Saturday, December 13, 2008

Final Project: Media Representations of Koreans

In this blog, I will explore the portrayal of Koreans in four television shows that have come out in the last eight years. The shows I discuss offer four very different representations of Koreans: a fictional Korean couple on “Lost,” a fictional first generation Korean-American family on “Gilmore Girls,” a fictional Korean adoptee on “Arrested Development” and a Korean-American family on the reality show “Jon & Kate + 8.”

LOST

"Lost" is a science fiction drama currently in its fifth season on ABC. It tells the story of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific. The show makes use of an ensemble cast, and tells the story of their survival on the mysterious island as well as makes use of flashbacks and flash forwards to develop character and plot.

Two of the survivors are Sun and Jin, a married couple from Korea. In the first episodes of Season 1, Sun and Jin are portrayed as the stereotypical Korean couple. Jin is possessive, domineering, unwilling to associate with the other passengers and Sun is his submissive wife. Despite the language barrier they face, Jin and Sun find that they have survival skills that make them indispensable during their time on the island. Jin, the son of a fisherman, provides fish for the other survivors to eat and Sun plants a garden and demonstrates her knowledge of medicinal plants. In a way, this is another stereotypical portrayal of Koreans; it suggests that they are somehow "closer to the land." In fact, it is never explained how Sun could have obtained her botanical knowledge because she is revealed through flashbacks to have grown up in a wealthy family in urban Seoul.





But as with all characters on "Lost," people are never who we think they are at first. Flashbacks complicate each character, including Jin and Sun, by showing their lives off the island. Over the course of several seasons, it is revealed that Sun's domineering corporate father disapproved of her marriage, and that the couple was on the plane in the first place to escape from Jin's crushing life as a hit man for Mr. Paik's company. Sun is shown to have been secretly learning English from a man she was having an affair with, and planned to leave Jin for. The reason for Jin’s possessiveness is explored, Sun is shown to have more agency that was originally thought, and the couple's rocky marriage is brought to the forefront on the island.

One of the primary themes of "Lost" is that on the island, outside of their usual contexts, people tend to express their true nature. The show's use of flashbacks highlights characters' previous lives off the island and contrasts their behavior to life after the crash. On "Lost" there are no "good guys" or "bad guys"--each character shows evidence of being both incredibly exemplary and incredibly flawed. The writers consistently point out that human beings are complicated, dynamic, multidimensional and that human behavior is mostly rooted in context.

I believe that Jin and Sun's portrayal of the stereotypical Korean couple is a good example of presenting characters as flat, predictable people at first and then complicating them considerably through flashbacks and the events on the island. The island itself, a new context for life outside of Korea, offers Jin and Sun a chance to break from stereotypes and build new identities. In the process, Jin and Sun come to know each other's true selves and begin a process of reconciliation.

The clip below (from Season 4, Episode 7) shows one of the final conversations between Jin and Sun in which they negotiate life after Sun's affair, Sun's pregnancy and a chance to leave the island forever:





GILMORE GIRLS




“Gilmore Girls” is a dramatic comedy show that aired on the WB from 2000 to 2007. The show is focused on mother Lorelai and daughter Rory Gilmore, but Rory’s best friend Lane Kim and her mother are also considered main characters throughout the run of the series. Lane’s family is Korean as well as Seventh Day Adventist, and enforces their traditional values in their household. Because her parents would not approve, Lane is forced to hide her obsession with rock music under the floorboards of her bedroom and seems to lead a double life. Lane loves her parents and wants to please them, but she is constantly dealing with the fact that her mother believes junk food, dating, and non-Christian music are the work of the devil.

Lane: Well, I wore a bracelet to school today. My parents were called. There was a special service in chapel, and I've been ordered to a soul-searching seminar next week. I'll be sitting between the nail-polish-wearing girl and the spicy condiment user.

Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of “Gilmore Girls,” based Lane’s character on the stories her friend Helen Pai (a producer on the show) told her about her family and childhood. “Initially, it was very weird,” says Pai about the experience. “I’m not a limelight kind of person. During the first season of Gilmore Girls, we had a panel, and there were a lot of questions about Mrs. Kim and Lane and the stereotypes. And, Amy would then explain, ‘Listen, these are real stories. They’re based on a real person.’”
While some might argue that the portrayal of the Kim family on the show reinforce stereotypes of Koreans as strict, oppressive households, many Asian viewers have identified with the personalities on the show.




“Gilmore Girls” takes place in the fictional small Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, and the people who live there are a collection of quirky, memorable characters. While the show’s protagonists are Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, the strange behavior of minor characters in Stars Hollow are just as important to the development of the story. In this way, the Kim family is just one odd family in a town full of odd families. While their Korean-ness and religious faith make them stand out, they don’t stand out any more than Taylor does for his love of the rules or Jackson does for sleeping in the vegetable patch. In many ways, the show’s setting actually normalizes the Kim family.

Many of Lane’s storylines on “Gilmore Girls” highlight the conflicts between the traditional values of Lane’s parents and the largely white, secular values of Stars Hollow and the world at large. These conflicts are done with equal amounts of humor and emotion, and they almost always show Lane mediating the two cultures. This conversation about gifts shows the regular miscommunication that goes on between Lane and her family:

Lane: You have to look at what a gift says to the other person, not to you. Remember two years ago, I got my mom that perfume?
Rory: Yeah.
Lane: Okay, to me that said, "Hey Mom, you work hard, you deserve something fancy". Now to my mother, it said, "Hey Mom, here's some smelly sex juice, the kind I use to lure boys with", and resulted in me being sent to Korean Bible camp all summer.

While Lane does eventually find a way to tell her family about her true passions, drumming in a rock band and her relationship with the band’s white guitarist, Lane does continue to find herself at the center of both conflicts with her mother and internal conflicts. Without knowing it, Lane finds that she has internalized her parents’ values about premarital sex and must admit that her family and culture has influenced her after all. Mrs. Kim actually helps organize a tour for Lane’s band and consults with her boyfriend on his songwriting. These conflicts bring Lane and Mrs. Kim closer together throughout the series, and portray them as complex and authentic characters rather than caricatures of a Korean-American family.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

“Arrested Development” is a mockumentary-style situation comedy that aired on the FOX network from 2003 to 2006. The show is about a wealthy, corporate family in Newport Beach, CA. George Bluth Sr, the patriarch and president of the Bluth Company is arrested and his wife (Lucille Bluth) and children (Michael, Gob, Lindsay and Buster) are left to clean up the mess.



In Season 1, Episode 14, a fourteen-year-old Korean child shows up on Lucille Bluth’s doorstep. A year earlier, Lucille filed papers to adopt a child from Korea because she was frustrated with Buster for not finishing his cottage cheese. At first, Lucille tries to get rid of the child, but after seeing Buster’s jealousy, she decides to keep him. The family assumes his name is Annyong (hello in Korean) because that is all the he says.

Annyong is consistently underestimated throughout the series. To Lucille, he is at best a pawn to make Buster jealous, and at worse she uses him as a human purse. In the adoption letter Lucille receives, the “Korean Consulate of Child Services” treats him as an object to deliver, asking that someone “Please be home between 9:00 and 5:00.”




In his school’s play, he is “typecast” in an Asian role. He volunteers to play Uncle Sam because it’s “better than the part I have now—guy who orders attack on Pearl Harbor.”



In fact, the family’s underestimation of Annyong turns out to be their downfall. He learns English quickly, plays on a soccer team (which shows he is blending in with other American children), works at the banana stand, falls in love with his cousin (just as his other cousin George Michael does) and begins to surprise the Bluths with his insights on their family dynamics:

Michael: What? What's going on?
Annyong: Okay. Mother want someone to go to my soccer game with. She don't want other soccer moms think that she is single mother. She old school.
Michael: I liked it better when he just said "Annyong."

It is revealed in Season 1, Episode 16 that he is actually eighteen-years-old, foreshadowing that there is more to Annyong than meets the eye. In the series finale, it is revealed that Annyong (whose real name is “He-loh”) has been collecting incriminating data on the Bluth family and orchestrating an SEC raid in order to avenge George, Sr. for stealing his grandfather’s idea for a frozen banana stand. The picture shown of Annyong’s grandfather, a grainy shot of his grandfather in front of his banana stand in Korea, portrays Korea as a bleak landscape.

Ultimately, “Arrested Development” portrays Korea as a desolate place with so many children up for adoption that one could be “accidentally” adopted by a family as self-centered as the Bluths. In addition, it portrays Korean people (Annyong and his grandfather) as smart individuals with good ideas who are underestimated and have their ideas stolen by rich and powerful white people.

JON & KATE + 8


“Jon & Kate + 8” is a reality documentary show currently airing on the TLC network. It’s a “day in the life” style program that follows Jon and Kate Gosselin, a Pennsylvania couple who have 7-year-old twin girls and 4-year-old sextuplets. Jon’s mother was Korean and grew up in Honolulu and his father is “a total white dude”, and Kate is white, so the Gosselin children are “a quarter Korean.”





While Jon and Kate’s parents haven’t been involved in the day-to-day lives of their grandchildren, Jon’s Korean grandmother does spend time with the children and cooks for the family. In Season 4, Episode 5, Jon decides to use his grandmother’s recipes to cook a Korean-style dinner (Bulkogi, Chinese fried rice, kimchi and mochi for dessert) including for the family. His goal, he explains to the camera, is to teach his children about their Korean heritage in an age-appropriate way.



In this episode, Jon and Kate explain their kids’ habit of getting into arguments about who in the family is the “Asian-est.” During dinner, Mady (one of the 7-year-old twins) says “I’m the most Asian-est person in the whole family, except for Daddy!” She often talks about her Asian heritage on the show. In Season 1, Episode 3, Mady is wearing Jon’s jacket and she says “I look just like Daddy! I’m wearing his jacket and I have an Asian face!” Kate and Alexis, one of the sextuplets, are determined by the family to be the only “non-Asians in the family,” to which Kate replies “Of course, that isn’t true.”

“Jon & Kate + 8” is the only non-fiction program I’m exploring in this study of media representations of Koreans, so my interest lies in how a real family with Korean heritage might choose to represent themselves on television. While the episodes are unscripted and designed to capture the Gosselin family’s daily life, Jon, Kate and the producers often choose a theme or event for the episode, such as a trip the family is taking. Jon must not only have chosen to prepare Korean food for his family, but to show an aspect of his family life on television as well.

“Jon & Kate + 8” portrays the Gosselin family as proud of their heritage. Both Jon and Kate have spoken to the importance of creating family traditions, many of which have been chronicled on the show. The family has also chosen to capture moments on film where they celebrate their heritage, not only in the Korean dinner episode but in the episode where Jon and Kate renew their marriage vows in a Hawaiian-style ceremony. Kate, who is white, related a story in one episode about her pregnancy with the twins. A relative of Jon’s asked her if she was disappointed that her children would not look like her, because they would likely look Korean like Jon. Kate’s reply was that she thinks her children are beautiful, and she’s just as proud of their Korean ancestry as Jon is. Ultimately, Jon and Kate seem to have made a conscious decision (one they choose to share with their viewing audience) that their Korean heritage is something to celebrate with their children.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Week Ten: Advertising

I realized this kind of parody advertisement has been done to death on the internet, but I've been seeing so many Christmas related diamond ads that I decided to choose inspiration over originality. Sorry.

The ad I put together is a parody (obviously) of the ads by jewelry retailers to sell diamonds. The message of those ads, often, is that the only way to show you love a woman is with diamond jewelry. In the end, these advertisements put pressure men to only use their finances to show how they feel (thereby reinforcing their societal roles as unemotional males) and portrays women as only interested in money and frankly, as I show in my spoof, stupid for not "understanding" different ways people show each other love.

Most diamond advertisements are aimed at heterosexual men who are in pretty new relationships (less than 2 years, probably). The advertisements often draw on the heavy symbolism of diamonds as a physical object; they are the hardest mineral and likely to survive anything. I saw one ad on television recently that used the slogan "There are only two things that last longer than time..." implying that one is love, and one is a diamond. That television commercial, oddly enough, seemed to be aimed at women rather than men. It is just as important for diamond retailers to convince women of the importance of diamond jewelry as a physical sign of love so the men in their lives feel pressured to buy them.

The audience of my spoof is the group of men described above, but I wrote the copy as if it were coming from the perspective of not just the jewelry retailer but also the stereotypical greedy women. It drives home the point that the symbolism and cash value of diamonds are the only way to express feelings of love, that relationships without this particular physical symbol are meaningless, and that both these facts seem to work out for jewelry retailers just fine, thank you very much.