Thailand must have the must fucked up gender issues on the PLANET
RAAAAAAGE.
I literally have tears of rage in my eyes right now.
I have just watched (with ffing as much as I could) 4 episodes of Thai lakorn Autumn Destiny.
I have sworn off lakorns (their rape fixation makes me sick) but this was some sort of a Korean co-production set entirely in Korea so I thought...how bad could it be.
Well, it doesn't look like there will be any raping. That's about all I can say for it.
So, let's see.
We have Wendy, a Thai girl who meets and gets engaged to a Korean guy, Chungmin, while studying in Boston. They are...shockingly...functional, happy, and he has no tendency to drag her by the hair, tie her up, rape her, kill various people, etc. In fact, he cooks for her, and says romantic things and, when the inevitable thugs come, protects her and takes bullets for her. It was so surreal and un-lakorn-like that I even let my guard down and assumed the drama will deal with the fact that his family is less-than-pleased about the engagement (amusingly they don't want a Thai girl for him while being played by Thai actors themselves :P) and her family is dead-set against because Wendy's Korean Dad abandoned Wendy's Thai Mom. So, I thought - cute OTP, faces obstacles blah blah nice. Or at least that would be the plot if it was a kdrama.
I should have known better.
When she goes to visit her birth father, she gets kidnapped by evil thugs hired by her aunt who does not want to split the inheritance and Changmin gets horribly injured protecting her. In fact, he's in a coma. His parents are even less pleased with Wendy as a prospective bride and his mother throws down the gauntlet - she will only be OK with Wendy if Wendy gets her son to wake up.
OK, so far, so good.
BUT WAIT.
If you think this is the main story, THINK AGAIN.
All along we have been neglecting a scowly 'tough', vengeance-driven hero. He works for Wendy's real Dad, flirts with Wendy's half-sister, and holds a grudge against Wendy's Dad for murdering his own father. His revenge plan? I SHALL KIDNAP THIS RANDOM GIRL WHO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME AND HOLD HER TIED UP IN AN ISOLATED SHACK AS SOME SORT OF BIZARRE REVENGE AGAINST HER FATHER. Why he doesn't seem to grab the daughter Daddy actually brought up and knows and loves is beyond me. Perhaps all the testosterone is poisoning his brain.
Yes. After arriving in a strange country, surviving a horrifying experience via thugs, having her FIANCE ON DEATHBED, Wendy gets dragged off by the sicko to some cabin. She desperately tries to escape to get to see her fiance. You know - the guy she loves and who may be dying because of her?
Nawwwwwwww. Our "Hero" won't let her. Clearly, if you don't have felony rapist characteristics, you simply cannot be a lakorn hero. He ties her up, throws her down, tells her that fiance's parents hate her, and threatens her every five minutes. In all of this he is ably assisted by a friend who seems to think this is bad but not bad enough to stop anything.
At least...there is no raping? Oh, and our generous hero decides he'll let her go. At some point in the unspecified future. Oh, give me five minutes with him, a rusty pair of scissors, a few nails, and boric acid. I could have SUCH FUN.
You know, by lakorn standards this is fairly mild but it's enraging me so - because by being set in Korea it's actually reminding me of kdramas, where the worst thing a hero would do to a woman is force a kiss on her, and get slapped for his trouble. And because Wendy's fiance is actually a decent human being and what I'd consider a normal kdrama hero and Wendy is a normal heroine and to see these fairly normal people stuck in the horribly mysoginistic crap is ARGHARGHARGH.
All I know is if Wendy hooks up with Wannabe Rapist, I am going to find the maker and tattoo 'loser scum' on his forehead. There are indications that Wannabe Rapist is supposed to hook up with younger sister (who has heart trouble, probably from having to be in this story) and I don't wish the scumbag on her either, but if I had to pick, I like her less, I'll sacrifice her to the wolves. Though personally I vote for the half-sisters tag-teaming to make all of Hero's internal organs external. Slowly. And then Wendy can go off and get her fiance to wake up or go off to kick-ass singlehood or find a nice arranged Thai guy for herself to marry or found a school for acrobatic nuns. I don't care. As long as Hero ends up decapitated and she does not end up with him.
SUCH BLISTERING HATE.