50FiftillidideeBrain

Here's to breaking taboos; it's harder than you'd think.

SITR is all prancing in puddles & laughing for the 1st few eps. Enjoy it. Lightening, thunder & pain are in the forecast. This duo is going against the norm, & mom is not merely the norm, she's a veritable Joseon. HER daughter (Son Ye-Jin from Crash Landing on You, is Yoon “Jin”-a) will marry a 🔝 prospect from a MO💲T respectable family. He (Jung Hae-In, from While You Were Sleeping-7.3, is Seo Joon-”Hee”) is all abt breaking taboos. He means dating his noona. His declaration is loaded, as taboos are being hacked to pieces & falling all around Jin. She can't make a move w/o stepping on something.

SITR is aka Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food - A Noona is an older sister by blood or close relationship. In Asia, age is status. It's a big deal, but this isn't a May/Dec tryst; it's more of a June/July one. The early eps cover the intros & how they fall in love. The rest are the fallout between them & everyone they know. Especially her mother. Then it's the fallout between the 2 of them from the fallout. The 1st part of the show is wonderfully warm fuzzy-fun, & the 2nd part is soul-crushing. My main complaint: How dare they give us a 30-second wrap-up & leave so ma wind⁉ Are we meant to infer everything? I don't want to! I felt absolutely robbed at the end. They need a follow-up movie to complete this story.

Jin & her brother, Seung-ho, grew up friends w/ the Seos, Hae & his older sister, Kyung-seon/SKS (Jang So-yeon, who is excellent). When the Seos are orphaned, the Yoons quasi ”adopt” them, so they're practically part of the family. Hae moves to the States for work. In ep1 he's back. Jin has been rising up the ranks of the coffee shop chain that employs her, while her friend, SKS, manages one of the chain's stores.

Hollywood has truly forgotten how to do romance. They traded it in for cheap titillation long ago. In SITR they percolate slowly. He's probably had a thing for her for yrs, but she's just realizing he's a man. She has to get beyond seeing him as that little boy. Hand holding took until ep3's close. The buildup is beautiful. Masterful. They long to touch & alternate posing hands where the other might take notice. He makes a few halting & failed attempts to put his arm around her. They don't just strip off their clothes & jump in the sack: That's anti-romance; it's just lust. There's a difference between lust & wanting to do it w/ somebody w/ whom one is deeply & emotionally connected. One robs you & one nourishes you. He says: "I'll never let you go. It took ages to hold your hand." People! LADIES! Is it worth the wait? It's up to you to decide, but you won't know unless you've tried holding back until the emotional commitment is there.

Next, they're running around hiding like kids. She's sneaking out at night & stuffing her bed to make it look like she's still there. It's cute. They got to know each other as kids. It's all in the family, so acting like kids could almost be expected, & she gets a taste of the childhood she was denied. It's also portentous. She is afraid of her mother. She is not free.

That drops us off at the show’s themes. Foremost is the toXic mother. She thinks parenting is about her. The 1st time we meet Oma, she's soaking Jin in acrimony. Mom's friends brag about their kids’ friends & spouses, while her own daughter hasn't given /her/ anything to brag on. “All your friends are married & look at you. What's wrong w/ you?” “Maybe their mothers were nicer to them,” is Jin‘s acerbic response. The acid leaks out more often as the show goes on. As long as the dude is rich, Oma doesn't care what happens to her daughter. In SITR, marrying a CEO is NOT the happy ending; SITR features anti-hero Hae.

Stand By Your Man repeats In the background. Everybody sees him as the kid-brother’s-kid-friend. She grows to respect him as a man, but she must stand before she can stand-by-her-man. I haven't unlocked why that man, Jung Hae-In, is SO delish. No doubt he's handsome, but not the most. It's not like we can smell pheromones through the 📺. Can we? It seems that his superpower is shooting pheromones over the TV waves. That's a cool superpower. He's not even my type. All I can do is smh. The 1st words he says are: ‘while you were sleeping’. That's just adorable.

Writer Kim Eun also has One Spring Night to her credit, & Ahn Pan Seok directed both. These two incorporate a complexity of symbolism & insight into their work. All that rain… Is it the tears she never let herself cry? The rain is crying for them. Crying for the upbringing she's suffered & for the Seos who were orphaned. Do we love her? No. She's not honest, she soaks up the love but doesn't return it, & she has a big selfish streak. She's on her way to adapting Oma's values, b/c she's never had the energy to fight them. When he comes into her life, everything happens at once. Things tip sideways, a deluge overflows the spout, & it's more than she can process. I wanted to take her head & pound it into the ground when she doesn't simply free herself. The director might have been illustrating how we lose patience w/ people. We often fail to offer the lowest common denominator of understanding. It's reminiscent of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Gregor isn't doing much, other than lying around & being contemptible, so, bring out the Raid! We're reminded to be honest but patient. Growth takes time.

“Toxic" simply means narcissistic. Now that the condition has been categorized correctly, it's easy to spot 〰It's everywhere〰 I have friends & family w/ deep wounds from narcissistic parents. Pride is a homewrecker & a sneaky liar. The better we have it, the higher we believe we are floating. Mom married a man who had moderate success. That small taste gave her appetites that could never be satisfied. I learned in the pumpkin patch how easily parents succumb to the power & pride delusion. On a school trip, my 3 y/o picked a small crooked 🎃. Oh, no. “Put that down.” I directed him to chubby round ones; but that wasn't what he wanted. I checked myself: “It's just a 🎃. Why do I care? What am I doing right now?” Pivoting, I told him to pick whatever 🎃 he wanted. This time he selected one that was smaller, more crooked & part green. On the bus back, I overheard how other moms oversaw their kids’ 🎃 selection. Once home, I sat him on the front step & took his picture holding it up. He was beaming. His dad commented that he is compassionate & identifies w/ the small outcasts. And what's wrong with that? I almost smooshed that part of him. Parents must give direction & at times rule by fiat - but only when absolutely necessary. At every opportunity, we should allow kids to make choices & grow into their own personality. It is not about YOU. You are supposed to be raising them to LEAVE. Your job is to develop a useful, caring, responsible & independent member of society.

Jin is none of the above. She's out in the rain alone. The blind date her mother fixed up isn't there. No ☂. No shelter. No warmth. That's where her mother’s path will leave her. Why does she put up with it?

Good-girl disease.

There was never a way for Jin to withstand mom's steamrolling. She had to subjugate herself & put up a front. All she knows is phoniness & being controlled. So, Jin can't stop lying. Everything's fine, is what she projects, as she's fraying at the seams. She can't hold up the ACT anymore, but she's such a chicken. Oma immersed the whole family in her acid rain. Seung-ho & dad attend to mom during one of her fits while saying: “It sucks to be a man”. It sucks to be in a relationship w/ anybody who abuses power. Women hate it when men do it, but it is no less destructive when women seize power in the family & abuse it. Next, Jin starts to treat Hae like she treats herself. She's pounded herself down to nothing to fit into the space her mother allowed, & she unconsciously expects him to do the same thing. What unfolds between Jin & SKS, and also mom & the Seos is agonizing. Jin's brother will admit he’s contemplated suicide. The pressure Koreans put on their kids has manifested itself in the highest suicide rate, by far, in the developed world. Instead of pushing our kids to bring us glory, we should simply teach them to never stop improving themselves. Consider Iiving a small life. Have enough, but not too much. Take time to enjoy family & friends, because that is living. Practice gratitude & contentment as they will lead to true fulfillment.

No matter the upbringing, we are responsible for our actions. We are born 100% selfish. Maturity is learning to become unselfish, & maturity is not in fashion these days. Many western kids have no idea what humility is. They think it's some vague malady. Our self-absorption leads us to be too forgiving & generous w/ ourselves while we turn a harsh view to the outside - other people's problems always seem easy. We should be exactly the opposite. Nothing is level. There is no horizontal existence. Not really. We all have different DNA, gifts, deficiencies, talents, challenges, parentage, upbringing… nobody is coming from the same place. There's really nothing to compare. We exist in lies we tell ourselves, we chase after meaningless & empty things, & we generally lack compassion because we love to feel superior to others by comparison. As Solomon said: It's all vanity.

Director Ahn utilizes ☂ of varied colors as messages. ☂ Red/Stop (passion?) ☂ Green/Go (grow?)… In the end, umbrellas are cast aside like bad taboos. They'll brave the elements and rising pressure together. Let it pour!


QUOTES📢

Passion is necessary in a relationship; without it, it would be disrespectful to the other.

Being nice isn't something to be proud of. It's rather a flaw, you idiot!


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬9 📝9 🎭9 💓8 🦋9 🌞6 🎨8 ⚡1 😅3 🤔8 🎵/🔊8 😭7 😱1 🤢0 💤3 🔚5

Age 14+ sex, lang F💣x2

Re-📺? 👍🏽


⛔Mini Spoilers follow⛔

The greatest irony of all is when mom accuses the kids she previously claimed as her own of being morally empty because they have no parents! At the end, it's all crumbling away. There is nothing more important than the lie Oma tells herself about her own importance.

I know people want the big blow up with the mother. That's her mother. She fed her, carried her in the womb, & took care of her as a baby. That's a debt that can't be repaid. It's good that she's leaving, but it's good that Jin's leaving on positive terms. The blow up would have had her mom's back up. The way she left has her mom sobbing. The guilt’s flooding her. It's too easy to judge mom. She's entirely responsible for toxifying her family. However, mom is showing the residue from being brought up the same way. Mom was truly kind to the Seo siblings. She had true affection for them, but her pride would not allow a marriage. Pride is the nastiest flaw, that everybody has, that no one admits.

We live in a world where people want to express their rage. Rage feeds rage. Now people will rage at others for not being as rageful as they themselves are. That's not everybody's way. Frankly, rage doesn't do anything. It just makes everybody upset. If one truly wants results one will try to use methods that actually work. Sometimes the softer touch will bring about change more than backing someone into a corner and almost forcing them to push back.

One Spring Night is done by the same creative team. It isn't as good as SITR, but it's a worthy folow up as it continues with similar themes. It's like a stamp without fresh ink, so it looks the same, just slightly faded.