Friday, April 2, 2010

Representation of gender roles in Korean soap operas

In class, we talked about the TV show, The O.C and its representation of gender roles. It is criticized in Meyer's article that it did not change the stereotypes of gender roles.
Korea society, compared to that of U.S., is conservative and its conservation of gender roles is much more prevalent. And this is reflected in TV shows (espescially in soap operas).
I have posted earlier about the 'Cinderella story', the term for criticizing Korean dramas. As Cinderella became happy after she met and fell in love with the prince, "prince" is taking an important role in Korean dramas. They are always "prefect", which means, they are handsome, they have lots of money, they are professionals, and they are making "dependent and not perfect" women live happy life. So many dramas have this kind of plot that many women have fantasy about their "Mr. Right". Many women want to meet those rich and handsome guys. Even though many women in these days are professionals and making enough money to make a living, they still want to be dependent on men. This thinking affects both men and women. In a real society, those "prefect"guys are hard to be present. Men in Korea should complete military service for 2 years, so by the time they graduate University and get a job, they will be around 26~27 years old (U.S age-25 to 26). But no one can be rich right after they get a job. However, the dramas depict those "prefect" men, who are 28~30 years old. I mean, there are rich men who are 28~30 years (maybe their parents are rich), but in a really small percentage (I am quite sure that it is much much less than women viewers of dramas). Most women have unfeasible dreams about Mr. Right because of mis-representation of gender roles (why should men be rich and women be dependent on men?) in dramas. This is certainly burden to men and harm to women (they are dreaming unfeasible dreams).

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