5. From Imaginary Idealisation to Critical Realism

 Both the melodramatic genre in general (Storey 2015) and Korean dramas in

particular (Park 2013, 348; Hong 2014, 17) were often criticized for portraying

an idealised world. Many of the viewers interviewed, however, were adamant

that current dramas differed significantly from those of the original Hallyu.

One of Eun Jin's favourite dramas was the aforementioned sky Castle (sky kaeseul) which aired in 2018–2019 on a cable channel (jtbc). sky is also an

acronym which is used to refer to Korea's most prestigious universities (Seoul

National University, Korea National University and Yonsei University). The

drama focuses on a group of wealthy housewives living in a luxurious area of

Seoul and the extraordinary lengths they go to in order to ensure that their chil-

dren gain admission to the prestigious Seoul National University. For Eun Jin sky Castle portrays real Korean society as it currently exists. Dramas such as

sky Castle, according to Eun Jin, 'show facts and the not so good parts of society … it is realistic', a sentiment widely echoed by other informants when dis-

cussing this drama. For many students the university admission examinations

were a hellish experience (siheom jiok, literally 'examination hell'). Students

face extraordinary pressure and the family invests heavily in students as they

prepare for their university entrance exams (Lett 1998; Seth 2002). This 'edu-

cation fever' is also tied, in part, to class aspirations (Lett 1998, 159). While sky

Castle depicts an upper-class world far removed from that of our informants'

middle- to low-income families, all of our informants were captivated by the

drama because it 'shows the reality of student and family life', as Min Ji put

it, including teen suicides. Even though this was not 'their' reality—in so far

as our informants did not come from such wealthy backgrounds—informants

were convinced that this drama shows a 'real Korea'.

Many of our informants found personal points of connection with this

drama. Hee Jin is a 22-year-old student. Her preferred dramas are 'realistic'

dramas. She liked sky Castle for this reason and she has watched the whole

drama more than once. She felt that it really showed how competitive the

school system is and she could sympathise with the children in the drama

and their conflicts with their parents. It is certainly true that parental expectations in education, career and marriage often create a conflicted emotional

relationship with enduring feelings of guilt when children feel they are not able

to live up to their parents' expectations (Baldacchino 2014). sky Castle dealt

with desire and subjectivity in the realm of education and family (G. Han 2019,

307), unwittingly becoming a forum for Koreans to discuss the difficult issue

of 'powerful parents' and their 'ever-infantilized children' (Cheon 2019, 426).

For some of our informants who had only recently entered university this was

indeedasensitivesubject.ForJi Hee sky castle was also one of her favorites.It

wasn't really a romantic drama,according to her, but focused on the 'real issues'

and the tensions that children have with parents. It was evident that she felt

a personal connection with the drama. In this case the focus was not on the

identification with an individual protagonist but rather on the ways in which a

social reality was given a representation that resonated with the informants'

own experiences. When asked whether she had to undergo similar tensions

with her own family she was reluctant to talk further on the subject. Talking

about dramas was often the only way to discuss the family problems that informants were facing, since they were uncomfortable depicting anything but a

harmonious domestic environment.

The second drama which was airing during fieldwork and garnered a lot of

attention from our informants was also a cable drama which was originally a webtoon.4 Gangnam Beauty (2018) centred around a female protagonist, Kang

Mi Rae (Im Soo-Hyang), who suffered a lot in school because of her ugliness. In

school she was teased as 'Kang Orc'. Before going to university, however, with

the support of her mother and unbeknown to her father, Mi Rae had plastic

surgery. Mi Rae's father opposed the surgery, probably reflecting a more traditional 'Neo-Confucian' outlook where body modification is morally suspect

(Kim 2003, 98). The drama centres on the importance of looks and the prevalence of plastic surgery in South Korean society. As Kim notes, 'beauty has

become the new standard of a woman's value' (Kim 2003, 103). Beauty has been

widelyrecognisedtobeadeterminingfactorinone'soccupationalpossibilities.

On one hand, the character of Mi Rae is seen as both a reflection of this value

and a victim of it. In the drama Mi Rae looks at every person and is immediately able to tell what surgery they have had, giving them a score on the basis of

their looks. On the other hand, she herself is very self-conscious about her own

artificially acquired good looks and in the first few episodes she is in constant

fear that people will find out what she really looked like. The drama repeatedly

creates and plays on the contrasts between a natural beauty and an artificial

beauty.