I am completely shocked and appalled after watching Chuhyang the movie. I was excited after reading the comic – the Chun Hyang character so feisty and strong, portraying such a positive image of women. I was not expecting what I saw in the movie. I am hoping the different direction the movie took from the comic book is due to the need to please an older age group. Assuming that the movie was targeted to an older crowd (looking at the sex scenes), perhaps Im Kwon Taek thought in order for the storyline to be more relatable to his audience, stereotypical gender roles would have to be followed. This is good news for the younger generation, whereas in the comic book more pro-feminist characters are written.
In the comic book I was impressed that the two main female characters are indeed strong role models for girls. The mother is a highly respected medicine woman. She is extremely kind, opening her home to Myong Rong, and consistently supportive and affectionate of her daughter, Chun Hyang. The mother asserts herself and her own self-respect by killing herself when faced with the Yang Ban’s foreseeable rape. She raised Chun Hyang to be a strong, self-reliant girl even at a very young age. Never to be pushed around, Chun Hyang is always willing to speak up or physically fight when she does not agree with what is going on.
Unfortunately these powerful characters were not translated to the film. The mother is not a medicine woman, but instead a courtesan, a less than honorable position. The warmth of the comic book mother is gone, and she constantly reminds her daughter to submit to men in powerful positions. Chunhyang complies with her mother when Myong Rong asks her to marry him. She does not seem interested in him, pushing him away, having him forcibly remove her clothing. What surprised me the most was after they had sex, Chunhyang was suddenly in love with him! This sends a very dangerous message to viewers that there is nothing wrong with violence against women and that “no” really means “yes.” Along with their morbid courtship, I was sickened to see Chunhyang completely fall apart when Myong Rong told her he had to go to
What a disappointment the film was. Although I already speculated before why the comic book and movie contain such different storylines, why else would Im Kwon Taek choose this route?
2 comments:
Im Kwon Taek was not interpreting a comic book for the screen- instead, he was offering his representation of a traditional Korean story- he is clearly taking us back in time, which is creatively done by cross cutting between the contemporary auditorium and the world of Chun Hyang. I do not think he is being sexist himself by choosing to tell this story- but instead taking a sexist story to screen, and allowing us to think, "wow, this story that has been told for generations, it's sexist!"
By contradicting this story with images of modern Korean women students that open the film, it allows us to be grateful for how far women have come.
I agree with Melanie; Im Kwon Taek was representing the original p'ansori tale to the best of his abilities. To be as accurate as possible he needs to make sure that the social and gender roles are as authentic as possible. True, by our standards the story of Chun-Hyang is extremely sexist, but we can't really judge if it's sexist or not by the standards of that era.
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