Resistance to a gender threat: a case-study analysis of Vietnamese viewers’ unfavourable reception of soft masculinities in romantic Korean television dramas

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, global media audiences have witnessed the development of a phenomenon known as Pan-East Asian soft masculinities, present in Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, and South Korean pop culture. This construction, characterised by male entertainers’ effeminate appearance and personality traits, has seen both celebration and backlash worldwide and attracted scholarly attention. Contributing to such literature, this article features case studies of three Vietnamese male and female research participants’ unfavourable reception of soft masculinities in romantic South Korean television dramas. Once fascinated with South Korean pop culture, which has established its presence in Vietnam over two decades, the adult informants now view Korean soft masculinities as inauthentic, immature, unpragmatic, and inappropriately feminine. Such views are intimately linked to their lived experiences, including disillusionment with life and romance. To shed light on the informants’ attitudes, the article uses R. W. Connell’s concept ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and Judith Butler’s theories of gender performativity and gender anxiety to reveal the influence of norms on the informants’ gender perceptions. It helps fill the gap in research on the resistance to Korean soft masculinities in Vietnam and contributes to the literature on Korean pop culture and non-fans as well as contemporary Vietnamese society.

KEYWORDS:

• Korean Wave
• Hallyu
• soft masculinities
• Vietnam
• gender
• non-fan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to Lee and Park’s (2015) analysis of 100 popular K-dramas broadcast between 2003 and 2012, most feature lead male characters as wealthier and better educated than female counterparts. Some dramas shown in the late 2010s such as Crash Landing on You (2019) or It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (2020), however, have shifted this power dynamic to a more even footing.

2 Ẻo lả suggests weakness and delicacy.

3 Tài’s narrative shows a tendency to avoid discussing emotional events in detail, a sign of his unwillingness to engage with his past, which involves distressing events. I offer thorough interpretations of this emotional avoidance in Gammon (2021b).

4 In K-dramas, it is not uncommon for soft masculinity icons to play traditionally masculine roles such as bodyguards or military officers such as Ji Chang Wook and Song Joong Ki in K2 (2016) and Descendants of the Sun (2016) respectively. These roles tend to hybridise aspects of Korean militarised masculinity through the display of a muscular body and military skills and the image of a romantic and sensitive gentleman.

5 Due to the lack of space, I regret not to discuss this issue in depth but want to highlight a few progressive events, such as the government’s legalisation of sex reassignment operations in 2014 and the Health Ministry’s 2022 official letter to health care services requesting equal treatment towards LGBTQ+ people and asking these services not to treat homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality as medical conditions needing treatment (Thư Viện Pháp Luật, n.d.).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Victoria University of Wellington: [grant number 221581].

Notes on contributors

Thi Gammon

Thi Gammon holds a PhD in Media Studies and recently worked as a lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Her research has been published in the Journal of Psychosocial Studies, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Asian Studies Review, and Sexuality & Culture. Gammon’s work focuses on contemporary Vietnamese society and culture, especially the issues regarding gender, sexual relations, and identity in response to global media.