I tend to use dramabeans when I hit the point in a kdrama where I can't continue to watch but still want to know what happens to the characters (Personal Taste, etc), rather than as a recs site, per se, because I don't think my tastes dovetail with most of the reccers there. *shrug*
But then again... that's also much of the problem with historicals. We can push women into the background, doing nothing, because that's how it was. Thing is, if you're comparing jdramas and kdramas, a lot of what you're describing actually flips with the historicals. Kdramas are much more likely to do things like Damo, Queen Seondeok, Capital Scandal, and even Legend (though the gender dynamics there are a little squirgly). And, yes, part of the reason they can do this is because historicals are often expected to be tragic for (almost) everyone involved, so you can have an end message of Damo being that there wasn't a place for her without affirming that as a good thing. But when I compare that to the Japanese NHK dramas (and other than Jin, which doesn't exactly break the pattern, I can't think of other historical jdramas), which I can't even stand to watch anymore, because I'm sick of women being wives, wives, wives, it looks pretty good. I would give a lot for a drama about Emperor Suiko or Hojo Masako.
Which is a long way of tying back around to the idea that showing "reality" constantly can have a much darker side, as you pointed out for women in historicals: Japan does that all the time, whereas Korea is much more variable in terms of its depictions. (And, no, Korean history does not in fact have more strong women in it; it's just that tellers of Japanese history generally have done a much more successful job of recasting all strong women in history as pawns of men. So Japanese historicals can maybe get away with more because someone already did the negating of history for them.) I guess I'd just argue that the willingness to be fantastic doesn't just have to be a woman who gets the guy without being at all aware of sexuality; it can also be the woman who has her own independent powerbase (not dependent on her being someone's wife) and uses it, which in the current tellings of Japanese history and the little I know of how Korean history is told, does come off as fantastic.
(I guess I also kind of disagree about the extremity of the differences between kdramas and jdramas, which may be because we watch different dramas? I'm not sure. I tend to go for the dramas set in what is emphatically not a woman's traditional sphere, things like Galileo, Powerful Opponents, Iris, Bloody Monday, BOSS, etc., where a much bigger problem than sexual harassment is the implication that the only thing a women is good for is thinking illogically and on confronting that, jdramas and kdramas--and twdramas--seem to be running about even.)
no subject
Date: 19 Feb 2011 11:59 pm (UTC)But then again... that's also much of the problem with historicals. We can push women into the background, doing nothing, because that's how it was.
Thing is, if you're comparing jdramas and kdramas, a lot of what you're describing actually flips with the historicals. Kdramas are much more likely to do things like Damo, Queen Seondeok, Capital Scandal, and even Legend (though the gender dynamics there are a little squirgly). And, yes, part of the reason they can do this is because historicals are often expected to be tragic for (almost) everyone involved, so you can have an end message of Damo being that there wasn't a place for her without affirming that as a good thing. But when I compare that to the Japanese NHK dramas (and other than Jin, which doesn't exactly break the pattern, I can't think of other historical jdramas), which I can't even stand to watch anymore, because I'm sick of women being wives, wives, wives, it looks pretty good. I would give a lot for a drama about Emperor Suiko or Hojo Masako.
Which is a long way of tying back around to the idea that showing "reality" constantly can have a much darker side, as you pointed out for women in historicals: Japan does that all the time, whereas Korea is much more variable in terms of its depictions. (And, no, Korean history does not in fact have more strong women in it; it's just that tellers of Japanese history generally have done a much more successful job of recasting all strong women in history as pawns of men. So Japanese historicals can maybe get away with more because someone already did the negating of history for them.) I guess I'd just argue that the willingness to be fantastic doesn't just have to be a woman who gets the guy without being at all aware of sexuality; it can also be the woman who has her own independent powerbase (not dependent on her being someone's wife) and uses it, which in the current tellings of Japanese history and the little I know of how Korean history is told, does come off as fantastic.
(I guess I also kind of disagree about the extremity of the differences between kdramas and jdramas, which may be because we watch different dramas? I'm not sure. I tend to go for the dramas set in what is emphatically not a woman's traditional sphere, things like Galileo, Powerful Opponents, Iris, Bloody Monday, BOSS, etc., where a much bigger problem than sexual harassment is the implication that the only thing a women is good for is thinking illogically and on confronting that, jdramas and kdramas--and twdramas--seem to be running about even.)