I had been slowly working on a video essay about compassionate male leads and reversed gender-tropes when revelations about Kim Soo-hyun’s history of predation derailed my writing for weeks.
Speaking as a man, I do have some empathy for how the male mind can turn to useless mush when being aggressively romantically pursued (not saying that's what happened, just that I can SORT OF understand poor judgment in this hypothetical instance, depending on how emotionally immature the man in question is). But also speaking as a man, I am keenly aware of the duty of every man to make the world around them as safe as possible, most especially for children. So no matter how he may hypothetically have been treated or pursued, KSH owed it to himself and that child (those children? *insert further barf emojis*) to talk openly with about the issue with trusted adults in both their lives and take the opportunity to help teach her what healthy boundaries are and what healthy child/adult relationships look like. He did not, and instead it seems he used her monstrously to selfish ends (this is true whether he touched her or not).
As a public figure and role model, and as a man, he has earned every consequence received from this scandal. I hope that men who are aware of this scandal take this lesson from it: "what I think and feel in private matters just as much as what I say and do in public."
EDIT: great title for this post, but my email shortened it in the notification to "the king of tea" and then I was super confused when I started reading it, because tea isn't mentioned anywhere. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed.
Great piece Paroma. Love Scout irritated me bec I DIDNT think the writers were making the point that a man who was a single father was viewed differently than a woman, but instead were simply creating a completely unrealistic green flag male character while glossing over that point. I hope your view is the correct one! Also wanted to add to the data that Sean Connery was 35 yrs older than Julia Ormond in 1995 movie First Knight where he played King Arthur and she was Guinevere. Which is one of the most egregious age gaps in film history and even wider than the one between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963) where the age difference was 25 years and apparently even skeeved out Cary Grant. He thought the gap was too wide and had to be convinced to do the film.
Ohh I remember the anecdote about Charade. He didn't want there to be a kiss scene at all. Also I do remember thinking Sean Connery was way too old for her in the movie, but didn't realise that was the age gap. Yeesh. Did you know btw that Brad Pitt had two relationships with minor actresses when he was in his mid to late twenties? It was completely normalised at the time. I feel like that's the stage we're finally emerging from in South Korea now. Hopefully. Ugh.
Re: love scout. You know I don't disagree that they did gloss over a LOT with him. And they also used a lot of traditionally masculine tropes to establish his heroism too (see: the repeating motif of him saving children and swinging them one armed to safety 😅). I do point that our. But overall, I liked what they did.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard commentary on “age gap romances” in dramas all the way back to My Princess in 2011. I think it just hasn’t been written out as inappropriate in tv - which means it must still be regularly viewed in Korean society! So - seeing a super handsome yet morally gray actor must not have struck any of the people around him AND his partners as wrong! Oh, on a day where my own country is driving down the economy planet wide, I just can’t think more on this. Looking forward to more conversations from you!
Age gap romances were a huge rage ten years back. Even though Korean society had started frowning on very old male actors being paired with very young female actors, it wasn't a very deep frown. Plus at that point, there were quite a few age gap romances where the female lead was a decade and a half older than the man. In a weird way, it evened things out. You'll still see an occasional pairing that's extremely disturbing these days but it's rare on screen. But off screen, it's the forced adultification of young actresses that makes things so problematic. Everyone is in a hurry for them to reach 18, and there are very few aware adults looking out for them. It's kind of like 80s hollywood.
The last time they had raised it, it was also because of public outcry after a series of highly publicized cases where older men were acquited because they argued that the 13 and 15 year olds they'd slept with had consented. Usually these cases rarely go to court so the public could just pretend ignorance before that year. I had been stunned when the discussion and push for change began. The fact that we're still here and Korean citizens are having to ask for the bare minimum again is infuriating.
Speaking as a man, I do have some empathy for how the male mind can turn to useless mush when being aggressively romantically pursued (not saying that's what happened, just that I can SORT OF understand poor judgment in this hypothetical instance, depending on how emotionally immature the man in question is). But also speaking as a man, I am keenly aware of the duty of every man to make the world around them as safe as possible, most especially for children. So no matter how he may hypothetically have been treated or pursued, KSH owed it to himself and that child (those children? *insert further barf emojis*) to talk openly with about the issue with trusted adults in both their lives and take the opportunity to help teach her what healthy boundaries are and what healthy child/adult relationships look like. He did not, and instead it seems he used her monstrously to selfish ends (this is true whether he touched her or not).
As a public figure and role model, and as a man, he has earned every consequence received from this scandal. I hope that men who are aware of this scandal take this lesson from it: "what I think and feel in private matters just as much as what I say and do in public."
EDIT: great title for this post, but my email shortened it in the notification to "the king of tea" and then I was super confused when I started reading it, because tea isn't mentioned anywhere. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed.
Great piece Paroma. Love Scout irritated me bec I DIDNT think the writers were making the point that a man who was a single father was viewed differently than a woman, but instead were simply creating a completely unrealistic green flag male character while glossing over that point. I hope your view is the correct one! Also wanted to add to the data that Sean Connery was 35 yrs older than Julia Ormond in 1995 movie First Knight where he played King Arthur and she was Guinevere. Which is one of the most egregious age gaps in film history and even wider than the one between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963) where the age difference was 25 years and apparently even skeeved out Cary Grant. He thought the gap was too wide and had to be convinced to do the film.
Ohh I remember the anecdote about Charade. He didn't want there to be a kiss scene at all. Also I do remember thinking Sean Connery was way too old for her in the movie, but didn't realise that was the age gap. Yeesh. Did you know btw that Brad Pitt had two relationships with minor actresses when he was in his mid to late twenties? It was completely normalised at the time. I feel like that's the stage we're finally emerging from in South Korea now. Hopefully. Ugh.
Re: love scout. You know I don't disagree that they did gloss over a LOT with him. And they also used a lot of traditionally masculine tropes to establish his heroism too (see: the repeating motif of him saving children and swinging them one armed to safety 😅). I do point that our. But overall, I liked what they did.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard commentary on “age gap romances” in dramas all the way back to My Princess in 2011. I think it just hasn’t been written out as inappropriate in tv - which means it must still be regularly viewed in Korean society! So - seeing a super handsome yet morally gray actor must not have struck any of the people around him AND his partners as wrong! Oh, on a day where my own country is driving down the economy planet wide, I just can’t think more on this. Looking forward to more conversations from you!
Age gap romances were a huge rage ten years back. Even though Korean society had started frowning on very old male actors being paired with very young female actors, it wasn't a very deep frown. Plus at that point, there were quite a few age gap romances where the female lead was a decade and a half older than the man. In a weird way, it evened things out. You'll still see an occasional pairing that's extremely disturbing these days but it's rare on screen. But off screen, it's the forced adultification of young actresses that makes things so problematic. Everyone is in a hurry for them to reach 18, and there are very few aware adults looking out for them. It's kind of like 80s hollywood.
13?
The age of consent was 13 in in 202???
This one fact is so illustrative for me in terms of understanding what's going on with S. Korean gender and sexual issues.
I hope we'll be able to read your essay soon!
The last time they had raised it, it was also because of public outcry after a series of highly publicized cases where older men were acquited because they argued that the 13 and 15 year olds they'd slept with had consented. Usually these cases rarely go to court so the public could just pretend ignorance before that year. I had been stunned when the discussion and push for change began. The fact that we're still here and Korean citizens are having to ask for the bare minimum again is infuriating.
I'm stunned. Thank you so much for clarifying this!