Why Are Western Audiences Falling Head Over Heels For K-Dramas?

By Jae-Ha Kim


In 2009, a prosperous South Korean high schooler became fixated on a poor scholarship student. Annoyed by her disinterest in him, he had her kidnapped, knocked out with chloroform, and taken to his residence, where the unconscious girl was given a makeover to be more physically attractive to him.


The prosperous teen sounds like a serial killer in the making, right? However he’s actually the lead character in the hit Korean series Boys Over Flowers, a gateway drama that was popular with international viewers along with Koreans. Because the story unfolded, the young man (played by A-list actor Lee Min-Ho) became a sympathetic character, whose abusive behavior was excused because the writers concocted a teary backstory to explain away some of his sociopathic behavior.


Welcome to the world of K-dramas, where over-the-top story lines mesh with chaste romance to make some of the most deliciously addictive viewing on TV.


Boys Over Plants (2009)


In her academic paper "The Korean Wave and Korean Dramas," Claflin University coworker professor Dr. Hyejung Ju writes, “For the past two decades, the Korean Wave has been recognized in several parts of the world. More recently, the outbound scope of K-drama and K-pop has further reached dispersed global crowds, most of whom are not Korean media consumers or fans.”


Some 18 million viewers In the
U.S. Stream Korean dramas. The U.S. Accounts for five- to six-percent of the international viewership, according to the Korea Creative Content Firm (KOCCA) — a government company that monitors Korean entertainment.


The U.S. Market for Korean dramas is small compared to some Asian countries — Japan and China each account for about 30 percent of Korea’s international market — although Western television executives have caught on that Korea’s brand of entertainment has something that resonates here. Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-0) took the 2013 Korean medical procedural Good Doctor (굿 닥터) and adapted it into a hit for ABC called — surprise! — The Good Doctor. Likewise for Fox’s incredibly meme-able singing competition series The Masked Singer, which is the American version of Korea’s The King of Mask Singer. Adaptations of Strong Woman Do Bong-soon (with pro wrestler Ronda Rousey attached to the project) and Korean coming-of-age film Sunny, which producer Kevin Hart has renamed Bye Bye Bye, are also in the works.


Strong Woman Do Bong-soon (2017)


However unlike U.S. Television dramas, which tend to go on for seasons on end (Grey's Anatomy, as an example, is in its 15th season), one of the individual characteristic of K-dramas is that there's a finite starting and end to every series — one story arc that typically spans 16 to 20 episodes, each about a hour long. As the programming airs for a relatively short period, there really is little time for viewers to get bored with the characters, and viewers don’t have to watch an once-thriving series jump the shark by overstaying its welcome.


And any time showrunners do determine on more than one season, the story lines tend to revolve around a different set of characters all with each other. The perfect example of this is the popular Reply anthology, which culminated with the superb Reply 1988.


That aside, what is it about K-dramas that keeps Westerners — most of whom have to rely on subtitles to understand what’s going on — coming back for more?


Several K-dramas offer something that Western shows aren't supplying these days: chaste storytelling that feels like a throwback to an earlier time. Some of the parents in SKY Castle — South Korea's hottest drama at the moment — slept in separate beds, à la I Love Lucy. The lead characters on shows like What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and My Love From Another Star are sexually inexperienced boys and ladies who’ve barely dated. In the latter, the male character literally faints while he is kissed. (Yes, he’s an alien whose body can’t performer name human bodily fluids, nevertheless that’s a whole different story.)


"The story lines are relationship-oriented, stakes are very high, and they’re gorgeous to watch cinematically," says A Small Revolution author Jimin Han, who also teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. "In Mr. Sunshine, love is split into different steps — introduction, handshake, hug, and longing. That longing is at the heart of what makes K-dramas addictive. Also, these story arcs employ the old writing device to prepare coincidences obstacles that keep each person from getting what we hope they’ll get."


Korean drama fan Lisa Degnen adds, "I will almost routinely pick a good K-drama over anything else these days."


Degnen says she started watching K-dramas soon following the sudden death of her hubby two years back. Suffering from grief and insomnia, she took the opinions of her Korean companions and watched Goblin: The Lonely and Wonderful God.


"I was hooked almost immediately," mention the New Jersey resident. "The underlying story line about the meaning of life hit me at a time As soon as I was questioning all of that. The perfect part was that If I was reading the translations and focusing on the story and actors, I couldn't think about anything else."


Goblin: The Lonely and Excellent God (2016)


Viewers like Degnen are helping drive the demand for Korean content in the U.S. Market. Once relegated to grainy VHS tapes that were bootlegged and rented out in Korean grocery stores for a dollar or two, the dramas are streaming 24/7 on slick services like Kocowa and Viki. Even mainstream outlets like Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Hulu have gotten in on the K-drama action, distributing Korean television shows to their global viewers moreover to producing their own binge-worthy South Korean originals.


For high school student Katie Landahl, that difference between American and Korean cultures was the motivating factor to watch more K-dramas. Soon after seeing the series K-POP Extreme Survival, she wanted to learn more about Korean culture, even if it was fictionalized. And Landahl isn't alone; last year, streaming service Kocowa reported that non-Korean females under the age of 20 make up most of them of their viewers.


"It seems as though nobody [in America] cares about holding onto family member traditions or having respect for elders anymore," says Landahl, who lives in a western suburb of Chicago. "The way people act towards each other in Korean dramas is so different from the United States. Residents of the
U.S. [Can be] close-minded, and so they don’t often look outdoor to the world around us. So any time While I noticed K-dramas, I was very intrigued."


Hearing dialogue in a different language is one thing. And seeing depictions of cultural contradictions can be oddly charming (for example, Korean 30-somethings who still survive with their parents). However the routine depiction of acceptable day-to-day violence can be jarring to viewers. Despite all its economic wealth, South Korea ranks just 115th out of 149 countries in equality between the sexes, according to a report by the World Economic Forum, and then some K-dramas resemble this disparity. (The U.S. Comes in at No. 51.)


This inequality is reflected in some of the programming, where males roughly yank females by their arms to get their attention, even in what’s supposed to be a romantic scenario. In 2017, Amnesty International Korea chastised K-dramas for romanticizing dating violence, and then some efforts have been made to address these depictions. In last year’s My ID Is Gangnam Beauty, a gentleman classmate snatched his female friend’s arm and attempted to drag her residence, thinking he was doing her a favor. Nevertheless an older male teaching assistant intervenes by warning him about his violent behavior. Fed up with being grabbed like a rag doll, the girl then tells the boy to never touch her without her permission.


"[These kind of actions] made me reluctant to initially watch K-dramas," author Jimin Han says. "I found so much physical violence. Mothers beating their children, boys hitting girls. I wasn’t able to tell if some of it was supposed to be satirical. That mentioned, I’m also impressed by how males in K-dramas are given their full humanity in a way boys In America are not. Korean boys are allowed to cry, outright weep in public, especially in grief.


I was surprised by my reaction to watching them — this display of loss of control, totally uninhibited grief made me realize how 'American' I am."


Recognizing these cultural contradictions and relating to even the most unrelatable stories are all segment of what makes watching Korean dramas so satisfying. Where else can you experience second lead syndrome (where you're actually rooting for the other guy to get the girl and not the main guy), eat instant ramen and also the characters, and learn a number of foreign words in the process? Daebak!