Rec: You're Beautiful
I have not yet made a Korean Drama rec post. Not because they aren't wonderful, or that I haven't been watching lovely shows... more because penny_lane_42's posts are so incredible - and where I find most of my new shows, anyway. But a few months ago (now) I watchedYou're Beautiful and it was more than just a great K!drama. It was an answer to a conversation that started here and I am just now able to get back to.
The basic premise of the series is that this adorable girl, Go Mi Nyu, is enlisted to help her twin brother, Go Mi Nam, by going undercover in a pop band while he has surgery in America. Go Mi Nam ostensibly comes in as a new "sex symbol" to complete the group. Ironically enough, since his sister has to stand in for him and causes quite a stir in the group. She is an orphan, whose father was a brilliant composer - but her mother is unknown. Most of her life is spent looking for clues about her lost mother, a woman who died in childbirth. She was found, by her brother's agent, living in a convent and about to join their ranks. She is loving, caring, giving, an extremely talented singer... and a complete dufus/klutz. This is no Coffee Prince, in which the female protagonist is mistaken for a teen boy because of her natural tomboyish physicality. No. Mi Nyu is OBVIOUSLY a girl. She's a total dork and completely incapable of lying or posing as a boy in any way. The point of this series is more that so many people love her, fall in love with her so completely, that they cover and lie and manipulate situations in order to protect her for as long as possible.
Also. This girl is NOT allowed to cry. I get ALL THE FEELS ABOUT HER FACE!
In the band is firstly, the sensitive and secretive Kang Shin Woo, who is the first band member to figure out his new bandmate is (gasp!) a female. And consequently falls head over his sensitive little heels in love with her adorable face. And who wouldn't, really?
Several times over the course of the series, Shin Woo attempts to tell Go Mi Nam that he is in love with her - the first few times, planning elaborate scenes in which he "catches" her as a girl ... that never work out. And then several botched "dates" in which he plans to show her the woman he loves: her in a mirror.
THIS BOY! Is an epic Romantic Hero just waiting for a romance and the right girl, only can't catch a break.
Shin Woo's life is hard:
Next is Jeremy - the youngest of the group. He is goofy and silly. Deemed the clown of the group. He's always wearing adorable knitted things. For the first half of the series, Jeremy inadvertantly has sexual fantasies about Go Mi Nam and is convinced that (a) she is a gay man who is trying to seduce everyone and (b) he's becoming gay. This is all very confusing for the poor chap. So his raw enthusiasm when she is revealed as a girl is understandably... more physical than the other two boys. Basically he just keeps hugging her whenever he can. Which is blamed on his "European" childhood; aka: he doesn't have the same sense of decorum as someone raised their whole life in Korea.
Jeremy's life is also hard (this boy made me cry tears of tears of tears, he is superb and I want to be his noona so stupid girls will never hurt him again... also I want to make those mitts, they are beautiful!)::
The Hero of the story, the love-interest, is Tae Kyung. He's the moody artist. The producer and talent in the group. Let's just pause before I do a character sketch of him and admire his EVERYTHING!!!!
He likes to make this duck-face and then wiggle his lips around ala Sabrina in Bewitched.
He rarely smiles - but when he does, it usually means he is torturing the woman he loves. *pats head*
Most of the time he is depressed. His life is hard. More details on that below.
He likes to distract me with low-cut shirts and ridiculous hair.
WHAT IS THAT FACE I JUST CAN'T EVEN!
Yes. He is performing surgery on a stuffed rabbit. YES HE IS.
Tae Kyung is the first boy in A.N.GELL to confront Go Mi Nam about her... identity. He then gets enlisted by her and her brother's agent to keep her secret. Tae Kyung is usually cranky, grouchy, and just damned bratty. Therefore! She falls in love with him pretty quickly.
The reason for Tae Kyung's moodiness is the reason why I love, love, love this series so much. Because Tae Kyung was practically raised by the studio - his mother is a conniving bitch who won't recognize him as her son because she is a heartless pop star who has no time for her son... she forces him to pretend that he is a stranger in public, even now that he is a celebrated image in the industry and one of the best producers in the business, and force-fed him shrimp when he was a child - which he is allergic to! This woman takes "bad mother" and takes it to the Nth degree. His father seems to be interested - but from afar. No one even knows what Tae Kyung's birthday is. His mother manipulates him emotionally and professionally. Abuses him repeatedly. And at the end of the day: the only family he has is his bandmates and Go Mi Nam.
It's a fact that is repeated throughout the series: it's better for these boys to be together, to be away from their real families that don't care for them enough. Shin Woo has a good family. They are poor. And are featured only momentarily to show how much better his life is because of his studio contract. For Go Mi Nam, this is the only family she has ever known other than her brother; it is where she learns real love.
But this "family" is tenuous at best. It is completely dependent upon everyone maintaining a facade for their fans. Shin Woo is "mysterious" Jeremy is "playful" Tae Kyung is "talented" and Mi Nam is "sexy" ... their fans (represented by a group of three girls who relate the "histories" of the boys to each other for the audience) cry and throw tantrums when the band members get girlfriends (both "relationships" in the series are falsified, created for the public in order to protect Go Mi Nam). Simultaneously, we see the agent and stylist talk about in detail several times - how the histories were created and the process of FANFICTION within the fandom community for the boys. The agent writes a few scenarios for Go Mi Nam before settling on an "official" backstory.
All of this exists, in order to keep the boys/band together. The facade - the fandom - keeps Go Mi Nam safe. It creates a bubble that keeps the band protected from the outside world, from being hurt by reality. All the REAL family members we meet are conniving, manipulating, and dangerous. It is deemed better - almost like an exchange of power, if the band members are no longer the object of the manipulation.
I think this series is an excellent example of the pop industry in Korea - or at least, a fascinating representation of a system that is in many ways corrupt - but posits that the system exists to emotionally PROTECT teens from an unloving familial system that only exists to manipulate and abandon. IT'S SO INTERESTING!
[EDIT] WARNING: Image heavy as it turns out this show MAKES ME FEEL THINGS!