This review may contain spoilers
Moments of brilliance, buried in mediocrity
I approached "Love in the Big City" both eager and guarded, as one who steps into a garden rumoured to bloom with rare flowers, dreading the thorns beneath. And indeed, my patience soon withered/waned under its oppressive sorrow and despair. A suffocating pall of misery clung to the gay characters. The very air seemed heavy and coagulated. And yet, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the actors their due. Their performances were of such distinction, such disciplined passion, that they elevated the poor script
Of those who graced the stage/screen, Nam Yoon Su did shine with a peculiar radiance. His readiness to partake, without the least restraint of feigned modesty or hesitation, in the delicate and tender manifestations of carnal affection between men, was an uprising against the profane doctrine of homophobia, gnawing ever at the fabric of society. Each kiss, each quivering proximity, was a venture into the "forbidden" and a courageous unveiling of a man's innermost self before another. Stunned I stood, for here were men, yielding mutually and entering the blessed harmony where desire is met with desire, or flame answers flame. Few were the sights that could rival the fair and beautiful scene
Having paid homage to the commendable virtues, I must, with sober and judicious mind, now dissect the manifold imperfections of "Love in the Big City." The narrative faltered at its threshold. Therein, a "straight" identifying woman, she whose eyes roved with lecherous and unbecoming intent on men, trespassed into the charged social space of a gay bar/club, a haven purposed for the free and boundless flowering of same-sex desire (31:07 of episode 1). This is no mere lapse in judgment, but a flagrant assault on the sanctity of single-sex spaces
What cause had the authors and producers for the unceremonious reference to HIV? HIV is not divine chastisement or a gay disease. The military doctor's diagnosis presumed a manner of transmission he himself deemed improbable. "Are you a top or a bottom? The truth is, the chances of spreading HIV to a sex partner are low" (39:50 of episode 5). Whence we may conclude that to afflict a gay character with the blight of HIV, while all else in his life proceeds unimpeded by the ravages of the disease, notwithstanding its low transmissibility or the accessibility of "curative" measures, is to commit an injustice altogether superficial, contrived to stir the blood of the audience and cast aspersion on the inclinations of gay men
Methinks it a wearying contrivance that "straight" identifying women are the sole passage through which the lives of gay men are revealed. A stranger to the sting of homophobia befriended a gay man and claimed the right to utter his sorrows. Is his voice feeble? Can it not speak for itself? Or is it that the ears of society are closed to the truth, unless it be spoken by one it takes to be "safe" and unthreatening to the established order? Be that as it may, the time is ripe for gay men and gay women to gather in brotherly and sisterly concord and recount the trials and joys of their lived experiences. They could find in one another a steadfast, compassionate friend
Evermore were the gay characters denied the solace of a blissful end. I marvel not. From the dawn of civilization, gay existence has been granted provisional legibility within the public sphere on condition that it be sentenced to a life of bitterness, celibacy, or exile. The possibility of societal tolerance rests on the disavowal of collective joy/happiness, the desexualization and deradicalization of same-sex physical intimacy, and the proscription of a viable, enduring future
There is an urgent need for narratives in which gay joy/happiness is the norm, however much they strain against the limits of the prevailing regime of plausibility. It is in their defiance of said plausibility that we can affirm the radical banality of gay flourishing, a mode of being so simple and unremarkable in its presence that it precedes the demand for justification
TL;DR I have, after deliberation, settled on a score of 6.5/10
Of those who graced the stage/screen, Nam Yoon Su did shine with a peculiar radiance. His readiness to partake, without the least restraint of feigned modesty or hesitation, in the delicate and tender manifestations of carnal affection between men, was an uprising against the profane doctrine of homophobia, gnawing ever at the fabric of society. Each kiss, each quivering proximity, was a venture into the "forbidden" and a courageous unveiling of a man's innermost self before another. Stunned I stood, for here were men, yielding mutually and entering the blessed harmony where desire is met with desire, or flame answers flame. Few were the sights that could rival the fair and beautiful scene
Having paid homage to the commendable virtues, I must, with sober and judicious mind, now dissect the manifold imperfections of "Love in the Big City." The narrative faltered at its threshold. Therein, a "straight" identifying woman, she whose eyes roved with lecherous and unbecoming intent on men, trespassed into the charged social space of a gay bar/club, a haven purposed for the free and boundless flowering of same-sex desire (31:07 of episode 1). This is no mere lapse in judgment, but a flagrant assault on the sanctity of single-sex spaces
What cause had the authors and producers for the unceremonious reference to HIV? HIV is not divine chastisement or a gay disease. The military doctor's diagnosis presumed a manner of transmission he himself deemed improbable. "Are you a top or a bottom? The truth is, the chances of spreading HIV to a sex partner are low" (39:50 of episode 5). Whence we may conclude that to afflict a gay character with the blight of HIV, while all else in his life proceeds unimpeded by the ravages of the disease, notwithstanding its low transmissibility or the accessibility of "curative" measures, is to commit an injustice altogether superficial, contrived to stir the blood of the audience and cast aspersion on the inclinations of gay men
Methinks it a wearying contrivance that "straight" identifying women are the sole passage through which the lives of gay men are revealed. A stranger to the sting of homophobia befriended a gay man and claimed the right to utter his sorrows. Is his voice feeble? Can it not speak for itself? Or is it that the ears of society are closed to the truth, unless it be spoken by one it takes to be "safe" and unthreatening to the established order? Be that as it may, the time is ripe for gay men and gay women to gather in brotherly and sisterly concord and recount the trials and joys of their lived experiences. They could find in one another a steadfast, compassionate friend
Evermore were the gay characters denied the solace of a blissful end. I marvel not. From the dawn of civilization, gay existence has been granted provisional legibility within the public sphere on condition that it be sentenced to a life of bitterness, celibacy, or exile. The possibility of societal tolerance rests on the disavowal of collective joy/happiness, the desexualization and deradicalization of same-sex physical intimacy, and the proscription of a viable, enduring future
There is an urgent need for narratives in which gay joy/happiness is the norm, however much they strain against the limits of the prevailing regime of plausibility. It is in their defiance of said plausibility that we can affirm the radical banality of gay flourishing, a mode of being so simple and unremarkable in its presence that it precedes the demand for justification
TL;DR I have, after deliberation, settled on a score of 6.5/10
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