The term Gangnam Miin (literally 'Gangnam beauty') is a derogatory one,
usedtorefertowomenwhohaveundergoneplasticsurgery.Itimpliesthatthey
are both superficial and artificial, and that they are all alike. 'Gangnam' refers to
the eponymous district in Seoul. The district itself is an important signifier in
Korean culture. Living in Gangnam, south of the Han river, is a sign of material
and social success (Lett 1998, 105). In episode 11, in what is intended as a piece
of Comic relief (but is ultimately a form of classist humour),Mi Rae's taxi-driver
father and her mother overhear passers-by commenting on Mi Rae's looks as
a Gangnam Miin. The parents, however, are not aware of the meaning of the
term and feel flattered, noting that she is 'not just a miin [beautiful woman]
but a Gangnam miin!' In the following episode her father, while driving a young
man in his taxi, shows him a picture of his daughter and proudly tells him she
is a Gangnam miin, as the young man struggles to hold back a smile. Similarly
her mother asks her hairdresser for a 'Gangnam-style' haircut. Gangnam first
drew the attention of international audiences through Psy'sYouTube sensation
'Gangnam Style'. Incidentally, while the song was catchy and the video ridiculous, many international viewers did not realise that the song was also a piece of social satire poking fun at the excesses of consumption in modern Korea(Jin
2016, 126).The point is not incidental in that Korean popular culture has begun
to adopt an increasingly critical turn in the last decade.
Tran argues that in modern South Korea 'plastic surgery is the main tool to
boost one's self-confidence in terms of selling their resume, marriage, achiev-
ing normalisation, and therefore, happiness' (2015, 61). The practice of double
eyelid surgery as a high school graduation present has become so common that
it has become almost a rite of passage (Kim 2003, 105). It would be outside the
scope of this paper to trace the cause for the incidence of such high rates of
plastic surgery; however, Gangnam Miin could be read as a critique of superficial evaluations of people based on standards of beauty while at the same time
highlighting the paradox that many young women have to live through.
Hee Jin, a 22-year-old female communications student at a small private university, felt she could sympathise (konggam) with the protagonist. Mi Rae feels
that she has to respond to the social pressure placed on female appearance
by undergoing plastic surgery, but throughout the show she is facing ridicule
and criticism for not being a natural beauty. Hee Jin personally felt this societal
pressure and would consider having plastic surgery herself. Yu Na, on the other
hand,didn'tlikethedrama.Shebelievedthatitisultimatelytoomuchof a'Cinderella story'.She judged Mi Rae quite harshly since in the drama Mi Rae herself
evaluates people according to their looks. Mi Rae in her opinion was a weak
female character the man is always saving her and carrying her.The male protagonist is Do Kyung Seok (acted by the singer/actor/model Cha Eun Woo)who,
according to Yu Na, is 'handsome, perfect, strong', unlike the weak female lead.
In the story we learn that Do Kyung Seok knew Mi Rae in high school before
she had plastic surgery and had already developed feelings for her back then.
In fact, Do Kyung Seok takes on the role of a moral agency. He does not value
people for their looks and even criticises Mi Rae for her superficiality. In turn
Mi Rae herself acts as a moral agent, pushing Do Kyung Seok to reconnect with
his estranged mother, who we learn was a victim of domestic abuse.The drama
reinforces a certain moral universe that emphasises the importance of forgive-
ness and establishing good family relationships, and could be said to enforce
a message that drew Yang's (2008) Taiwanese working-class informants, with
a focus on familial relationships. On the other hand the drama could be read,
as it was by most of the informants, as a critique over a superficially obsessed
society where 'knife-style is life-style' (Tran 2015, 63), which places women in
an impossible position.
Twenty-eight-year-old Tae Sun spoke at length about the drama. He described the drama as a'feminist drama', viewing it as a portrayal of women's suffering in contemporary Korea with the social pressure to be beautiful because of men. After a while in our discussions, however, Tae Sun declared that he did
not actually like the drama: 'I'm a man. I can't really connect with the story.'The
case of Tae Sun is particularly interesting because it shows the ways in which
dramas go beyond vicarious fantasies but can themselves become social and
indeed dialogic texts—albeit gendered ones. Tae Sun confessed that he only
watched the drama because his girlfriend 'made him watch it' so that he could
be made to understand the plight of women in Korea. While this is probably
quite an exceptional case, it does show the ways in which dramas can indeed
act as a critical mirror for Korean society. For our informants it is these kinds of
dramas that are 'realistic' dramas, and the fact that such cable dramas topped
national viewer charts is a testament to the changing nature of second-wave
audiences no longer merely content with Cinderella stories.