Romanticized Coercions: Gender and Love Scripts in the Korean TV dramas Chang-Ling Huang [email protected] Associate Professor, Department of Political Science National Taiwan University Nien-Hsuan Fang [email protected] Associate Professor, Department of Journalism National Chengchi University (Draft. Please Do Not Cite. Comments and Criticism Welcome) I. Introduction On June 23rd, 2011, in the early morning around 2am, Yi En-Mi, a South Korean young female singer was stabbed 65 times to death on her way home. The killer was her boyfriend. According to the police investigation, the 24-year-old singer dated the man for seven months. The man wanted to marry her, but Yi wanted to end the relationship. As shocking as the murder was the way mainstream South Korean media reported the crime, because none but two relatively marginal media reported this horrendous crime from a gender perspective.1 Almost all the major media, including both conservative and progressive media, reported this killing simply as a crime without any reference to its gender implications.2 The way South Korean mainstream media reported this crime showed how dating violence was NOT in the Korean popular consciousness. Killing is the most extreme form of physical violence and therefore is generally understood as wrongdoing. Unlike physical violence, some form of physical domination of male over female, however, might be much more easily accepted within a patriarchal cultural environment. Looking beyond news reports, one might find that, in the Korean popular cultures, male domination through physical power is sometimes, if not always, romanticized. Such phenomenon can be easily detected in many Korean TV dramas. Though some of the dramas challenged patriarchal values and traditional gender norms, male physical coercions under certain circumstances during courtship seem to be quite accepted and unquestioned. 1

The two media were Money Today (머니투데이) and Electronic News (전자신문)。 These media include at least Chosun Daily (조선일보), Donga Daily (동아일보), Jungang Daily (중 앙일보), Kyunghyang Daily (경향일보), and Hangyore (한겨레). 1 2

As part of the so called Korean Wave, the Korean TV dramas since the early 2000s have been widely broadcasted and very popular in Asia.3 The dramas reached millions of audience beyond Korea and achieved impressive commercial success. When the Korean TV dramas romanticized the physical coercions exercised by men toward women, the gender implications, like the dramas, reached beyond Korea. Through the analysis of three high rating Korean TV dramas, we aim to show in this paper how male physical coercions are romanticized in these dramas. We also want to point out that, popular TV dramas usually represent and also reinforce the socially accepted love and courtship scripts. The popularity of the Korean TV dramas in Asia therefore should be scrutinized more with gender perspectives. II. Male Physical Coercions Understudied We use the term physical coercions to distinguish our analysis from the current studies on physical aggression. Studies on physical aggression define aggression as “behaviors intended to hurt, harm, or injure another person.” (Dodge et al., 2006; cf Murray-Close et al., 2010: 393) Physical aggression “harms others via physical force or the threat of physical force, consist of such behaviors as hitting, pushing, kicking, and punching.” (Dodge et al., 2006; cf Murray-Close et al., 2010: 393) The male physical coercion that we refer to in this paper does not have the intention to hurt, harm or injure another person. It does not involve the violence mentioned above either. It does, however, restrain another person, usually a female, to freely move her body. The most often seen physical coercion in the Korean TV dramas is dragging. The male lead character grasps the wrist of the female lead character and drags her away from or toward a place. Other usual physical coercions include throwing a woman into a car and forced kisses. Exactly because the coercion does not seem to result in visible physical harms, its being a form of male domination is ignored. Forcing or restraining a woman to move her body, in any sense, is male domination. Surprisingly, and perhaps disturbingly too, among the many Korean and Chinese works that analyzed popular Korean TV dramas from gender perspectives, the issue of male physical aggression is never addressed.4 There have been works discussing female images (Kim, Jang, and Jung 2004), discourses on single women (Kim and Kim 2008), family and gender politics (Yi 2008), discourses on women’s body (Hong 2010), and gender ideology (Yu 2010)…etc, but none touched the issue of male physical coercions. Some Korean TV dramas do challenge the traditional gender norms and more or 3

A book titled Korean Wave, published in 2008, presented essays about the fever of Korean popular countries in 20 countries. Most of the countries are Asian countries. 4 We have only searched and surveyed works written in Chinese and Korean. Since Korean TV dramas have been broadcasted in many countries, we cannot exclude the possibility that works in other languages on Korean TV dramas might have addressed this point. 2

less promote the value of gender equality. There have been dramas discussing social discrimination against divorced women, single mothers, homosexuals, and the handicapped.5 There have also been dramas that deal with issues such as senior people’s love relations, the meaning and value of unpaid household works, and the difficulties encountered by stepfamilies.6 However, just like other mainstream commercial cultures, the gender messages in Korean TV dramas are mixed.7 Since the Korean TV dramas can challenge and perpetuate the traditional gender norms at the same time, it is therefore no surprise that the scenes of male physical coercions not only take place in dramas that portray women with traditional gender roles. They also occur in dramas that have unconventional female lead characters, and such dramas are the subjects of our analysis in the next section. III. Male Physical Coercions and the Love/Courtship Scripts in Korean TV Dramas We analyze three very popular works to show how male physical coercions are romanticized in Korean TV dramas. The three works are My Name is Kim Sam Sun (내이름은김삼순 2005), City Hall (시티홀 2009), and Secret Garden (시크릿 가든 2010). All three have achieved high ratings and immense popularity partially because the female lead characters are unconventional one way or other. In My Name is Kim Sam Sun, the female lead character is an unmarried 30-year-old overweight baker. No Korean TV dramas before or after has ever had a female lead character that is overweight. Also, by Korean standard, being 30-year-old means the woman is becoming an old maid. City Hall’s female lead character is the lowest level civil servant in a small town who, after a series of unexpected events, won the election and became the town’s mayor. Statistics shows that in 2010 only 2.6% of Korean towns and cities have female mayors (Kim 2010: 126). Secret Garden’s female lead character is most unusual for a romantic TV drama since she is a stunt woman. Also unconventional is that there are a lot of action scenes in that drama. Since the female lead characters are quite unconventional in Korean society, the repeated scenes of male physical coercions suggest even more how prevalent this element is in the Korean TV dramas. Table 1 is a summary of the scenes of male physical coercions in these three dramas. The scenes we coded here focus on physical coercions only and do not include non-physical acts such as verbal abuse or public 5

For the discrimination against divorced women or single mothers, it is a constant theme in Korean TV dramas. As for the discrimination against homosexual and the handicapped, the most representative works are screen writer Kim Su Hyun’s (김수현) works Life Is Beautiful (인생은아름다워 2010) and Letters to the Parents (부모님전상서 2004). 6 These themes also appear in Kim Su Hyun’s works Mother Is Angry (엄마가 뿔났다 2007) and Life Is Beautiful. 7 For example, many dramas portray the hardship and social discrimination experienced by single mothers--whether they are unmarried, divorced, or widowed--but the salvation or redemption of these women usually come from young rich handsome men who are deeply in love with them. 3

humiliation that also indicate male domination. Table 1. Scenes of Male Physical Coercions in Three Popular Korean TV Dramas Episode My Name is Kim Sam Sun (total 16 episodes; episode number here is based on the version shown in Taiwan which is dubbed in Chinese and was broadcasted as 24 episodes) 2 male lead dragged female lead from her seat, and she slapped him 4 male lead dragged female lead along the pathway toward his office, she yelled “let go” but he did not release her 5 male lead almost forced a kiss on female lead in a Karaoke room 13 male lead dragged female lead away when she was on a blind date 15 male lead kicked away female lead’s ex-boyfriend and dragged female lead away, pulled her into men’s restroom and forced a kiss on her before confessing his love for her Episode City Hall (total 20 episodes) 4 male lead tried to dragged female lead but she broke away, male lead then grasped the hood of her sports jacket and challenged her to talk to him when she could hardly breathe; male lead pulled female lead to him forcefully and almost forced a kiss on her 5 female lead went to male lead (at that time her superior) to complain about unfair treatment toward her, male lead dragged her toward the door and pushed her out of his room; male lead dragged female lead out of a car and interrogated her for not wearing the tiara she won in the local beauty contest and sarcastically said only that people would know she was a woman 10 local tramps threw tomatoes toward female lead when she returned to her campaign headquarter; male lead came to her rescue and drove those tramps away; male lead then threw her into his car and drove her to his house to clean 19 male lead dragged female lead to a pavilion so she would not be soaked by pouring rain; female lead wanted to break away from him but he would not let go; he waved a taxi and pushed her into the taxi; in the car the camera shot particularly showed the bruised mark on her wrist Episode Secret Garden (total 20 episodes) 1 male lead dragged female lead to hospital to make sure her wound was attended 3 male lead dragged female lead out of the restaurant where female lead was supposed to eat with her co-workers; he brought her to a private dining room to have lunch with her; the meal was extravagantly prepared 4 male lead dragged female lead to an expensive clothing booth in the department store (he is the owner of the department store) and angrily showed her the kind of clothing she was supposed to wear if she wants to be his short-term playmate; female lead was soaked by water and male lead dragged her into his house to change for clean clothes 8 male lead dragged female lead away when she was with her co-workers 11 male lead forced a kiss on female lead when she claimed that she might want to see others 12 male lead dragged female lead away when she was with her co-workers 13 male supporting character dragged female supporting character away 4

when he wanted to reconcile with her Source: Viewed and Compiled by Authors Through the summary in Table 1, we can see several recurrent patterns of the male physical coercions in the love/courtship scripts in the Korean TV dramas. First, the most common physical coercions are dragging. The male lead character either drags the female character from a place where he does not want her to stay or to a place where he wants her to be. The dragging is either his way to protect her from being in a situation that she might feel embarrassed, humiliated, or hurt, or his way to show his desperate needs to be with her. The romantic message implied in the dragging therefore is quite clear. Second, usually when the dragging takes place, the female character is either in resistance or in reluctance. Whether the female character eventually goes along with the male character or break away from him, at the moment of the dragging her body movement is not under her free will. There is no doubt that she is forced. Third, the dragging sometimes takes place in a crowd. Since the basic plot of many Korean TV dramas is a Cinderella story, the dragging in front of others creates a similar effect as the prince invites Cinderella to dance. Not only it arouses others’ disbelief and jealousy, it also makes the Cinderella feel overwhelmed. The inability for the female character to stop the male character’s physical coercions is therefore connected not to his temporary loss of mind, but hers. Fourth, the dragging is usually a prelude for the confession of love or for another coercive act such as forced kisses. Once the feelings are mutually confirmed, there is no longer any dragging. However, when there are problems with the relationship such as misunderstanding, miscommunication, jealousy, or frustration, the dragging or other kinds of male physical coercions reappear. The physical coercions not only suggest male domination, they also serve as a declaration of ownership. When a man drags a woman away, he is declaring to the woman and to others that this woman belongs to him. Almost all patterns of male physical coercions are presented in the dramas within the development of romantic relationships. When sexual tensions are often intertwined with male physical coercions, and when love confessions usually implicitly or explicitly follow such coercions, the love/courtship scripts are not only written for the TV dramas but also for the society in general. IV. Conclusion: From Coercion to Violence? In this paper we have pointed out the phenomenon of romanticized male coercions in Korean TV dramas. Why it is an unwavering part of the love/courtship scripts in Korean popular cultures require further explorations. Studies have shown 5

that viewing aggression on television is related to perpetuation of aggression within romantic relationships for young adults (Coyne et al., 2011). Though there is no evidence that the kind of male physical coercions that we discuss in this paper will lead to domestic violence, we think the line between coercive and violent behaviors might be much thinner than a lot of people believed. Women’s Hotline, a South Korean women’s organization that worked on preventing gender violence, claimed that in 2010 at least 74 women was murdered by their husbands or boyfriends, and, there also were 54 attempted murders. In addition to that, according to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Affairs, in 2009, 15.3% of the South Korean married women under age 65 experienced physical violence from their husbands. This figure was much higher than other countries like Britain (3% in 2007), Australia (4.9% in 2003), and Japan (3% in 2001). Love/courtship scripts presented in the TV dramas that romanticize physical coercions therefore can be at most dangerous for women and at least a step back of gender equality, especially when these dramas are mostly written by female writers for female viewers.8

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According to a survey conducted in 2004, more than 80% of the viewers for TV dramas in Korea are women (Yim 2004: 120-125). Studies on the production of Korean TV dramas also showed that most script writers are women (Kim 2005). 6

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