A Self-interested Fan Letter to Comedienne Kim Suk
By kook
Published: January 28, 2016
Translated by Marilyn Hook
JTBC’s With You Season 2: The Greatest Love is a
reality show in which entertainers pretend to be married. It casts entertainers
as “husbands” and “wives” and shows their married life. There is a reality show
on MBC called We Got Married that features entertainers in their 20s and 30s.
With You is the middle-aged version of We Got Married.
I have no interest in the married lives of others
(especially of fake couples), but I began to watch this show because of
comedienne Kim Suk [“Sook”]. Once Kim Suk and Yun Jeong-Su appeared on With
You, rumors started to circulate about how amazing Kim Suk was. I saw
screencaps from the show that diligent Internet users had posted.
Without hesitation, Kim Suk has said things like “Men
should meekly do housework,” “(Saws) are not for men, you’ll get hurt,” and
“Ugh, you’re making me lose my appetite. I don’t want to come to this house
anymore,” to her fake husband Yun Jeong-su. I was hooked. I immediately went
back and watched every episode of With You [Season 2]. It didn’t take me long
to catch up to the current episodes.
But I don’t watch episodes as they air. Kim and Yun
have said, “If our ratings hit 7%, we’ll really get married.” They probably
said that because they thought it could never really happen, but wouldn’t you
know it, the ratings just keep going up. Afraid that I will push their ratings
up to 7%, I only watch the show after it has aired; I wonder if Kim Suk eonni
knows that I feel this way.
Furiosuk, Suk-crush, God-Suk... the appeal of the Kim
Suk character
 |
| Scenes from JTBC’s With You Season 2: The Greatest Love |
Kim Suk’s character in With You seems strangely
familiar. She ignores her husband’s nagging and loses her temper unless she
does exactly what she wants. She decides what the couple will do on a date. She
doesn’t consult her husband about anything. She buckles his seatbelt as he sits
in the passenger seat, takes him to a restaurant she likes and pays for their
meal, gives him money to go shopping, and plans flashy romantic events for him.
Kim has helped herself to the role that is performed by men in most
heterosexual relationships.
It doesn’t stop there. “What man frowns at home?” or
“When a man speaks so loud that the neighbors hear, the family will be ruined”–
we’ve heard such things before, somewhere. They’re the everyday words of the
patriarchs we know, just with different subjects. But Kim Suk uses these
expressions, which have been considered the exclusive property of men, without
hesitation.
I’m not the only person transfixed by Kim Suk in this
show. The comments on Internet articles are filled with praise for her. The
gist of these comments is 1) she’s cool, 2) watching her is cathartic, and 3) I
want to act like that, too. (Some people feel all of these and some may feel
one or two.) She has been given many affectionate nicknames, too. There is
“Furiosuk,” after the Mad Max movie’s female warrior Furiosa; “Suk-crush,” a
variation on “girlcrush,” the term for a strong female character that female
fans love; and even “God-Suk.”
But while Yun Jeong-su has been recruited for several
other programs since he began his stint on With You, it seems that no one wants
Kim Suk. Just when I was asking with irritation why the person who had really
distinguished herself was going ignored, I heard some welcome news: Kim Suk was
going to be on Radio Star. Because of her, I found myself in front of my
television at 11 p.m., for the first time in a long time. (See, broadcasters?
If Furiosuk is on, even people like me who don’t watch much TV will tune in.)
Women can do that too - shall I show you?
Its rating and
influence may not be as high as they once were, but MBC’s Golden Fishery: Radio
Star (hereafter, Radio Star) is still an influential entertainment program.
Appearing on it is proof that you are a big deal. Also, the show arranges its
guests’
seats by their level of fame (or popularity), and Kim Suk was placed squarely
in the first [most famous] seat when she visited. (As luck would have it, the
spotlight was stolen from her by a female pop star who had recently revealed a
new relationship, but I think that being in the first seat is still meaningful.
I’ll discuss this more a little farther down.)
Of course, Kim faced a barrage of questions about With
You. About her fake husband Yun Jeong-su, she said, “There aren’t many men you
could push around like that.” She meant that Yun was easygoing. But Kim Gu-ra,
one of the hosts of Radio Star, scowled at this and countered, “What kind of
person pushes their spouse around?” At this, our Kim Suk replied: “But why are
you pushing me around like this?”
At that moment, I felt real admiration for her. If she
had shouted something like, “Who are you to tell me what to do? What business
is it of yours if I want to push my husband around?” she wouldn’t have been
much different from “scolding comedians” like Park Myeong-su or the patriarchs
we all know. Instead, she calmly pointed out that Kim Gu-ra was being rude and
asked what gave him the right to act like that.
Kim Gu-ra, from what I’ve seen, always pushes around
those who are weaker than him. If they are less well-known, younger, or women,
he raises his voice, speaks assertively, and establishes his authority.
Sometimes the target of these aggressive comments will be unable to speak and
merely break out in a cold set, or bow their head like they are learning a lot
from him. But Kim Suk was different. With a dubious expression, she asked him
why he was pushing her around.
It’s my guess that Kim gained this kind of insight (or
instinctive defensive power) from many experiences of being pushed around for
being a woman, during her long years in the entertainment industry. She has
probably been scolded for doing exactly what a man was doing, and been refused
for being a woman, despite having a similar track record. Each time, she may
have thought, “Why isn’t a woman allowed to do that? Women can do that. Shall I
show you?”
Mirroring: a way to expose male power
 |
| Scenes from JTBC’s With You Season 2: The Greatest Love |
Kim Suk’s “matriarch character” is not something she
created for With You. She is said to
have declared, “I can make all the money, so I’d like the man to modestly do
housework” long before appearing on the show. This personal set of values found
a favorable opportunity and has been candidly revealed on an entertainment
program. But whether Kim intends it to or not, her performance has been read as
a satire of patriarchy. This is because when wives/women mimic the misguided
authority that has been considered the province of husbands/men, we realize two
things. One is that this language isn’t actually the province of men, and the
other is that this authority is a ludicrous form of violence.
Recently, one online women’s community has been
utilizing mirroring in the manner of the feminist movement. “Mirroring” refers
to the act of women engaging in behaviors usually associated with men (or a
particular online community that disparages women). Of course, one of the
intentions behind this is probably to show men that they are not the only ones
who can casually judge, disparage, pick on, and snicker at others. Mirroring is
definitely cathartic in its use of men’s exclusive property as “tools.” However,
I think that the positive goals of mirroring are to reveal the violence of the
original actor’s language, make people cautious about this, and finally fix the
problem.
This is why I call Kim Suk’s matriarchal behavior a
“performance.” A comedienne with more economic power than her (fake) husband
can complain about the side dishes and pretend to overturn the dinner table on
an entertainment program, but this is clearly just a performance, not something
that can happen in reality. This is because no matter whether you are a man or
a woman, you cannot oppress your partner or another family member just because
you are the breadwinner.
When criticizing patriarchy, it’s easy to think that
the authority that men have should be given to women. But feminism as I know it
aims for a world in which no one is oppressed. It is not only women who are
oppressed within patriarchy. Men who are carrying this wrongful authority sag
under its weight. So what we’re saying is, put it down and let’s live in a way
that’s a little more comfortable and equal. (That’s easy to say, but will that
day ever come? Sob.)
Entertainment is just entertainment, don’t call it a
documentary
Our society is still biased in men’s favor, but the
entertainment world is particularly like a “men’s bath” [nam-tang]. MBC’s
Infinite Challenge, a premiere entertainment program, recently held a “General
Assembly of Entertainers.” They invited influential entertainers to gather and
discuss the Republic of Korea’s entertainment programs in-depth. But of the 17
people who appeared on the program, which includes the 5 stars of Infinite
Challenge, there were only two women – Kim Suk and Park Na-rae. And this was
only to provide diversity; the women were barely allowed to speak. On the program, Kim Suk said, “There’s really
no room for female entertainers,” and made a joke that was too true to be
funny: “[Female entertainer] Song Eun-yi recently took an aptitude test and
found that she’s suited to office work, so she’s started to learn Excel.”
This is why it is meaningful that Kim Suk was seated
in the first chair on Radio Star. It is so difficult for female entertainers to
gain a foothold that even Kim said, “My place used to be down there at the end,
so sitting here (in the first seat) is amazing.” That is probably not because
they lack talent or willpower, or are lazy.
It is because there are not many chances for them to show off their
talents and gifts, and even if they do become popular, the steppingstone that allows
them to maintain that popularity is insufficient. Despite this, they do not
give up their place. They make the best use of the opportunities they are
given. Like all creators, they make things that were not there before.
The thing that most sets Kim Suk and Yun Jeong-su
apart from other couples on With You is that they have claimed to be a
“show-window couple.” They’ve publicly announced that they maintain their
relationship for the sake of the program, and have no “other feelings.” They
even made a contract. If one falls in love with the other, cheats, or gets
pregnant, he or she must give the other 110 million won (92,000 USD). But as
the couple’s popularity has risen, there have been calls for them to “really
marry.” Surprise, surprise. Park Su-hong, who appeared as a guest on the
program, readily volunteered, “I’ll pay the money (the 110 million won) if you
just pounce on her.” (If Yun Jeong-su had suggested this, Kim Suk would have
frowned and said, “What are you talking about? Gross.”)
A strong-minded female character, a show-window
couple, a contract, and even a matriarch performance – our Furiosuk is really
working hard to entertain. But unsophisticated people keep trying to make this
enjoyable entertainment into a documentary. What they want is probably
something like this: the old and offensive story in which Kim Suk is just
pretending to be fierce but is actually an angel, while perpetually discouraged
“bankruptcy man” Yun Jeong-su turns into a macho man and pounces on her,
overcoming her objections, which leads to the child that he wants so badly (he
wrote down “baby” for his 2016 New Year wish), and the two announce plans for
their wedding.
This story won’t come true, but just thinking of it
puts me in a rotten mood. It’s like there was a dinner table whose contents I
was looking at with interest for the first time in a long time, and someone
threw ashes on it. To people who, in this day and age, keep talking about
marriage and pregnancy, I want to say something, in matriarch mode: “Ugh,
ptooey! You’ll make me lose my appetite!”
No comments:
Post a Comment