tui

i wasn't saying that in this show it's always like that (that was a point about wider trends in how masculinity is portrayed in media) nor was i saying what i was saying about the twin brother. ofc it would be harmful, weird and reductive to ignore the brother's feelings completely just because of his gender

maybe i was unclear but i was talking about ryung goo in ep 10 specifically as an example of how media tends to frame sa in terms of female victims only and as something that men can relate to only in terms of "imagine how horrible it would be if this happened to your wife/sister/mother/etc". again, i'm not saying characters like ryung goo shouldn't be portrayed or that stories like his are inherently bad or anything like that, i'm just expressing a wish for a different angle (which is a kinda high bar but still)

i'll reply to both of your comments here!

i'm not taking the matter lightly, and i never said that the portrayal of how the brother felt about his sister or how the sister herself felt was bad. i was talking about gendered narratives of trauma specifically, not about the overall portrayal of sa trauma in ep 10. the self blame the sister felt and the deep rooted societal objectification of women that leads to the societal narratives of 'she asked for it' etc are very much real issues - my whole comment is based on the assumption that these things are self evident. i also didn't say that ryung goo's pain wasn't real or shouldn't be told, i just wished for other kinds of narratives alongside his since the one he is leading is so dominant in media. just because it's important for someone to be heard doesn't mean that the voice of someone else isn't important to hear too, or that pointing that out means you think only some voices matter. i guess my comment can be seen as ignorant and out of place for voicing these problems in the context of this show and not somewhere else especially since it's a topic that's so difficult and for that i'm sorry

i'm not saying it's not important to talk about women or that the story told in ep 10 shouldn't be told or that it's less important than something else. it's a story focusing on a specific issue of societal misogyny and victim blaming and i understand that. however, ep 10 in terms of ryung goo and this show are examples of how in mainstream media issues tend to be framed in a certain gendered manner. my point is that it would be nice if these issues could be framed from another angles as well, especially since doing so could help unravel problems such as toxic masculinity (that also are a part of causing the problems in the first place). as you yourself said, people of all genders are subjected to terrible crimes, even if statistically in inequal amounts - my point is that it would be good and bring comfort if the stories told of the survival reflected that diversity

i'm tired of trauma, like sexual assault in ep 10, being shown as traumatic to male characters because a woman or a girl in their life (mother or significant other usually) was subjected to it - like how the case was tough for ryung goo because his mother was raped. this not only reduces the woman's role in the story to be a catalyst for a man's pain and takes away the focus from the actual person who was subjected to the trauma, but more importantly keeps reinforcing the narrative that men can't be/aren't traumatized by things that happen to them (or that some things like sexual assault can't happen to them), but instead Only Feel Pain When It's Their Loved One Who Gets Hurt or whatever. this is also why i'm not super excited about the past between goo ryun and park joong gil unraveling because i'm pretty sure it's gonna be another story of a man being sad only because their wife was hurt/died/etc. i hate how reductive i'm sounding because of course seeing your loved ones get hurt is terrible but why must gender in stories keep playing out like this

i'm not saying ryung goo's story can't be relatable or that those kind of stories shouldn't be told or that they can't be interesting, it's more that it keeps being like this which leaves it as often the only story being told. which, again, is not great

that said this is a kdrama and one with various issues much bigger than this when it comes to discussing serious issues (like entirety of the suicide is an individual's sin thing) so lmao i wasn't really expecting much

i love hurt/comfort stories and at the first just between lovers delivered!! it had likeable and understandable characters going through their own struggles and a nice balance of individual character development and relationship development. on top of that it had way less romance than i feared it would have and seemed to take the heavy subjects it handled seriously. then it lost it's steam and kinda fell apart

generally i don't care for romance but here it was alright bc the relationships felt grounded and avoided a lot of the cliches i dislike. the romance also didn't overpower all the platonic relationships the characters had which was really good!! i loved granny and i loved that kang doo had female friends and also that it was never an issue - i was super glad jealousy wasn't a problem here bc it's one of the top cliches i hate

there were some cringeworthy moments for sure etc like the 'if you don't go now................................................... i'll never let go of this hand' but overall i didn't mind them much bc there were so little of them and they were expected anyway since this is a kdrama

i'd seen ppl say this drama gets worse from ep 8 on or so and at first i wasn't sure but as it progressed i could definitely see the decline. at first it was ok that all the characters had various problems that no one really talked about out loud save for moon soo's mother's alcoholism but then the story progressed and no one still wasn't talking about anything beyond like 'are you okay' or 'this very bad thing happened to him' and then we get to the end and a lot of that isn't really resolved or talked about. i get that mental health is a taboo and all but they really made a drama with grief and trauma as its main themes and never even said the terms 'mental health' or 'professional help' aloud even once

did we need the terminal illness storyline on the 2nd half of the drama? no we did not. it felt unnecessary and only derailed the story from a surprisingly realistic depiction of ppl dealing with their trauma to? idk kinda forgetting all that on eg kang doo's part bc there's a new ~bigger issue of him literally dying. what happened to all that in the end? were we to assume that after like 10 years of ptsd and generally bad mental health he's fine bc he fell in love and almost died? i get that you could maybe see the ending as him only starting to heal etc but idk - at first him having hard time bc of his trauma was the main struggle of his character but then at the end it's changed to terminal illness and the trauma thing kinda just dissolves and there's no real resolution to that at all. which is super unsatisfying. it's like the writers thought having mental health issues wasn't dramatic enough so they threw in the liver thing

with sad things there needs to be a balance bc otherwise it gets overwhelming and not in a 'omg this is so sad' way but 'this is too unrealistic and bc of that i feel nothing' way. this drama sadly lost that balance

just between lovers definitely wasn't a bad drama - i liked a lot of things about it and it kept me interested almost all the way through. it just wasn't super good and fell flat from what it could've been. it's a shame bc if this drama kept it's focus and themes more consistent all the way to the end it could've really said a lot more than it ended up saying

with its poor pacing, fake deep tone and readiness to use psychological issues for shock value and plot convenience white christmas feels more like something ~~edgy and ~~dark from the depths of fanfiction dot net rather than a real tv series

like let's be honest this only works bc pretty much everyone in it is dumb as shit and i wouldn't be mad about it if the series owned it but it doesn't - instead it takes itself extremely seriously which only highlights all of its flaws. there's no suspense anywhere to be found, the mysteries presented are unsubtle and obvious, and the psychology aspect is superficial, clumsy and at times even disrespectful. also literally repeating the same question over and over again doesn't make it any deeper lmao

even though imo this was garbage if you like mystery thrillers it might be worth giving it a try bc most ppl here seem to have loved this

i don't understand what you mean by that then, my point was that your first comment doesn't make sense

if your point is "don't try to criticize" it means you're not saying "you can do whatever you want"

ah no it didn't i was just saying that's it's a kinda condescending thing to say to someone!! i hope your tutoring went well :)

you're right different moral values etc will all produce their own answer to this but i also think some of those answers can be more hurtful to more ppl than others

ok so your point is that you don't think she deserves the criticism and the amount of criticism she's getting - the "fuzz". my point is that for some ppl she definitely does and thus saying she doesn't is in a way defending her

ofc ppl can hate a whole character based on their certain actions. for example there could be a character who acts in a violent way and ppl hate them as a whole for that. here we have a character who says victims of leaked sex tapes are at fault and ppl can hate her as a whole for that. and i mean ppl can just dislike her too. i don't see how ppl are "not really digesting that she's the female lead of the story"?

ppl are "not forgetting the real villain of the drama" by focusing on ma yi deum's actions and character. ofc she's gonna be under more criticism bc she's the lead and in a role that doesn't automatically paint her as a "bad guy". everyone knows the villain is bad especially in stories that are not very morally ambiguous. i think the ppl who excuse, play down and/or defend ma yi deum's actions are those who are "wildly ignoring the moral of the story" i mean moreover having a lead who victim blames in a story that is about raising awareness for sexual crimes gives all the more reason to criticize her?? if a story about sexual crimes shows that it's ok if you don't have empathy for the victims then lmao that's a bad and contradictory message don't you think? it's essentially saying "sexual assault is bad but if it happens to you it's your own fault" which is like. what many ppl already think anyway

whether ppl would trash the character as much as they're doing now if she was male is irrelevant to this bc it's not a reason to play down her actions. i can't say anything about the hate being about the actress bc i haven't seen any and thus idk. i agree it's dumb to hate a character bc of their actor but you didn't say anything about it in your first post

so you mean that you wish that ppl could see her as you do, in a positive light either way, bc then they'll be satisfied in the end either way too or?

even if things like victim blaming are not "bad" to the level of eg murder that doesn't mean they're something that should be overlooked bc of that. those things continue to exist and be accepted in the real life partly bc of that exact reason - ppl don't think they're "that bad" and tolerable and thus they're seen as not that big of a deal even tho they can be extremely hurtful to some ppl. for some ppl eg victim blaming is an immediate turn off - you might think it's not "evil" enough to "bash" someone for but for some ppl it definitely is

i agree that everyone has the right to voice their opinions!! the amount of ppl who seem to be on her side and downplaying her actions is just kinda alarming to me lmao

the way you speak is kinda defending her tho with you saying ppl should "loosen up" about criticizing her. and i understand but ppl are not "making fuzz" bc they think it's unreal or exaggerated as you're saying they are. ppl "accept her as a character in a drama" they just don't like her

when there's a character who makes choices that someone doesn't agree with they can voice their disapproval of that character. they know ppl make mistakes and they don't like the "mistakes" the character is making. again, if you're saying "everyone's expecting her to be super polished and flawless" in response to ppl criticizing her you're essentially saying "it's not that big of a deal" and also disregarding that for some ppl it is. the level of "polishedness" ppl are expecting of her really isn't that high so idk why you felt the need to comment about about ppl criticizing her in the first place

if the message of this drama in the end ends up being about the lead changing her ways and becoming more sympathetic of others it in itself is against everyone saying that ppl should "chill" about the lead being the way she is bc if that's the case we as the audience are supposed to be against what she's doing and who she is at the moment. however that's a reach for now since we don't know yet lmao, you're right we'll only know when this ends

thanks for responding in a serious way, could've done without that "chill buddy ;)" tho lol i'm not mad just disagreeing with you that's all

defending a character's shitty actions by saying it's what ppl in real life also do doesn't make any sense. ofc ppl know these kind of ppl exist everyone knows that and dislikes ppl like her irl too. and asking for a character to have some basic human empathy isn't asking for ~perfection lmao

i can't speak for others but what bothers me is not whether she acts in a moral way but how these actions are framed by the narrative - eg is she shown to be Right for outing a gay person against their will and victim blaming. for that ia we have to wait till the end to see

ppl can criticize a character's behaviour even if the character is supposed to be perceived in a negative light and while recognizing that it's the case

i'm interested in seeing what they're gonna do with yeo jin wook as there seems to be Something up with his past. i just kinda hope they won't tie his reason for joining the unit solely to a woman in his life like his mom having suffered bc it's a bit :/ when male characters so often seem to need to have a woman close to them suffer so they can be upset or have motivation for some kind of revenge etc

i'm not expecting to see anything different than that tho bc lmao