It was fun to watch the drama with everyone. Thankfully, the episodes were quite short and it had some funny moments which made it easy to watch.

The drama did have some issues though. As we all know, Korea is a very conservative society. It’s a country where the quality of life for people who are gay person is not very high. One day, I really do hope things will change and that it will be sooner rather than too much later. That’s why the use of comedy at the expense of gay people has always been an issue for me. Probably one of the easiest ways to explain this might be to look at comedy in America.

Have you ever been at a comedy show and the comic is making jokes about a particular ethnicity and you question, is it ok if I laugh at this? Have you ever seen a taped show and the comic puts one of the audience members on blast? In my opinion, among others, context, truth and understanding are three important factors that make a joke ok or not ok.

Take the Minstrel Shows in both America and the UK for example. Those shows had mostly white actors put on blackface depicting caricatures of and singing songs appropriated from black culture. This was ok for a while because the audience was mostly white and they did not find it offensive. With the increase in civil rights and the more equal integration of people of color into society, more and more people saw these depiction as offensive. I think there are similarities with these Minstrel Shows and the depiction of gay characters presently in Korean entertainment. Because gay rights and gay visibility is still an issue in Korea, it can be easy for the larger Korean audience to not see the harm in the depiction of gay characters and caricatures in Korean entertainment.

This leads me to your point about Min-ah. In my opinion, her disgust at the thought of a same-sex couple is a representation of a large segment of the Korean audience for shows like this–she also reminded me of Do Bong-soon from Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon. They see only the humor that the compromising situations bring about as a result of how ridiculous the thought a same sex couple is, and not just because of how silly the compromising situation is. So the humor, or lack there of, changes based on who frames it. Hence context, truth, and understanding. I didn’t have a lot of time to expand on this. I hope to do that soon.

A really important point before I go. I was really happy when I realized that we were actually going to get a gay character in Won-hyung (Min-ah’s ex). His character served two really important purposes. The first is that he showed that in places where is it not ok to be gay, gay men often live a lie. Oftentimes this involves getting into a relationship or marriage with a heterosexual woman who believes that her boyfriend or husband loves her. This “survival tactic” can lead to a lot of suffering for both parties and is especially harmful and hurtful to the female party.

As infuriating as it was that it came at Min-ah’s expense, I was happy when Won-hyung decided to find the courage to come out and be true to himself. I thought it was amazing that he was able to find inspiration–granted, in a lie–in the Kyu-tae and Ji-jae “relationship” to be true to himself in public. I was then saddened by both how short-lived it was and Kyu-tae’s motivations and rationale behind why Won-hyung shouldn’t be out. It was two steps forward and one step back, if not more. I was also displeased with Kyu-tae advising Won-hyung that he should not flaunt his new relationship in front of Min-ah. Sure, it does not feel good to see your ex with someone new, however, that ex has moved on with someone new. It is difficult to ask that you tell him or her to let their new partner suffer for their ex’s sake.

So glad you could come and that you enjoyed yourself, Min!