Are K-Dramas Low-Brow?

Today I came across an article published on July 23rd on DramaFever's blog which asserts that the Wall Street Journal blasts k-drama viewers as "uneducated people with low incomes in search of lowbrow entertainment."

Here's a link to the WSJ article, titled South Korean Soap Operas: Just Lowbrow Fun?. That article includes a link to a longer WSJ journal article in its KoreaRealTime section.

Apparently, DramaFever didn't read the article but reacted to it, because it reported that the WSJ cites a *poll* of 400 viewers in China, rather than a study published by a professor at one of South Korea's top universities: Prof. Kang Myung-Koo in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University. I wasn't able to find this study online, but I was able to read some of his other published articles and they were very typical of what a university professor would publish in their quality and analysis. The little I did find highlighted that Prof. Kang said his study wasn't generalizable. Presumably, too, it wasn't statistically significant either due to it's small sample size. (Before I studied quantitative analysis, I would have no idea that those last two sentences mean that the study is saying that it's not representative of what a population probably does. It just reporting what their study's population (group of people) did.)

The most I could find regarding this study, since they didn't have it on the SNU website, were articles based on China's reporting of what the study found. (Those weren't very many - maybe 6?) That Chinese report wasn't really so interested in accuracy (It didn't correctly identify the professor's credentials or all of what the study said). It also left off the fact that the study pointed out that the self-reporting done by the higher-educated participants could be misrepresenting their actual viewership of k-dramas. Kind of like in the U.S. where highly educated people refuse to admit that they watch things like the Real Housewives or nighttime soaps or soap operas in general. My mother looks down on any type of soap watching but predominantly reads romance novels.

So Why Start Another K-Drama Blog?

That's a good question. There are a lot of great ones out there, like:

K-Dramas: An Introduction

K-Dramas, or Korean Dramas, are televised mini-series, usually 16 or 20 episodes long, produced in Korea. They are shown domestically and shipped abroad (you can see them in the U.S. through Netflix, Hulu, and on-line) and usually each episode is about an hour long and will end with some sort of cliff-hanger. They normally either focus on life in modern South Korea or fictionalizations of events from Korean history.

Like US television, modern Korean stories usually are set in some sort of eating establishment (Pasta, Coffee Prince, My Name is Kim Sam Soon, Shining Inheritance), business situation (Protect the Boss, Secret Garden, Lie to Me), high school (Boys Over Flowers, Dream High, Playful Kiss), government building like the Blue House (the Korean equivalent of the White House) (City Hall, City Hunter), or hospital (Big, Creating Destiny, Golden Time). But there are also a number which center on music or movie stars (Full House, Shut Up and Go, You're Beautiful) or the monarchy (My Princess, King2Hearts, Goong), topics which aren't typically covered in the world of American television.

The historical dramas (called Sageuk) typically are set in Korea's dynastic period and feature sword-fighting, martial arts, and the monarchy. They may or may not feature historical people. They have intricate story lines, elaborate costumes and sets, and large casts. Examples are Faith, Queen Seon Deok, The Moon Embracing the Sun, and the Great Seer.

A small number of dramas also involve supernatural events, such as time travel. In 49 Days, the heroine dies before her time and her ghost is able to possess someone and continue to live. In Faith, characters possess supernatural abilities, and time travel is a major plot point. In Rooftop Prince, characters travel through time and encounter reincarnated versions of people they know.

In more recent years, k-pop stars have crossed over from singing to acting: Kim Hyun Joong (leader of the group SS501), Kim Joon (pop group T-Max) Park Yoochun and Kim Jae Joong (pop group JYJ), Yoon Eun Hye (pop group Baby V.O.X.), Eugene (pop group S.E.S.), Suzy, Rain/Bi, Lee Seung Ki. K-drama stars have released albums: Lee Min Ho, Jang Geun Suk, Kim Bum, and Hyun Bin.

Typically, the drama features some sort of love triangle (or quadrangle) and the hero starts out as a complete jerk, Mr. Darcy-style. Often, the hero has money, so there's some sort of makeover scene. And they have preoccupation with showing food preparation. They can deal with class distinctions, sexual mores, and family relationships. More often than not, they will feature many of the cliches listed in my posts starting with Things that Will Probably Happen When Watching a Korean Drama. Some may call them a little melodramatic or soap-opera-y, but I just call it good television :)