K-Drama Special: Pride Month
Love In The Big City
By Sharon Stern
We have said a number of times that Korean society is pretty conservative. Just look at the strong influences in the elections that just took place. Or think about how recently K-dramas showed (still show) the rubber-lipped non-kiss-first-kiss, afraid that minors might see an actual kiss in prime time. Modesty has been considered a virtue in Korean culture and public displays of affection (even fictional) are not widely embraced. Add to that a still-negative general attitude toward LGBTQ+ issues and the absence of non-cisgendered representation in K-drama lead characters is smothering.
There are actually quite a number of K-dramas with LGBTQ + characters, though. Most of those characters, however, are neither the leads nor the seconds and often they are stereotyped or clownish or hated and not really portrayed as three-dimensional people. Or the acting might be really good and honest (Soong Joong-ki in Sungkyunkwan Scandal), but the surrounding drama’s treatment of the subject stinks. Sometimes the characters are honestly and well depicted, but they appear for only moments in a single episode. I guess these can be issues in any drama, but it seems more important when you are showing people who are already marginalized within their society. However, there are a few dramas that have done a pretty good job showing real people that just happen to be LGBTQ + that I would like to feature. There is also an entire genre called BL/GL of not-as-mainstream K-dramas dedicated to mostly male, gay leads, but there are some lesbian lead dramas as well. I will talk about this genre below.
I am listing dramas here by the year they were released, not in a ranked order.
Love in the Big City – 대도시의 사랑법 (2024)
Viki – Starring: Nam Yoon-su, Lee Soo-kyung, Oh Hyun-kyung, Kwon Hyuk, Na Hyun-woo, Jin Ho-eun, Kim Won-joong
Genre: Melodrama, slice-of-life, coming-of-age
There are two Love in the Big City productions that both came out in 2024 – one is a K-drama series and the other is a movie. Both are based on the same book, but they tackle different parts of the book.
This has been considered a breakthrough drama for a story featuring a gay lead. Normally, series featuring LGBTQ+ main characters are somewhat buried under the BL and GL genre (see the bottom of this article). In many ways, this series still fits into the BL genre, but because the book was such an international success, both this series and the movie garnered a lot of attention. The series premiered late last year and was critically acclaimed, especially internationally. It tells the story of a young, gay man, living with a straight woman, and struggling with self-identity, HIV, his relationship with his terminally ill mother who denies his sexual orientation and who had forced him into conversion therapy, his forced breakup with his lover. The drama had financial backing from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, but that drew protests from conservative groups. The launch experienced some hiccups because of the protests.
Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born – 정년이 (2024)
Hulu – Starring: Kim Tae-ri, Shin Ye-eun, Ra Mi-ran, Jung Eun-chae, Kim Yoon-hye
Genre: Period drama, coming-of-age, musical
This one is hard to write about. I really loved this drama for so many reasons. There are a lot of positive gender-role things to say about it, but it also had swirling sexual depiction controversy surrounding it.
It introduces us to gukgeuk, which is a little known and all but extinct all-women art form of classic pansori music, presented in more modern stage adaptations. Just that right there is pretty amazing. This took place in the 1950s, when women’s roles in society were difficult and defined by men. Gukgeuk was the reversal of centuries of theatrical tradition where everything from Chinese opera to Shakespeare was always acted 100% by males. All roles in gukgeuk were done by females instead. The drama showed large fandoms of female groupies swooning over the woman who played the male lead characters in the gukgeuk presentations. The two women who always played the male leads, Moon Ok-gyeong (Jung Eun-chae), and the female leads, Seo Hye-rang (Kim Yoon-hye), lived together as a couple, raising Hye-rang’s niece. The main character, Yoon Jeong-nyeon (Kim Tae-ri), and another company member, Hong Joo-ran (Woo Da-vi), had very deep feelings for each other and Joo-ran is completely thrown off by her feelings for Jeong-nyeon and her internal exploration of those feelings. There is a nice depth of women loving women in this drama.
And then there is the mess about the story’s origins and the production of the drama as well. This drama is supposedly based on a webtoon of the same name. In the webtoon, there is a main character named Bu-yong, who is the love interest of Jeong-nyeon. The character was completely cut out of the K-drama. The director says that the character was absorbed into other characters in the K-drama, but they were accused of feminism erasure. I’m sure that the controversy of having a high-budget, prime time drama show a lead lesbian couple felt like just too much to put forward. The ending is also criticized for being disempowering of the female characters. Hong Joo-ran is married off by her mother in order to support their family and is ripped away from Jeong-nyeon. All of this is really bad, when you know how much the original was changed. I haven’t been able to see the webtoon yet, but want to. If you take the drama by itself, without knowing about the webtoon, I think they do a sensitive job showing the relationships and I think it’s an excellent drama. But you can’t just ignore what was done, can you? So frustrating. That may make you end up believing the entire production is trash and I can respect that.
My Dearest – 연인 (2023)
Viki – Starring: Namkoong Min, Ahn Eun-jin, Lee Hak-joo, Lee Da-in, Kim Yoon-woo, Lee Chung-ah
Genre: Historical drama, melodrama, romance
This is such a good drama, everyone. If you haven’t seen it, you really need to. The acting is wonderful, the music is wonderful, the storyline is intense. It’s just a really worthwhile drama to watch. It covers the Qing invasion of Korea. I know sageuk is not everyone’s cup of tea, but this one is really worth it.
One of the secondary characters, Ryang-eum (Kim Yoon-woo), is the best pansori singer in Joseon. He is in love with the lead male, Lee Jang-hyun (Namkoong Min), and you can sincerely feel his longing and the pain of his unrequited love. Kim Yoon-woo does a beautiful job with this role. He doesn’t verbally, explicitly express himself in terms of love, but that would be expected in the historical setting and we don’t need words when we can clearly see the feelings.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo – 이상한 변호사 우영우 (2022)
Netflix – Starring: Park Eun-bin, Kang Tae-oh, Kang Ki-young
Genre: Legal drama
I covered this drama in April because the main character, an attorney, is autistic. It was extremely popular when it came out. This is another episodic drama, and in Episode 2 we see a court case of a woman being forced into a marriage she does not want. She ends up telling her family that her best friend is actually her girlfriend. What is nice about this episode is that the main character, Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), walks away from this scene not only clapping, but contemplating what it would be like if she was in a committed relationship.
Under the Queen’s Umbrella – 슈룹 (2022)
Netflix – Starring: Kim Hye-soo, Kim Sae-sook, Chio Won-young
Genre: Historical drama, black comedy
I have to confess that I did not entirely love this drama. I don’t really know why – it just didn’t completely grab me. Maybe a bunch of spoiled, privileged princes just didn’t enthrall me. But it was immensely popular both in Korea and here on Netflix. It is an historical drama where the queen needs to transform her unruly, ill-behaved and, to some extent, disinterested sons into proper princes, requiring her to break with strict palace rules and create her own methods to make them into decent people.
One of the grand princes, Gye Seong (Yoo Seon-ho), the scholarly one – is working hard to be who they are supposed to be. They are seen in the second episode, escaping to a private corner of the palace and dressing as a woman. The queen follows them and is initially shocked. And this is witnessed by a concubine, who is an enemy of the queen. But the point is that the prince hides away to be who they really are. After the initial shock, the queen is supportive and ends up giving them a gift meant only for daughters. At the end, Gye Seong is able to leave the palace and find the life they are meant to live.
Move to Heaven – 무브 투 헤븐: 나는 유품정리사입니다 (2021)
Netflix – Starring: Lee Je-hoon, Tang Jun-sang, Hong Seung-hee
Genre: Drama
This is an episodic drama where we get a new story each episode, but with continuing characters. This is a good drama and I mentioned it last month because one of the main characters has Asperger’s. The drama is about an ex-con and his nephew who clean out the living spaces of people who have died, usually crime victims. They work hard to try to find someone connected to the deceased so that they can return the deceased’s most important belongings.
In Episode 5, the person who has died was gay. The cleaning nephew finds a letter the man wrote to the person he loved. When the person the letter was addressed to is found, he ends up being a male cellist. The couple had talked about moving together to San Francisco. The cellist’s family was forcing him to marry a woman and he broke up with the man who died, but the letter reveals that his first love had truly wanted to get back together with him and go to San Francisco. Even though the story is about someone no longer living, it is told in a very respectful way.
Nevertheless – 알고있지만 (2021)
Netflix – Starring: Han So-Hee, Song Kang
Genre: Rom-dram
This drama centers on a heartbroken woman, Yoo Na-bi (Han So-Hee), who has given up on trying to have a relationship with anyone and a flirtatious, but non-committal guy, Park Jae-eon (Song Kang). This drama focuses on university students and even though the main couple is straight, two of the supporting female roles, Yoon Sol (Lee Ho-jung) and Seo Ji-wan (Yoon Seo-ah), are in a relationship and they just happen to both be women. It is treated as normal and just a piece of the storyline. This was a popular Netflix series, so it is refreshing to see, though it would have been great if they had more prominent roles.
Run On – 런 온 (2020)
Netflix – Starring: Im Si-wan, Shin Se-kyung, Choi Soo-young, Kang Tae-oh
Genre: Rom-dram, sports
This is a good drama and gives us several relationships to talk about. The lives of the characters were even pretty unique. And it is very much all about people just being people and people caring about people. It tells a love story between a top runner for South Korean Track and Field, Ki Seon-gyeom (Im Si-wan) and a woman, Oh Mi-joo (Shin Se-kyung) who does subtitling for movies and ends up being Seon-gyeom’s translator, briefly. It also touches on a controversial subject in Korea – the physical and psychological abuse of professional athletes. I have a personal friend who was a translator for professional athletes in Korea and had to testify in a very public abuse trial, so I know that this is a real issue.
Oh Mi-joo’s best friend, Mae-ye (Lee Bong-ryun) states that she is asexual and even clarifies that she isn’t aromantic, but asexual. That is pretty unique for a K-drama. The second male lead’s good friend Go Ye Joon (Kim Dong-young) is gay and confronts his mother with that reality. And the second female lead, Seo Dan-ah (Choi Soo-young) has pretended to be a lesbian to get out of her father arranging a marriage for her and she admits that she used the LGBTQ+ community for her benefit, but does not have to suffer any of the hardships associated with it. There is also a passing gay couple in the background of an American and his Korean boyfriend. For K-dramaland, this is pretty good representation.
Itaewon Class - 이태원 클라쓰 (2020)
Netflix – Starring: Park Seo-joon, Kim Da-mi, Yoo Jae-myung, Kwon Nara
Genre: Drama
This drama is about a former prisoner who opens a pub in Itaewon and is trying to fight against a powerful conglomerate family, the relationship with whom is the reason he ended up in prison.
One of the main characters, Hyun Yi, first is seen presenting as a male, but is avoiding conversation relating to gender. In a later episode, they are seen in a club, presenting as a female and they come out to their co-workers as trans. Their reaction is pretty horrible, but because of their boss’ support, the co-workers end up accepting them and using female terms to refer to them. The representation and exploration of the character’s challenges are excellent. It would have been so much more powerful if the character were played by a trans person instead of a woman, but actor Lee Joo-young does an excellent job.
Secret Garden - 시크릿 가든 (2010)
Viki – Starring: Ha Ji-won, Hyun Bin, Yoon Sang-hyun, Kim Sa-rang
Genre: Rom-com, fantasy
This is a classic and a very good drama. This drama is old – remember that. So, presenting an openly gay character was a pretty big deal when it first came out. The main characters are straight and the story line has a fantasy twist where they switch bodies several times. There is a third-level character, Han Tae-sun (Lee Jong-suk) who is a singer-songwriter and falls for Osaka (Yoon Sang-hyun), the second male lead who is a famous singer. Their relationship is sometimes prickly, mostly over music issues, but the character depiction is honest.
Other dramas that I am not as familiar with, but read have meaningful LGTBQ+ characters include Moment of Eighteen (Viki, Netflix), Prison Playbook (Netflix), Reply 1997 (Viki), Squid Game 2 (Netflix)
In addition to these mainstream classic and blockbuster dramas, there is another genre of drama that not everyone may know about. It is called BL or Boy’s Love and GL or Girl’s Love. These are dramas with main characters in gay and lesbian relationships. This genre has developed more slowly in Korean dramas than in some other Southeast Asian areas, including Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. It has taken off strongly in the last three or so years. The dramas often have had much lower budgets, less advertising, are only available on streaming platforms, have shorter and less episodes, have lesser-known actors and they are filmed in whirlwind timeframes. That is slowly beginning to change and more attention is being paid to this genre. BL titles are readily available on Viki and there are some on Netflix. GL titles are even more rare, were mostly very short webtoons or series and are really just coming into their own. Some are available on Netflix. There are subtitled BL/GL dramas available on GagaOOLala, which is an LGBTQ+ streaming platform.
Unfortunately, I am not very well versed in this genre, so it is difficult for me to recommend very many specific dramas. I apologize for that. I encourage you to surf around and give the genre a try. I mentioned a mainstream drama that is classified as GL in April called Friendly Rivalry. It is available on both Netflix and Viki. One of the most popular and acclaimed BL dramas is called Semantic Error. It only has eight episodes of around 30 minutes each. There was a movie made of the same story using the same actors and made in the same year. They are both available on Viki.
