Diversity that isn't forced: the K-drama "Itaewon Class"

We're so used to shows in the U.S. having the requisite diversity in them, we hardly notice it anymore. If we do notice it, it's likely a sinking feeling of how perfunctory that diversity is, how the mix of demographic characteristics in a given show feels like a team of HR experts created the show in a lab, rather than a team of creatives coming up with it in a bar, basement, or garage. There's usually little organic about the diversity in many of the shows we watch now, and whatever might have once felt inspiring or revolutionary about having a mix of characters that represented a wide mix of people is now gone.

(Enjoy the soundtrack while you read this. It's one of the strengths of the show.)

That's why watching Itaewon Class, now available up to the final episode on Netflix, felt so fresh and joyous. South Korea isn't in an era right now of perfunctory diversity; watch any movie or drama, and you're likely to only see Koreans. That's not necessarily ignoring demographic realities for Korea the way it would be here; South Korea really is mostly made up of South Koreans. But there are other people in South Korea besides traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine ethnically Korean men and women falling in love with each other. Itaewon Class finally has a few of these people in the story.

The story's still built around two traditional characters. In fact, what makes the male lead, Pak Saeroyi, so compelling is that he's got a decades out-of-date ethos that he's trying to make work in the modern world. He refuses to sacrifice his principles, which is originally what gets him into trouble and sets the whole plot in motion. He ends up in a bit of a love triangle with two women, one a bit more traditional and the other an example of a grab-life-by-the-balls take-no-prisoner modern career gal.

But in addition to these leads, we get two characters I've never seen in a Korean drama before. One is a Guinean-Korean young man, Tony, who speaks fluent Korean he learned from his father and has returned to Korea to try to find his family and gain his Korean citizenship. He faces a lot of prejudice and just faulty assumptions from people. Everyone assumes he is a foreigner who doesn't speak Korean, and he has to keep assuring them that he is Korean, even when they hear him speaking the language right in front of them. There are quite a few "blasian" black-Korean people in the world, many of whom are the result of U.S. service person-Korean woman unions, but Korea hasn't traditionally paid much attention to this population. (Other than when Heinz Ward won the Super Bowl MVP.)

There's also Ma Hyeon-yi, a transgender female. She's vulnerable but tough, and when she is outed, it's a moment for the country to reflect on its thoughts about transgendered people.

There are two reasons these characters' existence in the drama doesn't feel forced. First is that there are no official forces in Korea demanding greater diversity. The show did this because it's the story they wanted to write. (It's based on a web comic.) The second reason is right in the name of the show. It's set in Itaewon, one of the most Bohemian and international parts of Seoul, already a fairly international city. So oddballs and misfits belong there. They're organic to a story about Itaewon.

There are, of course, criticisms one could make about Tony and Hyeon-yi. Neither gets quite the level of fleshing out and agency the other characters who work in the restaurant that makes up much of the main setting of the show do. There were a number of times I expected a flashback for both of these characters that never came. Hyeon-yi says something at one point about fathers and how their love can be inscrutable, and it was the perfect moment to give us her backstory, but the moment just passed.

Also, Hyeon-yi is played by a cis-female actress. That might have just been an unavoidable bit of casting. I don't know how many trans-female actresses there are in Korea. But it was a little bit of a cheat, because it didn't really challenge the prejudices of viewers very much to have a classically female looking actress. When the super-masculine waiter at the restaurant seems to finally take a romantic interest in her, it's not hard for viewers to accept without challenging them, because the only thing really signifying Hyeon-yi's otherness is the fact we've been told she's different.

These are the characters I'm talking about. The one on the right is Hyeon-yi, the one on the left is the one who ?maybe? ends up interested in her romantically. This photo of her is from before her surgery in the show, when the show is still trying to make her look somewhat like a man. 

Still, I couldn't help enjoying the story for its frank treatment of parts of Korean society that really exist but don't get much attention. I'm not going to tell you that this or any Korean drama is great art. I watch these shows because I want to get better at Korean, and I don't see any harm in enjoying watching dramas while I'm trying to improve. I get to watch something I'd feel far too guilty to enjoy if I were watching it in English, because it would feel like a waste of time. So put all my reviews of Korean dramas in brackets. But given the limits of the genre, I felt like this one in particular did about as much as it could do with the show.