Have you watched the year-end Double Song showdown recently?
Qiao Mei successfully became "Sister Qiao" with her performance in "Dark Glory", and she is no longer the sweet Eun Hee in "Blue Life and Death Love", but Wen Dongen in a black robe in the poster.
Obviously, "The Little Son of the Chaebol Family" and "Dark Glory", which are also revenge dramas, are better in the competition between the two, and Sister Qiao is better. Both in acting and plot, he far surpasses his ex-husband.
Netflix also seems to be aiming at the momentum of Korean dramas loving revenge, and successively invested capital in the Korean film and television drama market, trying to continue the 1+1>2 effect of "Korean drama + Netflix".
Picture| "Dark Glory"
It can be said that the word "revenge" has become the label of Korean film and television dramas.
From Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy "Kind Gold", "Old Boy", "I Want Revenge" to "Determination to Break Up", and various subsequent film and television dramas, such as "Penthouse", "Juvenile Court", "D.P: Deserter Chase Order", and the original Korean drama "Wife's Temptation" adapted into "The Temptation to Go Home" in China, and even after tasting the sweetness, Netflix directly set the second main line of "Squid Game" as the hero's road to revenge.
Korean film and television dramas seem to be walking two extremes, either romantic dramas that are crazy sweet or revenge dramas that kill red eyes.
Photo| "The Little Son of the Chaebol Family"
So why do Koreans love revenge and go to extremes so much?
01
South Korea's "Hate Culture" and "Happy Culture"
When it comes to Korean culture, there is one word that cannot be avoided, that is, "hate culture".
The "hate" in this word is not simple hatred and hatred, it is broader than the meaning of hatred, and also contains emotions such as shame, sadness, and emptiness.
Simply put, this is a common Korean national sentiment.
As a peninsular country, in the early stage of its national development, South Korea's admiration for mainland civilization and contempt for island civilization made South Korea geographically incomparable. Coupled with the continuous domestic wars, its national spirit gave birth to contradictory feelings of inferiority and self-esteem, and finally unified into "hate", thus laying the cultural foundation for revenge movies.
"Hate" is a historical baggage under unwillingness and repression, and it is a universal embodiment of the mentality of the people in South Korea.
Picture| "Dark Glory"
In Korean revenge film and television dramas, revenge is usually embodied in the lynching of "fighting violence with violence", the rebellion of the weak against the strong, the subversion of power by the people at the bottom, and the resistance of women to male power...
Compared with the use of legal means of revenge, revenge in Korean film and television dramas is more about fighting violence with violence in private.
Although this method is not advocated by the law, from the audience's psychological point of view, "relieving hatred" makes them naturally stand on the side of fighting violence with violence.
The opposite of the "hate culture" is the "culture of rejuvenation".
After entering the millennium, South Korea took on a new image: Dynamic Korea. Especially since the 2002 World Cup, this image has become more visible and prominent.
This kind of dynamic image is essentially the opposite of the traditional "hate" emotion, which is manifested as a happy, pleasant psychological feeling, and can even be described as crazy.
In the midst of hundreds of years of "hate", in the face of sudden economic development, the South Korean people are trying to pursue an emotional release similar to "wildness".
Picture| "Dark Glory"
As much as you hate, how much you enjoy.
In this way, it is not difficult to appreciate the hearty and long-backlogged emotional release in Korean revenge dramas. Once in a state of madness, it is easy to break the order and thus fall into a state of chaos.
02
The contradiction between class solidification has intensified
As we all know, South Korea with chaebols and South Korea without chaebols are two Koreas.
The chaebols, who basically monopolize most of the wealth of South Korean society, control the lifeblood of the South Korean economy, and even the president has to bow to the chairman of Samsung.
The unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities caused by chaebol monopolies, coupled with the rise of Christianity in Korea and its evolution into a tool of class rule, is the result of many factors: the Korean class is becoming more and more solidified. Young people have fewer and fewer opportunities, and the probability of making an upward jump is getting lower and lower.
Photo| "Parasite"
Li Cangdong puts this problem on fire in "Burning". Bong Joon-ho is presented in "Parasite" as the final revenge and blood.
On South Korean social media, young Koreans joke that they are living in "hell Korea," where class mobility becomes increasingly difficult and the gap between the rich and poor is widening.
Revenge in film and television dramas has become a projection of Korean class contradictions.
"Dark Glory" translates class contradictions and power bullying into school violence. In "Dark Glory", the rich hold the educational resources and the right to speak, control the inheritance of wealth and control and play with the lower class, even the protagonist Moon Dong-eun wants revenge, but also through the examination and examination to become a teacher counterattack, and obtain the career and status that most Koreans yearn for, before he really embarks on the road of revenge.
On the social platforms of young Koreans, there is a popular spoon class theory. In short, when a person is born, it is divided into four categories: "golden spoon", "silver spoon", "copper spoon" and "earth spoon", and the criterion for division is not personal ability, but the financial strength of parents.
Picture| "Dark Glory"
The "earthen spoons" even gave themselves a new name - "three abandonment generation", that is, giving up love, giving up marriage, and giving up childbearing.
With the development of society, there will be more and more such "X abandonment generation".
Under the solidification of standards, young people in Korean society are seriously divided, and behind the difficult status quo is young people's disappointment with the status quo.
Therefore, reflected in the Korean revenge drama, the vulnerable side successfully kills the rich after personal efforts, which is what the entire Korean society and the group of the "X throwing era" want to see.
This imaginary projection of revenge is hearty and refreshing, satisfying the emotional catharsis of Koreans in distress.
03
The embarrassing situation of women's status
Korean dramas, is the best filter in Korea.
Of course, the Korean dramas referred to here are those idol dramas full of romantic plots.
However, there is another aspect to Korean dramas as well.
From "Kim Bo-nam Murder", "Kind Gold" to "Penthouse" and "Dark Glory", the revenge drama of the big heroine has always been a hit in Korean film and television dramas.
The women in revenge dramas have repeatedly faded the sweet filter in idol dramas and turned to fierce and brutal images.
The cultural reasons behind this are caused by the structure of Korean society.
Chizuko Ueno wrote in her book Feminism from Scratch: "When I was a teenager, I used to look at my mother and think, 'Mom, even if you change husbands, your misfortune will not go away. I found that it was not a matter of personality or relationships, but of the social structure that person was in. ”
The status of Korean women has always been a sensitive topic in their homeland.
After the release of "Kim Ji-young Born in 82", it was boycotted by South Korean men, who not only attacked the actors in the play and demanded that the film be removed, but even the artists who recommended the film were also threatened with security.
According to 2014 statistics, the average salary of South Korean women is only about 63% of that of men, and Korean women have always been at a great disadvantage from education, work to family.
Photo| "Kind Gold"
South Korea has even given birth to a new social phenomenon: the Sampo Generation.
"Sampo" means that this generation of young people is beginning to give up on three big things: romantic relationships, marriage and children.
The image of the protagonist in the female revenge drama opens an emotional outlet for Korean female audiences and evokes emotional resonance. These protagonists accumulate in forbearance and low voices, and finally fight evil with evil, fight capital and male power with violence, and complete the redemption of individuals.
In "Dark Glory", Wen Dongen, who has experienced school violence and gender-based violence, regards Yanzhen as a ghost and shadow, and the spy aunt, who is his ally, after experiencing domestic violence, agrees to complete Dong'en's revenge plan, and then realize his own "murderer" revenge, as if life has an explanation.
Korean revenge dramas have found an outlet for the currently pent-up sentiment of the South Korean people, although retaliation that goes beyond the constraints of law and order is not in line with mainstream values.
Revenge dramas, in essence, are still cool dramas. As Park Chan-wook puts it, "The most dramatic theme in the world" is a relentless creative exploration of the motive for revenge. ”
Everyone has deepest desires and desires, and when expression is forbidden, the thrill of revenge becomes a positive catharsis.
With the development of society, more and more elements have been integrated into revenge dramas, such as "The Penthouse", which aggregates hot topics such as cheating, domestic violence, school violence, chicken and baby education, and chaebol privileges, and there may be more elements integrated in the future.
The success of revenge is the pursuit of self-satisfaction.
In the current situation of emerging social issues, the pace of Korean drama revenge will never stop until Korean young people's self-satisfaction is satisfied, and until they can truly "take revenge".