Will 'To My Star' blaze a trail for LGBTQ representation in K-dramas? Genre has a long way to go to be inclusive
Over the past few years, Korean dramas or K-dramas as they are popularly called have been growing in popularity, skyrocketing over 2020 amid the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns. Thanks to online streaming platforms such as Netflix and Viki, audiences across the world are able to access these dramas, regardless of their knowledge of the Korean language. Some dramas have even achieved cult status like 'Descendants of the Sun', 'Crash Landing On You', and 'True Beauty'.
However, while Korean dramas are opening up a whole new world for many viewers, the entertainment form lacks in representation -- not just in people of color (by depicting South Korea as a socieity with no foreigners, which is far from the reality of the situation), and having little to none LGBTQ+ representation. At least, not in the mainstream dramas that are often talked about.
There have been some forms of representation in the mainstream dramas – by which we mean starred some of the biggest names in the Korean Wave and were aired on Korean television. Take 'Itaewon Class' for example. The Park Seo Joon starrer not only featured a transgender woman but also a Black man – and even while they were in support roles, it is still far from what other dramas have done. We could even argue that the representation had been better in the past – Lee Jong Suk played a gay man in the 2010 drama, 'Secret Garden', and the highly popular drama, 'Reply 1997' from 2012 featured INFINITE's HoYa as Kang Jun Hee, a gay man in love with his best friend. 'Seonam Girls High School Investigators' was a 2014 drama best known for featuring the first lesbian kiss on Korean television.
While LGBTQ+ representation has declined in the mainstream dramas, web dramas are opening up new avenues for representation -- 2020 was by far the best year for representation of gay love, with dramas such as 'Where Your Eyes Linger', 'Mr Heart, 'Color Rush', 'WISH YOU : Your Melody In My Heart', and 'Discipline Z: Vampire'. These dramas featured gay romance as the main storyline.
2021 is potentially on the track to surpass 2020 when it comes to the representation of gay love. 'To My Star' is the latest web drama that features the love story between two male leads. The synopsis for the drama states, "'To My Star' depicts the love story between actor Kang Seo Joon, who deviates from the traditional route, and chef Han Ji Woo, who doesn’t want to deviate from the “straight path “. It’s a romance-boosting story that claims to be a type of drama that’s never been seen before."
What is remarkable here is that actors playing Kang Seo Joon and Han Ji Woo -- Son Woo Hyun and Kim Kang Min -- are both on the way to becoming mainstream actors, having had roles in 'Tale of the Nine Tailed', 'Touch', 'Record of Youth', 'The Nokdu Flower', and more. As such, 'To My Star' is one of the most anticipated dramas of the year, with users commenting under the My Drama List page that they were most looking forward to the fact that the episodes would be 30 minutes long -- a rarity for BL (boy love) dramas) which usually tend to have shorter episodes.
But while 'To My Star' will continue on the path of 'Where Your Eyes Linger' and expand the representation of gay love on Korean TV, the same cannot be said for other forms of LGBTQ+ representation. While films such as 'The Handmaiden' and 'Our Love Story' feature lesbian love, this is harder to come by on television. One (and perhaps the only) remarkable drama starred Girls' Generation's (SNSD) SeoHyun, called, 'Hello Dracula' as a woman who suffers from depression and struggles because her mother has not accepted her sexuality. The next closest representation of lesbian love in a mainstream Korean drama could be in 'Romance is a Bonus Book', when we see Lee Jong Suk's character, Cha Eun Ho's ex-girlfriend who is revealed to be dating another girl.
As such, while Korean dramas are great at handling some unconventional relationships -- like older women loving younger men in 'When the Camellia Blooms', 'Witch's Romance', and more -- the genre has much more to do before it can catch up with respect to LGBTQ+ representation. While we can say that it is getting closer in terms of representing gay love, Kdramas tend to lose focus that there are more letters and that there are many more forms of representation. 'To My Star' may further the representation like 'Where Your Eyes Linger', but whether it will help the representation break into mainstream Korean dramas remains to be seen.
'To My Star' will be available to watch on Viki on January 22. A list of BL Kdramas can be found here and a list of GL Kdramas can be found here.