but are usually based on an initial friendship. There is often a super villain who makes things difficult for the main characters. Their challenge in over- THE SUBTLE CRAZE: A DRAMA COMPARISON BETWEEN KOREAN FANTASY AND WESTERN OBSESSION Hugo Mak M19
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Transcript
They are both about the lives of certain fami-lies and the dilemmas they face. They both
have some predictable lines (“I love you!”, “Don’t you show your face around here ever again.”) and a considerably predictable ending. Yet, they are so different. This is a kind of soft power influenc-ing the 21st century utilizing television dramas and makes us ponder on the underlying ration-ale behind the seemingly subtle craze for Korean dramas and Western shows.
True, Asian dramas are more melodramatic. There seems to be a tendency to overact or over exaggerate situations. If circumstance becomes sad, then it is absolutely, heart-wrenchingly sad. If it is happy, then the happiness escalates over the clouds of heaven. Despite all this, the fans still continue to watch it and worship the pretty boy and girl. But is it really reasonable to say the Korean viewers are obsessed with love lines? But is it actually justifiable that Korean scriptwrit-ers and directors do not know how to produce dramas without romance? And, on the other hand, are we ready to define all Western shows as realistic, practical and bears more resemblance to our daily life?
Obviously not.
Korean TV is fantasy and an escape from unpleasantness of real life. We can love, hate, throw shoes at the screen, like basically transfer our frustrations to the fictional characters. The basic story is unbelievable, if not ridiculous, like some young 90-day wonder who is a rich CEO of daddy’s mega-corp. Imagine this: your brother’s ex-wife’s cousin was kidnapped by an evil villain
who was actually an alien having lived for three hundred years, and now you are in love with the handsome immortal. Does this sound like a real drama, or something you would find on daytime television? Yes, most of them are fairy tales, but such stories are fun and popular, so why does it matter?
It is unarguable that Western dramas tend to be more real. The topics are those that could happen to the person next door. However, say for Ameri-can shows, there are sordid romance, murder and even demonic possession to make the show more compelling. Korean dramas tend to be much cleaner than their Western counterparts. And they always have an end. In the romantic and action-based comedies, romances are never explicitly displayed and swearing is mild, if translated at all. Love triangles are a frequent feature, but are usually based on an initial friendship. There is often a super villain who makes things difficult for the main characters. Their challenge in over-
THE SUBTLE CRAZE: A DRAMA COMPARISON BETWEEN KOREAN FANTASY AND WESTERN OBSESSION
Hugo Mak M19
coming this opposition leads to characters form-ing various changes and improvements in their personalities. Murder can occur in the historical dramas, but is never gory. That is, Korean dramas are more subdued.
In this small Asian country, the handsome guy and the glamorous girl also seem to garner huge followings from their fans. Their fans will invest so much emotionally in the show. People watch the show, go online and discuss it, before read-ing the recaps and watching the previews. It may even come to a point that the audiences start re-watching. Whereas it makes such an impact on people, Western shows lack that kind of influ-ence on their viewers. Sherlock and House may be interesting as successful investigative and medi-cal dramas but once over, the fans would not go screaming around for autographs and post-ers. This is because Sherlock is produced entirely before it goes on air, while Koreans tend to film as they go, relating to current affairs and social issues with a personal touch though the story might be a bit of a fantasy.
Speaking of traditions, Korean shows talk about the family orientation. On the other hand, Amer-ican life depicted in The Modern Family is that each member of a family leaves and sets up own household. That freedom is tempting, but also reflects the down side that too many Westerners are now isolated from their family group, from the extended family living together, from sharing the burdens, responsibilities and joys together. In some ways, Korean dramas, despite being unre-alistic, bring us huge message related to staying with your family and respecting your elders. We see big morals as compared to the sex and drama in Gossip Girl and such. Asian dramas tend to have an innocent image and appeals to various age groups.
Finally, Korean dramas, unlike TV series in the U.S., display something rare: they have strong female Asian leads. It is something you don’t see often on NBC, BBC, or even HBO, but it is high time the Westerns get ready to embrace. All we could come up with might be New Girl and The Mindy Project—you can hardly change channels these days if you are expecting a woman heading the pack. And these shows have the same female
sense, under which the girl is always doing the repeating kind of pro-feminism act.
Contrastingly, the Asian counterparts are filled with fully developed, un-stereotypical Asian women. In My Sassy Girl, the show tells a compel-ling story about first love—but with the girl-friend being the dominant partner even in Asia’s fraternal society. In Marry Him If You Dare, the main character, Mi-Rae, gets her life together and becomes a major scriptwriter (and rejects the I-need-a-man-to-be-happy ending trope to boot). Finally, in the best known one, Boys Over Flowers, Jan-Di is the classic plucky heroine who wins over the snobby boys in her high school by sticking up for the little guy and making her opin-ion known.
Teen melodramas like these always find an audi-ence in the U.S., but right now Glee and High School Musical no longer serve to satisfy boys’ and girls’ imagination. Today in the West, nobody is doing a straightforwardly great teen drama like Gilmore Girls. There is sadly a programming hole that needs to be filled. And this hole would easily be filled by Korean shows. These shows are not just “Gangnam Style”, they’re My Love From the Star, Emergency Couple, The Heirs—often bril-liant, youth-oriented shows. They have us glued to the screen every week, agonizing over a forced separation of a lovely couple, cheering at an ordi-nary game played by “flower boys”, and crying over an unrealistically glamorous prom.
While no one is in the position to say which one
CADUCEUS
of the two rivals, Korean and Western drama, are more superior in today’s media-booming world, it is undeniable that the Korean pop culture is trending as much as the American blockbusters did in the 90s. Think of Psy and his “Gangnam Style”, awesome rappers like Kang Gary, and all those viral videos that have started coming out of Korean variety shows (Running Man, Infinity Chal-
lenge). And think of House’s inconsiderate person-ality that appeals, think of modern sociopaths like Sherlock himself, and the indecent scenes in even action-packed dramas like The Walking Dead. It is really hard to say whether Lee Minho or Hugh Laurie will continue to win viewers’ heart and stand glamorous in the spotlight in unprece-dented future.