In Defense of "Unlikable" K-drama Female Leads

“When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.” 

― Bette Davis

I was scrolling through reviews for Producer (haven't gotten around to watching it yet, so don't ask my opinion), and I noticed a trend:

"I freaking hate IU."

"Gong Hyo Jin's makeup is dreadful...plus it's the same old narcissistic hard nosed female role again..."

Which reminded me of these kinds of reviews on Divorce Lawyer in Love:

"That girl should b fired"

"I don't like the lead actress. She is coming on too strong and annoying." 

"Can't stand the lead female part. Having trouble making it through ep. 2. Her character doesn't seem to be getting any better."

Etc. Etc. Etc.

I guess my main beef with these kinds of complaints isn't that people dislike the characters; it's that complaints about "selfish," "annoying," or "too strong" personalities seem to be leveraged against female characters to a disproportionate degree.

Pretty much all of the negative reviews I just cited came within the first 2 or 3 episodes of the series—you know, the part where they're still establishing personalities and setting the scene for the rest of the drama. That's why I find it odd that someone would complain about the female lead not getting better fast enough before the typical 2-episode drama intro is even finished. Why would she be getting "better" before we've even started? Isn't that what the other 16 episodes are for?

Sometimes I see similar complaints with male characters, but more often than not, there's an implicit understanding that the cold-hearted rich jerk isn't going to be a cold-hearted rich jerk forever. I've seen male drama characters get away with way worse in the introductory episodes than most female characters ever could, but since we're used to it, it barely even phases us.

Consider, for example, this scenario: Within two episodes, the lead character has physically pushed women onto the ground and into life-threatening situations not once, but twice. Neither woman actually died, but this character had no way of knowing that was true when making the choice to push them.

Pretty "unlikable" and "annoying," right? Nope. If it's Hyun Bin, all you care about his whether you like his hairstyle or how cute his dimples are.

So why is it that Hyun Bin basically gets a free pass, but people totally write off Jo Yeo Jung's character for a much lesser offense? 

I had a similar thought with the much-maligned female lead in Discovery of Romance. Back when everyone was saying "Why would a nice, handsome doctor like Nam Ha Jin want a horrible, selfish monster like Han Yeo Reum," I was actually thinking the opposite. Why would a smart, accomplished, fun-loving woman like her want a boring wet blanket of a man who keeps seeing another woman in secret against her wishes? I mean, really now.

Even if it's somewhat true, she's not the only one...

I have a couple of theories on this. The first is that we're so used to seeing male leads as rich jerks who gradually change that we're trained to accept and even expect churlish behavior in the first few episodes. The vast majority of female leads, however, are unwaveringly nice and selfless, so when we see them acting in mean or rude ways, we forget that they'll probably learn and grow over the course of the series.

Perhaps for female audiences, if you're identifying with the female lead, you want her to be someone for whom you can cheer from the very beginning. If you're fantasizing about how you could reform the wealthy bad boy with your sweetness, you don't want to imagine yourself being the jerk. It ruins the whole illusion.

Then, of course, we can't ignore the oppa factor. I think there's a definite subset of K-drama fans who just like to look at handsome faces and don't really care about character development. Oppa can be a serial killer, but if he has chocolate abs, he's automatically ranked higher than all of the women in the series.

Well, whatever the case is, here's my response: I'm tired of well-behaved, constantly kindhearted, docile women. I'm tired of hearing viewers clamoring for "sassy" female leads, but then seeing those same leads written off the first time they exhibit actual human weaknesses like selfishness or anger. I'm tired of doe-eyed sweethearts who would never hurt a flea. Give me some interesting, flawed women!

Guess what? Not all women are nice all the time. *Gasp!* And that means that if you care about character development, every once in a while you're going to have female characters who are self-centered in episode 1 instead of working 7 jobs and giving all of their hard-earned money to homeless cats or something. That's how you create a satisfying character arc.

Now, there are some ways that creating flawed characters can go wrong, but I think the rule applies equally for male and female characters. Audience members have to be able to connect to the characters, or there's no reason to keep on watching. This means that you can't write mean characters who are also boring. Why would we want to stick around to see them change if we don't even care what's happening to them? I get that sometimes, it's not so much that the characters are flawed as that they just aren't very interesting to watch, and that's a fair critique.

In addition to making characters we want to watch, dramas also have to be careful not to draw the unlikability out indefinitely. If the whole point is to watch characters learning and progressing, you can't spend 14 episodes on how terrible they are and expect people to feel satisfied with the end result. My classic example of this is You're Beautiful. I have been pretty vocal about my dislike for that drama, and a lot of it revolved around Tae Kyung's lack of progression. Yeah, he sorta got better, but he was so unbearable for so long, even after he confessed his feelings to, Go Mi Nyu, that being kind of nice for a little while didn't really cut it for me.

I know I already brought up Discovery of Romance in defense of the female lead, but I actually came pretty close to dropping the whole series after about 8 episodes. It wasn't just Yeo Reum who was the problem, though; at that point, Eric was the only one in the entire cast who appeared to be making progress, which got tiresome. Fortunately, we started digging into the back stories a little more thoroughly after that, so it got better. 

I will also say that sometimes characters do such terrible things at first that it's hard to root for them at all, regardless of what they do later. This response varies from viewer to viewer, but for me, the list of generally unforgivable flaws goes something like this:

1. Murder

2. Attempted murder

3. Sexual assault

I had to stop watching Bride of the Century when the male lead pinned the female lead in a bed against her will in order to intimidate her, and then two scenes later, she was gazing at him with lovelorn eyes. It was just too much for me to handle. On the other hand, I don't think having a bad hair day counts as an unpardonable offense.

I don't care if it's Hong Ki. That's an automatic DQ on my list.

I guess all I'm saying is that I get tired of the double standard on K-drama leads. If you don't like certain types of characters, that's fine; just make sure you don't like it across the board, regardless of gender. I, for one, find it refreshing when I see K-drama women who aren't just "sassy" sweethearts waiting around to be domesticated, but rather multi-dimensional women with character arcs of their own. 

To all of the "unlikable," "annoying," "too strong," "hard nosed" female leads out there:

Even if everyone else hates you, I'm on your side. Fighting!

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Expectation and Fulfillment in Dramaland

Yes, I know it's been three weeks since we've blogged. You can blame a combination of hiding out in a cabin in the mountains for a week, having to work extra to make up for hiding out in a cabin for a week, and then just feeling like I wanted to vegetate and watch dramas instead of writing about them. But now I'm back in a writing mood, so look forward to more consistent posts!

In all of my vegetative drama watching, I've developed kind of a bad habit. I used to be a pretty strict one-drama-at-a-time kind of girl. Maaaaaybe two dramas if they were airing simultaneously. Over the last couple of months, however, I keep starting new dramas, getting to the last three to five episodes, and then putting them on the back burner for a new drama.

Part of the problem is that I'm woefully behind on reviews, so I don't want to finish more dramas before I review the old ones, but that's just a big fatty excuse because the truth is that I love drama beginnings. I love the excitement of a new drama. I love the suspense that builds to the moment of romance shared and feelings expressed.

This obsession with beginnings has made me think about what it is that compels viewers to watch (and love) entire dramas. I think a lot of it comes down to the balance between expectation and fulfillment in the drama structure.


The best writers build a sense of expectation at the front end of dramas. They give us little moments of partial fulfillment throughout the first few episodes, pushing us to keep clicking the "next episode" button in hopes of getting more. And more. And more.

The problem with expectation is that you can't put it off forever. If you only give your viewers little breadcrumbs for too many episodes, they will eventually feel bored and move elsewhere. For me, this was one of the big problems with Heirs. I think we all kept hoping that interesting things would happen, but nothing ever did. It was just the same love triangle standoff at the end of nearly every episode, and it eventually got dull.

Similarly, one of the fastest ways to infuriate viewers is to build infinite expectation without an equal payout at the end. If you're going to put off viewer fulfillment for a full twenty episodes, you'd better be a screenwriting genius and give us an entire episode that is twenty episodes worth of satisfaction. If you give us a handshake at the end of it all, we're gonna start throwing things at our televisions and inventing new profanities to express just how cheated we feel.

Not to name names, but....
You know who you are. Now go in a corner and think about what you did.

Sometimes, drama writers want to play with expectations, and that's okay. It's refreshing when the second lead suddenly turns into the first lead or when a clever twist pushes viewers to think. But even if you toss in a twist, it needs to have some hint of expectation. We want the second lead to get the girl, but it has to feel earned. We want to know that she's going to be happy with her choice. That's why the ending of Marry Him If You Dare was so infuriating. The show focused so heavily on building romantic expectations that refusing to fulfill that expectation made the entire series feel somewhat hollow. I would have been okay with a series about her personal journey and individual development if the every episode hadn't shouted "WHICH MAN WILL SHE CHOOSE???"

"No, no, we meant for it to be a searing statement on women and romance! That's why we spent the whole series building a tedious, endless love triangle! We swear!"

At the other end of the spectrum, you have dramas that are great at building tension for the first half of the series, but they fulfill the expectation too early, leaving empty space for the second half of the series. It's pretty typical to have the leads first kiss somewhere between episodes 7 and 12, which is a great gift to keep viewers invested. The problem is that many writers seem genuinely baffled after the big kiss. They spend the rest of the series scrambling to come up with appropriate romantic hurdles, but we all know they're just killing time to the inevitable finale. Does anyone actually get excited when a drama moves into the noble idiocy/birth secret/corporate shenanigans phase of the show?

This is one reason why I'm a pretty strong advocate of the 16-episode series for most shows. Series extensions are one of the biggest enemies to narrative tension. I have seen only a handful of shows where the episode extension was okay (and only because I loved those shows), and I'm not entirely convinced that I have seen any shows where it was a narrative necessity. Even shows that feel rushed in the last five minutes could have avoided trouble with better pacing in the middle sections. Wait, I take that back. The extension for Queen of Reversals allowed it develop a satisfying, if unexpected, ending, so that one is the exception that proves the rule.

Maybe it's just because it was my first drama, but a good example of the balance between expectation and fulfillment has got to be Coffee Prince. As I watched, one of the things that enthralled me was how many heartfelt, meaningful moments it had sprinkled throughout the show. Unlike American romcom movies that ended after the big confession, Coffee Prince kept giving, and that's why I kept watching. It's proof that you don't need seven rounds of amnesia to keep people involved. With smart pacing, characters we can care about, and obstacles based in reality, shows can keep viewers engaged and satisfied.

One of the things that keeps me so engaged with You Are All Surrounded (aside from my love of action comedies) is the way that it builds expectation. With both the central mystery and the romance, the first ten episodes gave us enough hints to string us along. Episodes 11 and 12 get a pass because Lee Seung Gi's eye injury probably altered some of the script plans, but I keep hoping that the show will fulfill my expectations. It's getting to that stage in the series where the romance needs to start moving if it's going to keep my interest, and there's an opportunity for an engaging mystery as well.

In episode 12, we finally get a scene where Soo Sun starts to recognize Dae Gu as more than a little brother or a detective partner, but I have to admit that the reliance on the old rescue hug left me wanting more. Here's hoping episode 13 starts to move towards the fulfillment end of the spectrum!