Shakespeare and the Korean Drama

Aug 30, 2011 12:38

Every once in a while life gets to be too much.  My brain runs in circles worrying about things it can't fix, resisting changes that are inevitable and I just need something to take the edge off.   In those times I like to turn to my favorite drug: television.  I wish I could tell you that during these moments I sit down and catch up on the highly rated dramas of our time, thinking deeply about their sociocultural messages and reveling in the fresh dialogue and subtle acting, the kind of acting that turns a pause into a paragraph.   But no dear friends.  This is not the kind of television to which I turn.   When the brain needs to be completely and uterly silenced,  when logic and rational thought need to be kicked out the window, when I, like Sherlock Holmes (we are of a similar level of intelligence) need a break from being so very very smart (you can tell because of the spelling mistakes and grammer issues), I turn to melodramtic soaps to get me through the rough patches.  I turn to plots so ridiculous following them involves not the suspension of disbelief, but its brutal murder.   If you look at my old entries you will see my decent into the Dawson's Creek hell, my obsession with the campy tean comedy that is That 70's show, and my 2 day marathon of the first season of Heroes.  And to this ever growing list, I can now add 5 Korean Dramas.

The Snow Queen (16 episodes, I've watched 8)

A poor young man who happens to be the Korean Good Will Hunting goes to a fancy prep school only to find a Korean math genius allready in attendence.  Said math genius is of course rich.  The two compete fiercely, make up after fighting off some gang members, have a homoerotic friendship montage and then finally break up after Good Will Hunting humiliates the Math Genius by beating him in the World Mathlete Competition (or something like that).    Math Genius isn't really angry at Good Will Hunting though, he's just upset because his father is furious with him, and unable to take the pressue, walks into traffic and dies.  Good Will Hunting is so upset by this he hops on a bus, runs away from school and family, misses his date with the spunky young girl he kept running into around town, and dissappears.  Said spunky young girl, returns to the hospital, where unknown to Good Will, she is pretty damn sick.  The whole thing breaks her heart as Good Will was the only one she ever opened up to about her mother's death.    This is all in the first episode.  No Joke.  Eight years pass and Good Will is a boxer because he never understood that when Math Genius said he wanted to be like a boxing chamion, he actually meant he wanted to be the world champion of math.  Good Will is not very smart at things that aren't math.  Bit of a savant.  At a hospital, he runs into a very rich, very sick girl who's all attitude and bitchiness.  Little does he know that she is the same girl from eight years ago, only all grown up now.  Let the hijinks commence.  This drama is heavier on the drama than the comedy, but it has Taming of the Shrew all over it.  Her father wants her to marry.  No man really wants her depsite the fact that she's rich and beautiful because she is such a bitch.  Clearly she needs a man to melt her heart and discover the sweet person she could have been if she hadn't spent all her time in hospitals, and if her brother hadn't died 8 years ago.  Yeah, that was a big hint for the next big twist.  Will the star crossed lovers work things out?  Will Good Will learn what a metaphor is and get back to what he's actually good at?  Couldn't tell you.   About the time Good Will decided he couldn't confess his love because then she would find out her brother died because of him (not true) I got bored with all the brooding and the tears. But all this was in February, and I wasn't quite ready for the Korean drama yet.

You're Beautiful (16 episodes)

I'd give you a summary, but Sarah Rees Brennan did it so much better here.   I will say that this is probably my favorite drama as it committed to it's concept without going overboard.  Sure, that initial concept was absolutely crazy, but I have since learned that there is nothing that can't be made crazier if you really try.  And Korean dramas try.

My Name is Sam-Soon (My Lovely Sam-soon on Hulu) (16 episodes)

Sam-soon has an unfortunate name (I don't quite know in what way, not speaking Korean, but I believe it translates into Third Martyr).  Sam-soon gets a lot of crap for being over weight (she's not, she just isn't Korean actress skinny), for swearing too much, for  occassionally drinking too much, and for being old (30).  She also isn't afraid of making a public spectacle of herself and makes a truly disgusting noise after she takes a shot.  She's also a bit violent.  I was a little uncomfortable with the amount of time she smacked people around.  But then, her sister and mother are equally culpable on this front.  (The violence is played for comedy however, so I'm probably just missing out on the joke due to my chalk white New England upbring.)  Balanced against all these percieved character faults, Sam soon is an accomplished pastery chef, incredibly loving, and terribly brave.   Sam-shik (not his actual name but Sam-soon's nick name for him) is a 27 year-old man-child who though good at running a five star restaurant has the emotional age of a 16 year old boy.  The two meet in the men's room after Sam-soon publically breaks up with her cheating boyfriend and accidently misses the ladies' room by one.  (These drama's really embrace the toilet humor) It's awkward, particulary as Sam-shik overheard all the details of her break up, and also she has eyeliner running down her face and her top is unbuttoned.  Months later the two meet again under equally terrible circumstances, Sam-soon smashes a cake in his face and yet somehow gets herself a job based on her culinary expertise.  This might be considered enough of a plot to get things rolling and it's certainly enough to get us through episode 1, but the concept hasn't even kicked in yet.  That comes in episode 2 where Sam-shik's appalling behavior leads to a variety of misunderstandings and finally to a proposion.  He'll pay her to date him.  That way he won't have to date anyone else and he won't have to worry about her falling in love with him.  He's a real winner.  Now Sam-soon isn't the type of girl to take such a gross offer, but what sort of story would this be if she didn't?  Enter convenient money crisis based on an uncle who will never be talked of again and we will never meet.  Let the games begin!  Is it love, is it money?  How many days will Sam-shik follow around our heroine like a lost puppy before he gives up.  More grounded in realism than a nun in a boyband, or extreme-coincidence-math-genius-tragedy,  Sam-soon still contains an abundance of drama staples: cancer, past lovers, old secrets, terrible scarring accidents from the past, convenient hospitalizations, and  unbelievable misunderstandings.  All of which makes this story at times fun, but more often filled with tears.   Is there are rule that after episode 8, 1/3 of each episode should be devoted to crying and montages?   That said, the leads probably havethe best chemistry and most well developed romance.  I have a lot more thoughts on it, but I'm going to leave this show for now as well.

Secret Garden (20, though I have no idea why)

I want to hate this show.  It kind of deserves it.  The plot was clearly made by drawing random fanfics out of a hat.  There are stalkerish abusive undertones that made me deeply uncomfortable at times.  It employs incidental body swap, magical dead dads, comas, suicide, amnesia, class struggles, and near death experiences.  It swings so wildly from trying to be Midsummer Nights dream, to being Much Ado About Nothing, to being The Time Travelers Wife, that I couldn't begin to explain what I just watched.    And yet it has Korean Blair Waldorf, and the unexpectedly sweet Aging Pop Star, and the occasionally bad ass Stunt Woman (why couldn't she have been always badass?) and the ridicuous Clausterphobic Asshole.  When the show tried to have a plot, it suffered.  When the show put the four of them in a room and let them play off each other and their interpersonal dynamics, it was briliant.  I don't know whether to warn off the general populace, or invite you over with popcorn and tissues.  I may never truly figure it out.

Boys Before Flowers

It's high school time.  This story, and I hate to say this because I don't like to use the term, raises some Mary Sue flags.  4 beautiful boys, 1 spunky young girl who's poor.  Through her awesomeness she attracts their attention, becomes part of their inner circle, and everyone likes her except for the evil people.  See what I mean about concerning?  Also, romantic lead number 1 has the ugliest bleached hair I have ever seen.  Romantic lead number 2 has a terrible perm.  The lead actress is screechy and chews her scenes like a dog trying to get the peanut butter out of his bone.  I should stop watching right this minute.  Or maybe after I fnish this next episode.  It wouldn't hurt to just finish the next episode right?  It's just that the actress is toning it down some, and I love her bluntness.  And the permed dude clearly joined the Clausterphobic Asshole from Secret Garden, and My Lovely Sam-soon's Sam-shik at the Mr. Darcy school of courting.  (First insult her looks, then her family, then her career, follow this up with sweeping declaration of devotion, wait for her to fling herself into your skinny rich arms) And the ugly haired one might have aspergers or something similar following, of course, a tragic accident.  And what about the two other cute boys who stand to the side and laugh at everything and flirt with anything that moves.  What about them?  Shouldn't I just wait to see if they get storylines?  Right?  Help me!

Now after reading those discrptions, you might be thinking, how is a Korean drama like Shakespeare?  Don't you believe he's the greatest writer of all time?   Maybe, Katie,  you've really fried your brain this time.  These Korean dramas are why everyone thinks you have questionable taste.  But really you guys, take any one of Shakespeare's romantic comedies and you have a completely outfitted Korean drama.   Let's look at a check list of Korean drama cliches:

Class differences
Idiot servents
Cold rich men who don't want a wife
Marriage
Overbearing parents
Loud abrasive women
Sweet earnest women who are victims
Eternallly Quarreling lovers
Gender bending hijinks
Magic
Star crossed lovers
Love triangles
Identity mix-ups

You can pretty much play name that Shakesperian Comedy with all of them.  Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream all have at least 5 of these things going for them at any given time.  Korean dramas even contain that troubling chauvenism that makes the Taming of the Shrew difficult for me to really love.  (Seriously, what is with all the wrist grabbing?)  I think I'm going to leave this here for now, but somewhere there is a disertation about this, and I may just have to write it.

Watching these dramas, I'm transported to a place where many of the sociocultural issues seem as removed as a Jane Austen novel.  Would a boy in America meet some resistance from his mother is he married an uneducated woman who waited tables, probably.  Would she try to pay off the "gold digger," likely.  Would she go to these absolutely extreme lengths to separate the two of them and then finally disown her son?  Well, not being rich myself I don't know, but I'm fairly sure if the girl was as clever, driven, and capable as the heroines always are, mom would probably come around enough in time to only making rude passive aggressive coments over Thanksgiving dinner.  Once again though, I'm talking less from experience and more from the fact that this particular trope is hardly ever seen on American soaps, and if it is, it's usually overcome before the first season ends.  It's just not such a fixuture in the American conciousness.   Though this rigid class struture concerns me as a person who does occasionally visit the real world, in fiction it does add a great deal of dramatic tension without going to some of the extreme lengths American and British soaps do.  (I'm looking at you tean pregnancy, accidental murders, drug induced spirals) I wish I could tell you that with so much inherent drama, (I haven't watched a Korean drama yet where one lover wasn't rich while the other was poor), that this kept the story telling more restrained, but this is not the case at all.  Why write Pride ane Prejudice, when you can write Wuthering Heights meets 30 Rock?

Think that sounds like a hot mess?  You'd be right.  Dramabeans, my new favorite blog for all things Korean Pop Culture, wrote in her recap of Secret Garden, that the show gave her emotional whip lash.  Well said.  These things bounce between zany shenanigans and the kind of crying only seen in Alice and Wonderland where she nearly drowned herself so fast that I lose any sense of what is up and what is down.  To give you an idea of  obstacle course of feelings I have to navigate each episode here is a breakdown of my emtions while watching Secret Garden.  One minute I'm laughing because a perfectly time visual gag and great  dialogue.  The next I'm trying not to laugh at the hero who is crying his eyes out  because he is about to commit suicide to save his girlfriend, all while wearing a bright pink hoodie.  Do I write the show off as terrible because of the hoodie of sadness and enjoy the show strictly in an ironic way?  But what about those parts that are actually well done and acted?  And then, just when I'm about to decide, yes, this is definitely ironic fun, the acting and the dialogue will once again touch down into reality and I'll find myself quite upset and desparate to watch the next episode to make sure everyone will make it out of this latest ridiculous plot twist allright.  Whip lash.  It's the only way to describe it.  And yet, doesn't Shakespeare walk a similar line.  Much Ado About nothing has  fake suicide as well.  The lovers in Midsummer Nights dream are threatened to be put to death if they don't bow to the king's wishes.    Shakespeare pulls off these mood swings better.  But then, if he had 16 episodes rather than 5 acts to fill, I wonder what would have happened.
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