Archetypes and Stereotypes of Korean Romance Dramas
Archetypes & Stereotypes Project - Alicia Park, Sandra Kim, Catherine Oh
Introduction
People tend to indulge themselves into fictional worlds to satisfy their fantasies and ideals. Often times this fictional world is visualized through media, especially dramas. Connecting this idea to Korea, we realized that most of Korean romance dramas have their storylines based on the well-known fairytale Cinderella in which reflects many people’s dreams of experiencing “rags-to-riches” and eventually leading to a happy ending. Although the basic plot has always remained the same in many Korean dramas, the characters changed as the ideals of people changed over time. These changes are apparent on their fashion, makeup, personalities, age and their interaction with the opposite gender. Dramas that take the risk to incorporate revolutionary factors are seen as the archetypes and those that follow the new trend are seen as stereotypes.
Cinderella, a fairy tale, is the archetype of the storyline of Korean romance dramas.
Reflection
When we settled on focusing on archetypes and stereotypes of Korean dramas, we realized that it was fairly a large subject, as there were so many aspects altogether despite the very few genres Korean dramas cover. Thus, we decided to focus on a narrower category: Korean romance dramas. Reflecting on many well-known Korean romance dramas, we noticed that many of the storylines scripted from the shows all followed or were inspired by the plot of the fairytale Cinderella. In addition, we were able to quickly sum up just about every stereotypical characteristic of Korean romance dramas as they were constantly shown.
(A stereotypical scene would depict the ”prince” saving the “poor girl “from danger, resulting the ”prince” looking heroic and the “poor girl” falling in love with him.)
At first, we were afraid that there weren’t any archetypal aspects of Korean romance dramas as most of the ideas from each shows are constantly recycled. However, as we researched deeper into the subject, we discovered a few new changes and revolutionary attempts regarding characters and genre. For example, the archetype of a Korean romance drama female character was Ko Eun Chan from “Coffee Prince” (2007), who started the “tomboy” trend. Another archetype example would be “Full House” (2003), which was the first Korean romance drama based on a comic.
Dramas today portray strong and active female characters or tomboys like EunChan from Coffee Prince.
- The archetypal drama, Full House, started the new trend of comic-based dramas.
The drama, School 1, is the archetype of school dramas for adolescents.
What we found unfortunate as we worked on this project was that we could have compared and contrasted the dialogue, the soundtrack and other media aspects of past and today’s dramas yet we were unable to do so as videos of past dramas were rare. Thus, we settled upon analyzing what we observed from images. The first difference we noticed was that characters in the past dramas were depicted with gender stereotypes. For example, a female character of the past was always represented weak, fragile, and polite while a male character of the past was always neat and gentleman-like. Small variety of personalities was reflected on the limited facial expressions such as a mild smile or blank face. On the other hand, dramas nowadays feature male and female characters with wider range of personality and physical traits. For example, the main heroine of “Boys Over Flowers” (2009) is very rebellious and stubborn while the main hero was first featured as a very arrogant and immature brat. In turn, today’s dramas portray characters with much more facial expressions that are full of excitement, anger or agony.
With pale skin and long hair, female characters in the past were portrayed as pure and weak.
- Male characters in the past were portrayed as neat, manly, mature and hardworking. Notice the combed hair and tucked in shirt.
Despite repetitive and tacky plots, Korean audiences still enjoy romance dramas because they reflect their most ideal romantic fantasies. The audience understands unrealistic aspects of dramas but this does not change the fact that romantic stories give pleasure to people.
Audience and Archetypes/Stereotypes
Among the images of Korean romance dramas, we could determine archetypes and stereotypes by exploring which drama began certain trends that diverged from traditional styles. Entering the 21st century, drama producers experimented on innovative ideas that broke away from the stereotypical 90’s dramas. Most notable change was in the portrayal of female and male characters. The usual traits of manly male characters and submissive and calm female characters started to overlap, which eventually began the new “pretty boy” and tomboy trend. For example, in the drama “Coffee Prince” (2007), the main female character, EunChan was a tomboy with short hair. EunChan became the archetype because after this show, many successor female characters in the following dramas were portrayed with short hair, who we view as the stereotypes. Another major change in Korean drama is the combination of couples from older guy and younger girl to younger guy and older girl. The archetypal drama “Snow White” (2004) started this new trend and resulted in many copied couples in other dramas that followed.
The archetypal drama, Snow White, started the new trend of younger-guy-and-older-girl trend.
Despite directors’ innovative experiments, Korean romance dramas still follow the stereotypical setting and storyline of Cinderella. In many dramas, there is a rich male character, a poor female character and a jealous, rich female character who tries to break the other two apart. Images of male characters in luxurious clothing and huge houses are stereotypical in this respect. Similarly, images of main female characters in cheap clothing are also stereotypical. The attire each characters wear usually reflects the social status the respective characters are in. For example, a man in a formal suit could be from a wealthy family that owns a successful company while a woman in plain shirt and dress is normally of what a commoner would wear.
Female characters are usually poor and often get help from the male characters.
Stereotypical antagonists are rich girls/women who are jealous of protagonist female characters.
Ideal male characters are usually very wealthy.Female characters are usually poor and often get help from the male characters.Female characters are usually poor and often get help from the male characters.
All of the images we found are intended for Korean audiences because these drama elements are well recognized and acknowledged by Koreans. Male and female are evenly represented. In the past, age group of twenties and early thirties were widely represented, but today, adolescents are more widely represented. Since we are focusing on romance dramas, elders are least represented.
A common factor of all the dramas from 1990s to today is that the characters and storyline represent the ideal figures and situations of the time period the show is aired. Dramas are created to give satisfaction to people by showing something people dream of. This is part of reason why many people dress like the characters in our images; to make themselves close to the idealistic figures in dramas.
Vocabulary and Word Cloud
vocabulary-list-for-korean-romance-dramas.doc – Here is a list of key vocabulary terms which relate to archetypes and stereotypes of Korean romance dramas.
(Alphabetical order)
Archetype
Audience
Character Development
Cinderella
Comic-based
Differences
Diligent Guy
Fashion
Fragile Women
Hairstyle
Happy Ending
Hero
Idealistic
Immature Guy
Innocent Women
Jealous competitor
Korean Romance Dramas
Love Triangle
Make up
Mature Guy
Older ♀ ♥ Younger ♂
Older ♂ ♥ Younger ♀
Past
Present
Princely
Rescue
Rich v. Poor
School Drama
Similarities
Stereotype
Strong Women
Tomboy
Trend
TV Couples
Younger Characters
Resources and Links
archetypes-and-stereotypes-of-korean-romance-drama11.ppt – Here is a slideshow summarizing most of the archetype and stereotype elements of Korean romance dramas, ranging from characters and subgenres.
http://www.kbs.co.kr/end_program/drama/dramaend08v1.html
http://vodmall.imbc.com/onair/OffAir.aspx
http://tv.sbs.co.kr/weeklytop/endprogram_list.jsp
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