Korean Drama is more than just Romance!
Series: Reply 1988 (Korean Drama: 응딥하라 1988)
Theory: Postcolonial Theory
There’s a growing mentality in the Philippines that if you watch Korean television series, you are either “baduy”, “jej”, “weird”, or a “koreaboo.” It’s a very sad reality that many people tend to look down on asian dramas, when in fact they are so much more than the stereotypical romantic trope of guy-meets-girl. Most Korean dramas have deeper lessons that they want their watchers to put into mind. An example could be the Korean drama Signal (시그닐, 2016). The drama was so much more than the supernatural communication between cops from different generations (1989 and 2018 respectively). In the long run, the drama was showcasing how bad the political system in South Korea is, where politicians openly accept bribes from the upper class, and prosecute the innocent people who unfortunately fall under the lower class.
The Korean drama I would like to talk about would be Reply 1988, a korean drama with themes of romance, family, and comedy set in the year 1988 which centers on the lives of people in the small neighbourhood in the northern part of Seoul called Ssangmun-dong, Dobong-gu. The series rotates around the lives of each generation, the parents and the children. As you watch, you get to see how these characters grow up and mature amidst their struggles and obstacles. There are political themes in the series especially since it comes a few years after the gwangju democratization movement.
Mimicry, hybridity, and ambivalence are key concepts in Homi K. Babha’s theory of postcolonialism. What we can see in this drama is the concept of Hybridity, especially throughout the running of the series. Hybridity is the mingling of cultures between the east and the west. We can see the mingling of the cultures in this drama as there is change in how the families act, in the clear generational gap between the parents and their children especially when it comes to how they dress, what their political views are, and how technologically savvy the children are compared to their parents.
The series starts as a narration of events by Sung Duk Seon (Lee Hye-Ri), as one of the main characters. Duk Seon is one of the children in the series, the younger sister of Sung Bo Ra (Ryu Hye-young), and the one who eventually married Choi Taek (Park Bo-gum). We can see how hybridity works in the lives of the generation of Duk Seon, especially through the years from 1988 to the present year that they are living in now. An example would be the fact that Duk Seon and her generation dresses up in a more western and modern style of jeans and shirts compared to her mother Lee Il Hwa, who prefers dressing in long skirts and a loose shirt which is almost the equivalent to a Hanbok. The same thing can be seen in Sung Bo Ra’s wedding, where Duk Seon wears the modern white dress for her sister’s wedding and Il Hwa wears the traditional Korean Hanbok to her eldest daughter’s wedding. We can see how the western culture has influenced the people of Seoul, where people have this mentality that what’s western is considered “better.”
The evolution of language plays a big part in distinguishing the different generational gaps and in the distinguishing of how hybridity has affected the lives of the different generations. For example there is one scene in one of the last episodes where Jung Hwan’s mother, Ra Mi Ran couldn’t understand the english alphabet and; out of shame, had to lie to the Japanese embassy that she had misplaced her passport. Jung Hwan, being in the same generation as Duk Seon could understand basic english, so he spelled out the english alphabet in korean Hanggul. (eg. R = 알) Another example could be that in the part of the series when the children have already grown up, they use expressions such as “OK” and “COOL” which are words in the english language which could be used in the same context. There is a clear integration of the western culture in the adaptation of these english words to the Korean urban dictionary.
Hybridity also has a control over religion. In the earlier episodes of the series, Il Hwa brings Duk Seon to a buddhist temple and prays that she would be able to go to college. Duk Seon is a headstrong character who doesn’t really do well in class, and this is what drives her mother to go to fortune tellers and ask for Duk Seon’s fortune a lot. The fortune teller in the end tells Il Hwa to change Duk Seon’s name to Sung Soo Yeon. In contrast to her older daughter Bo Ra who is very studious and who eventually becomes a lawyer, Il Hwa doesn’t bother asking fortune tellers for Bo Ra’s fortune. Il Hwa’s belief in fortune tellers and Buddha is very traditional compared to Duk Seon’s generation where there is an obvious lack of belief in higher beings that control the fate of the world. In Duk Seon’s generation, they believe in doing things themselves which is also a very western concept. Christianity is also a western religion which 20.6% of koreans believe in.
As you can see, there are different concepts of hybridity in this drama; such as, the cultural, linguistic, and religious hybridity. This is made even clearer because of the presence of the parents who have more traditional Korean perspectives to life. When you go through the entire series, besides feeling a rollercoaster of emotions that you can feel, you can actually learn so much from this series in terms of family and romantic relationships, nostalgia and memory, and all the other deeper lessons that this drama has. It is wrong to look down on Korean drama just because it isn’t western. Sometimes, Korean drama has more real life lessons to apply compared to our own filipino TV series, which have the dominant controversial theme of adultery mixed with overly dramatized acting. The Philippine media doesn’t even have it’s own original storyboard and it usually rips off content from Korean dramas or western movies (eg. the ongoing debate on whether ABS CBN makes a remake of the Lord of The Rings, which I am strongly against!!!!) Korean drama is more than just romance, it’s a showcase of Korean culture and lifestyle. I really encourage people to learn from the different Korean dramas instead of look down on them.
Bibliography:
Homi Bhabha: The Location of Culture, Of Mimicry and Man, prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/mimicry.html.
Information Service. “Religion.” KOREA.net Gateway to Korea, KOREA.net, www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Korean-Life/Religion.
Schwenz, Caroline Lee. “Mimicry, Ambivalence, and Hybridity.” Postcolonial Studies, scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/21/mimicry-ambivalence-and-hybridity/.
Singh, Amardeep. “Mimicry and Hybridity in Plain English.” Amardeep Singh, Blogspot.com, 8 May 2009, www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2009/05/mimicry-and-hybridity-in-plain-english.html.
The Gale Group, Inc. “Postcolonial Theory and Literature.” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Encyclopedia.com, 2018, www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/postcolonial-theory-and-literature.
Zur, Dafna. “Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society.” Academia.edu, Routledge, www.academia.edu/30881154/Modern_Korean_Literature_and_Cultural_Identity.pdf.
김 은히. 시그널, TvN, 22 Jan. 2016.
리 우중. 응딥하라 1988, TvN, 26 Nov. 2015.