top of page

Stolen Queerness: “Hetero-baiting” in Korean Contents

“Hetero-baiting,” which falsely promotes queer narratives as heterosexual or renders them ambiguous.


  • English Translation: 지니

  • Translation review: 피웊, Juyeon

  • Writer of the original text: Miguel

  • Review and amendments to the original text: -

  • Web & SNS Posting: 에스텔

  • News Card Design: 가리


  • The article is a translated version of “[Women Publicists] Stolen ‘Queerness’,” written by Yeon Hye-Won for Korean media Women News specializing in women's issues. Click this link to check out the original article.

  • The writer of the original article: Yeon Hye-Won (organizer and coauthor of 『Queerdology』)



“Love in the Big City” Trailer delivered to the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Korean audio with English subtitles. (Source: Toronto International Film Festival)


The <Love in the Big City> movie trailer was released on August 13th. The film is based on 『Love in the Big City』, one of the most famous works of Korean modern queer literature, written by Park Sang Young and published in 2019. The novel won the International Booker Prize in 2022. 「Jaehee」, the first part of the novel tells the story of a gay narrator “Heungsoo,” and his heterosexual roommate “Jaehee,” to whom Heungsoo feels comfortable revealing his sexuality. “Jaehee” is a woman not with the best reputation, and “Heungsoo” struggles to come out of his sexuality to others. The relationship is not a ‘chick-lit’ friendship between a fashionable gay man and a girl on a roll. They began living together because of a man who peeped at Jaehee’s house, and Heungsoo took advantage of living with her to conceal his sexuality. At the same time, Heungsoo is the one who accompanies Jaehee’s abortion, and Jaehee is the one who deals with Heungsoo’s ex-boyfriends. Their relationship in the novel reveals both homophobia and misogyny in Korean society. However, in the <Love in the Big City> movie trailer, Heungsoo and Jaehee appear to be part of a romantic comedy. Watching the trailer, I was confused as a queer reader since it wasn’t clear whether Heungsoo is gay or not. Comments on the YouTube trailer even speculate that the two are in a heterosexual relationship.


The term “baiting” in “queer-baiting” refers to a decoy. The trailer edited as if it contains a queer narrative is a representative example of queerbaiting. The word has been generated to criticize a media pattern in which, for instance, trailers are edited to appear queer-friendly to attract queer fandom’s purchasing power, only for the main content to present a different narrative. However, after watching the <Love in the Big City> trailer, I felt there should be a term like “hetero-baiting” to point out another pattern of turning queer stories into heterosexual ones—or altering them so the audience can’t tell they are queer. We may need to wait for the film’s release to fully understand its approach, but one thing is sure—that the original novel is a queer narrative that has been loved by lots of queer readers. If the queer narrative still remains in the movie as it does in the novel, why was it erased in the trailer? Why is the gay identity of the main character not shown in the trailer?



The trailer of the TvN Drama “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born.” Korean sound with English subtitles. (Source: Disney+ Singapore)


(Left) The poster of the TvN drama “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born.” Jeongnyeon with a bright-colored coat and green skirt is putting hands on her waist in the middle, and other figures are on her side. (Right) Image of the comic “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born” on Webtoon KR. Jeongnyeon in a white coat and blue skirt is putting hands on her waist in the middle, and other figures are on her side. (Source: TvN, Webtoon KR)
(Left) The poster of the TvN drama “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born.” Jeongnyeon with a bright-colored coat and green skirt is putting hands on her waist in the middle, and other figures are on her side. (Right) Image of the comic “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born” on Webtoon KR. Jeongnyeon in a white coat and blue skirt is putting hands on her waist in the middle, and other figures are on her side. (Source: TvN, Webtoon KR)

Less than a week after watching the trailer for <Love in the Big City>, I learned that the crew of the drama “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born” revealed in an interview that the character “Buyong” from the original comic would not appear in the drama. In the comic, “Buyong” is a lesbian and a fan of the main character, “Jeongyeon.” She falls in love with Jeongyeon later, and she leads the narrative together. In the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s changgeuk(note 1) “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born,” which is also based on the comic, the romantic relationship between “Buyong” and “Jeongyeon” was also a core part of the play as much as the rivalry between “Jeongyeon” and “Yeongseo.” “Buyong” rejecting to marry a man and getting back to “Jeongyeon” was indeed a climax of the play. The drama decided to erase “Buyong,” even when the traditional changgeuk kept the queer part of “Buyong”. The original comic is beloved not only for its woman-centered narrative about women gukgeuk(note 2) but also because queer female readers had an affection for the love between women. But in the drama <Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born,> the queer relationship between Jeongnyeon and Buyong seems to have been erased. Even if it hasn’t been completely removed, the drama is not promoting the original comic’s popularity, which was rooted in its queer narrative. This can be seen as another form of “hetero-baiting.”


  • Note 1. “Changgeuk” is a sound play performed by pansori (one of the most developed types of singing music in Korea) actors, which can be compared to a musical.

  • Note 2. ‘Gukgeuk’ is a way of Changgeuk, which consists of and is performed only by women actors.



Two numbers of the theatricalized “Jeongyeon: The Star Is Born.” “Here come the princes of this generation,” and “There goes the princes of this generation.” (Source: National Theater of Korea)


I visited Daejeon to watch a play <This is a Nameless Story> by a theater group “OWTTO.” Daejeon held the Queer Culture Festival for the first time this year and is the only city that held it in Chungcheong province. It’s a big city that is still conservative when it comes to queer rights. The play <This is a Nameless Story> improvises a narrative based on stories submitted by queer audiences’ at that moment. It addressed candid stories of self-censoring as a queer individual, facing hatred, hiding identity from their family, etc. Another thing that was as important as the contents of the play was to listen to how difficult it is to put on plays on “queers” in such a conservative region. There are very few spaces where people can safely talk about queer matters. Various individuals face hatred and struggle to make queer content to secure such places, and when they finally show the contents, gain popularity, and make fandom, those “hetero-baiting” examples interrupt the effort and set it back to the starting point. I don’t want to see queer narratives being stolen anymore.


Yeon Hye-Won (organizer and coauthor of 『Queerdology』)
Yeon Hye-Won (organizer and coauthor of 『Queerdology』)




 
  • English Translation: 지니

  • Translation review: 피웊, Juyeon

  • Writer of the original text: Miguel

  • Review and amendments to the original text: -

  • Web & SNS Posting: 에스텔

  • News Card Design: 가리


18 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page