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There are many reasons to hatetelenovelas. You’ve got the plodding pace, the corny declarations of everlasting love and of course the customary crying, screaming, and slapping. Many among the middle and upper class do not even watch local primetime television – and it’s not just elitism. The telenovelas that make up the bulk of local programming are clearly built to serve themasa audience: the poor guys are good, the rich are evil, and in the end the lead character gets a lot of money and lives happily ever after as the nicest rich person ever.

It surprised me, then, to find that Korean dramas – or Koreanovelas as they are locally known – have fans from all walks of life. In high school, I had friends who would go to the salon to copy hairstyles from the comedy-drama Princess Hours. There are students from exclusive high schools and universities who frequent seedy pirated DVD stalls and drop thousands of pesos to buy complete seasons of both current and up-and-coming Korean shows. Lately I’ve discovered that I myself am not immune to the allure of Korean programming, having spent the better part of April 2010 lying in bed having aQueen Seon Deok marathon.

The Power of Cuteness

While heavy Korean dramas similar to telenovelas in the Philippines do exist, the ones popular among the youth are the light ones that have a more comedic lean to them. This is probably why the dark, scheming love stories are shown during the afternoon, while the peppy cutesy ones are shown during primetime. With a few exceptions like the tragic Stairway to Heaven and the Endless Loveseries, many of these are aimed towards the teen market and are less of your traditional dramas and more of romantic comedies in both plot and mood. For example, Boys Over Flowers is about a spunky girl standing up to her arrogant but popular schoolmates and their leader – her sworn enemy – falling for her. Princess Hours follows a headstrong but common girl who is betrothed to the Crown Prince of Korea. Full House is about a famous movie star and his secret contract marriage to an unknown aspiring scriptwriter, while Coffee Prince is about a cocky rich boy and a strong-willed girl who pretends to be a boy in order to get work.

Like Philippine telenovelas, there is a formula for Korean shows. If our formula is having a rich man’s child from a secret affair come to live with and be oppressed by the legal family, theirs is having a spunky pure-hearted girl teach a jaded arrogant boy to love. However, both formulas are alike in essence. According to college junior Pia Inserto, “Koreanovelas are very much like Filipino telenovelas because they appeal to the 'Big Dream' of the masses. Protagonists are usually commoners or people from lower social classes. They are always portrayed as hard-working individuals … who always find conflict in dealing with a person of a higher social class, eventually 'beating the system' and overcoming the conflict or villain.”

So what, then, sets Korean dramas apart? The answer is in the treatment. While local shows and those from Korea share similar values and issues – perhaps because we’re both Asian countries – the stories and the methods through which the conflict is explored are lighter and sunnier in Korean shows. The term many people use to describe it is "cutesy."

The idea of cutesy is most associated with Asian youth culture, especially with Japan where the term for it is Kawaii (literally “lovable” or “adorable”). In South Korea, the notion of cutesy goes by the name Aegyo – a term derived from the Chinese characters for “love” (ae) and “beautiful” (gyo). The closest English equivalent for the concept of Aegyo would be “winsome,” which my computer’s dictionary defines as “charming, especially because of a naive, innocent quality.” In any case, both concepts place emphasis on being sweet and playful.

The most obvious representation of this is in the casting and writing of the lead female character. Unlike Filipino telenovelas which place emphasis on meekness, youth-oriented Korean dramas are fond of having lively and talkative female protagonists. Both countries’ protagonists are sincere and have noble intentions. However, the Korean female lead is more likely to stand up for what she wants and question the social order, as well as the adults around her. And because she is portrayed as charmingly bold and chatty from the start, her complaints do not come off as annoying and self-righteous, but instead as pure and genuine. In that sense, she is rebellious, but the audience takes her side because her heartfelt naïveté makes more sense than the jaded, compromised principles of her peers. This childlike-yet-mature quality is integral to the construction of a Koreanovela heroine, as it is this spunk and vibrant spirit which initially shocks but later attracts the male lead.

On many Japanese and Korean television talk shows, you’ll often see small animated captions, brightly colored speech bubbles, and sparkly effects superimposed during editing to add humor and to point out things the viewer might be interested in. This carries over to the production of Koreanovelas, which feature comedic cutaway scenes and playful music. For example, in the first episode of the show Boys Over Flowers, school playboy Gu Jun Pyo and his group of similarly good-looking and popular friends are shown in soft focus, walking through the door in slow motion, with some sort of heavenly light shining behind them while a gaggle of students crowd together and stare in awe.

The show then takes a darker turn as Gu Jun Pyo finishes their grand entrance by bullying a boy while the rest of the student body does nothing. However, the heavy mood is quickly diffused and replaced by comedy in the next scene: the spunky female lead loudly questions their authority and a trio of ditzy girls informs her of the boys’ popularity after introducing themselves as “Ginger … Sunny … Miranda,” complete with ridiculous Engrishaccents. The message is clear – this is not a heavy drama.

Even the color palette favored by such shows tends to be on the cute side – pastels and bright, happy colors are often used for the costumes. The makeup is very natural and rosy, as if to signify the simple, no-fuss beauty of the female lead. The lighting is likewise very soft, and the shots usually have a soft pinkish or yellowish cast to them.

Cutesiness can also refer to the seemingly random nature of Asian TV programming, a thing which is highlighted in the American reality show I Survived A Japanese Game Show! In the same way, many Korean dramas feature young couples doing random acts of Aegyo – having picnics and piggy-back rides, eating ice cream and ice skating, and taking pictures of each other while doing stereotypical cute Asian poses. Notice that these couples’ activities are very sweet and wholesome. Teen-oriented Korean dramas play upon the image of innocence and rarely feature blatant sexual themes, a trait even more noticeable when compared to Western shows catering to the same age group.

More importantly, these shows are not all fluff. The division among social classes is often discussed. Boys Over Flowers has a nice scene where Jan Di, after being bullied by her rich schoolmates with balloons filled with flour, goes to a rooftop and monologues about whether her bullies know the price of flour and how wasteful they are being, licking her fingers as she cries. Ideological differences are also discussed – tradition versus modernity, old Korea versus new Korea, the generation gap. These are all familiar issues played out time and time again in dramas. But instead of simply focusing on the problems of the protagonist on the individual level, Korean dramas often include subtle commentary along with the conflict. The end goal is not just putting one over the antagonist, but also proving a point ideologically. These shows may be light, but there’s more than meets the eye.

The comedy, the cutesiness, the light treatment of the romance, and the flashes of substance – all of these contribute to the popularity of Korean dramas among the youth. As Pia says, “Generally, these shows are not intellectually stimulating. I watch these shows for the light entertainment.”

Bear in mind, though, that not all Korean dramas are like this; there exist a great number of heavy, tragic and weepy Korean dramas that are popular with older audiences and that have also contributed to the Korean Wave – I simply chose not to discuss them because that style exists as the generic soap opera pattern and is thus not uniquely Korean. What is important is that through these youth-oriented lighter dramas – no matter how formulaic they are when compared to each other – Korean television programming is able to go beyond the usual format, satisfy a wide range of audiences, and more importantly, create something uniquely theirs.

Next Time

However, these cutesy dramas are not the only style which can be called distinctively Korean. More than any other genre, the sageuk or historical drama is the most identifiable as unique to the Koreans – not just because of the historical content, but because of the genre’s own decades-old style and history with the Korean people. Hang on to your seat, because we’re diving headfirst into Korean territory.