포스트IMF 한국 남성멜로드라마의 장르 분석

Abstract

In the post-IMF Korean cinema from the late 1990s to the late 2000s, melodrama films led by male characters emerged potently. From Happy End (Jung Ji-woo, 1999) to One Fine Spring Day (Hur Jin-ho, 2001), You Are My Sunshine (Park Jin-pyo, 2005), and The Show Must Go On (Han Jae-rim, 2007), these films have in common a unique type of protagonist and narrative characteristics that are distinct from traditional melodramas. Can be grouped into a subgenre, male melodrama. Male melodrama films feature men of various occupations, from unemployed to gangsters, but they are common in that these protagonists are all men in crisis. The protagonists are turned away from their wives or lovers for failing to fulfill their male roles ‘adequately.’ Or, there is no woman who will acknowledge and love them, or is about to die. In such a predicament, the male protagonist struggles to prevent the family breakup or is confused by the failure of romance. There are even cases where the protagonist enters gangster world to save his family in crisis and consequently loses his life. Nevertheless, the virtuous male protagonist is not rewarded for his suffering and sacrifice in the end. The “moral occult” proposed by Peter Brooks as a feature of the melodrama does not work. As such, the male melodrama narrates the pain and sacrifice of uncompensated men by focusing on the spaces of intimacy such as family and romance, unprecedented in Korean film history. Male melodramas during this period can be subdivided into three categories depending on where the male role fails, that is, the area of crisis. In the family male melodrama, the father suffers from the crisis of the dissolution of the family, and the male protagonist of the romance male melodrama suffers from a breakup of romance. In the gangster melodrama, the protagonist, who has become a gangster in order to play the masculine role, is in crisis because of his gangster identity as the antisocial deviancy. The protagonist in crisis in the male melodrama desperately tries, but nevertheless, he does not get the desired enjoyment (harmonious family, happy romance) in the end. In this way, post-IMF male melodramas unfold the narrative that the realm of intimacy, which is expected to be the locus of happiness and love, is the space that demands suffering and sacrifice for men, against the backdrop of the contemporary reality. A harmonious family and a happy romance are whispered as an impossible fantasy in reality. This pessimistic vision is based on the fact that in the regime of modernity, patriarchal male power has gradually weakened and structural changes have progressed in the direction of demanding emotional intimacy from men. In addition, the overwhelming invasion of the IMF crisis in 1997 drastically amplified the sense of crisis among Korean males, which it can be presumed have promoted the surge of the post-IMF male melodrama. Post-IMF Korean male melodrama films are characterized by illuminating their concrete reality and inner self without pretense. Although it is biased toward the male point of view, the post-IMF male melodrama genre is a psychosocial text that reveals the specific scars and real anxieties of men in our society. It is also an interesting text in gender politics in that it densely expressed the socio-historical crisis through gendered representation.