Possession by Devil: Women’s Alternative Language; A Feminist Reading of Kim Ji-young, Born 1982

ABSTRACT

Since its release, the film Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (2019) has triggered national debate both in South Korea and China. Fierce protest by male spectators and applause by female spectators testified to its effective exposure of the smothering patriarchal dominance in South Korea. This article will interpret the symbol of “possession by devil” to reveal women’s imprisonment and madness under patriarchy. Such a possession also provides an alternative language to articulate women’s will to transgress gender norms. From pathologic raving to rational writing, a female narrating subjectivity is finally established.

KEYWORDS:

• Kim Ji-yong
• Born 1982
• alternative language
• narrating subjectivity

The film Kim Ji-young, Born 1982¹ (2019) tells a story of a highly-educated young woman who has a nervous breakdown when trapped in her role of stay-at-home mother. Her occasional raving is understood by her family as symptomatic of her being possessed by devil. She is finally cured when she starts writing and publishing her auto-biographies. The film triggered national debate both in South Korea and China since its release. Its reception in South Korea was appallingly gendered, with reviews by men rating the film at 2.96 and reviews by women at 9.48 (Kim Ji-yong). Fierce protest by male spectators and applause by female spectators testified to the effectiveness of Born 1982’s exposure of the smothering patriarchal dominance in South Korea. Following the storyline of Kim Ji-yong’s family ties, Born 1982 narrates the predicament of an urban highly-educated young woman, who is driven to the verge of a breakdown by her obligations as a mother, wife, daughter and daughter-in-law. The secondary storyline of Kim’s social network, reveals the misogynist landscape of South Korea, characterized by corporate glass ceilings, sexual assaults and ubiquitous voyeurism.

Born 1982 provides various lenses to view its feminist themes of which the symbol of Kim being possessed by devil is the focus in this article. I argue that this possession, as manifested in the insane state of the female protagonist, is symbolic of female imprisonment in the patriarchal society. Further, that the pathological raving utilized to articulate women’s aspirations is recognized a being the alternative language of other.

Imprisonment, invisibility and space

The term madness or insanity has received constant critiques since the 19th century and it was replaced in the vocabulary of psychiatry by “mental health” in the 20th century and “neurobiological disease ” at present (T. Szasz 1997). I use this term in this article with the consciousness of its historical construction and in particular relate to the film text where this term is repeatedly articulated. According to Felman, “Madness is the impasse confronting those whom cultural conditioning has deprived of the very means of protest or self-affirmation” (Shoshana Felman 1975, 2). In patriarchal society, where women are generally in an inferior social position, the link between women, imprisonment and madness seems, to some extent, naturalized. In the “dualistic systems of languages and representations,” women are “typically situated on the side of irrationality, silence, nature and body, while men are situated on the side of reason, discourse, culture and mind” (Elaine Showalter 1985, 3–4). As pointed out by Elaine Showalter, “madness, even when experienced by men, is metaphorically and symbolically represented as feminine: a female malady” (Elaine Showalter 1985, 4).The essential link between women and madness has been targeted at in feminist critiques since the 1970s. Gilbert and Gubar pointed out that this madness occurs due to the tension between women’s agency and femininity as prescribed in patriarchy (S. M. Gilbert and S. Gubar 2000). In their research on literary women in England, they discovered that the character of the mad woman is “in some sense the author’s double,” that is, “an image of her own anxiety and rage” which can be turned into power (Gilbert et al. 2000, 78).

Although such a notion of empowerment is accused of romanticizing insanity “as a desirable form of rebellion rather than seeing it as desperate communication of the powerless” (Elaine Showalter 1985, 5), it can be applied to Born 1982. When a woman raves, her words are heeded in the end. Female madness is the result of a growing divide between gender norms and a woman’s self-fulfillment. Such conflicts are visualized in Kim Ji-yong’s imprisonment in the film.

The imprisonment space can be any enclosed indoor space, like a room, an attic or a courtyard. Born 1982 starts with a woman imprisoned at home. The camera enters the apartment and locates Kim doing domestic chores in the kitchen, living room, bedroom and balcony, as she has repeatedly done over the previous two years. The high-angle camera position creates a cramped space which casts pressure on the character. In the half-open space of the balcony, Kim’s face is featured. She looks into the distance, although what she is looking at is not revealed. Thus, the enclosed space is not interrupted by the half-open balcony, but is confirmed when Kim looks back to the indoor space following her daughter’s call to her. Rather than the physical lock on door (Kim is free to go outside), this call constitutes the lock to the imprisonment space, which renders the imprisonment more symbolic. The young woman is shackled by the social norm of motherhood.

The daughter’s call confirms Kim’s identity as a mother which, in South Korean context, is relegated to the term “mom worm”. Mom worm originated on the internet around 2014, and previously was used in reference to a full-time mother who failed to discipline her child. Now it is generalized to cover all full-time mothers. The discrimination factor lies in the word “worm,” negatively identifying full-time mothers who are financially reliant on their husbands as leeches. Obviously, due to financial dependence, a full-time mother is deprived of her social value. She is called mother because of her womb, however, her labor of reproduction and child-care does not generate value.

In Born 1982, Kim had received a college education and held a decent job before becoming a mother. Her highly-valued identity as an urban young professional is reduced to that of a reproductive mother situated at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Mom worms are expected to stay at home, thus invisible in the public space. On two occasions, Kim brings her daughter to a café. On the first visit, she is ridiculed as a woman “idling with her husband’s money.” And on her second visit, a male customer accuses her of being a mom worm who, when her daughter spills a coffee, should stay at home rather than be out disturbing others. At the café, Kim and the other mothers exist awkwardly: they abuse their power as mothers by leaving the private space they belong in to enter a public space. When Kim confronts the accuser and asserts her legitimacy to be in the public space, a long camera shot reveals the entire space of café. In this space, mothers with kids are no longer invisible. They occupy different spots in great numbers, while the person banished from this space is the man who called her mom worm. The imprisonment of mothers in private spaces, and their subsequent banishment from public spaces, signifies their compulsory absence from the social realm with their corresponding failure in returning to their career tracks.

Another space—the private space within the public—that is, the women’s bathroom, amplifies the social hostility towards mothers, and the potential for sexual violence towards the entire female population. There are two sequences that focus on the women’s bathroom in Born 1982. The first occurs at Kim’s previous company, where a camera is illegally set up. The video captured by the camera is uploaded to a website and circulated among male colleagues. The male voyeuristic violence, not punished, echoes other sequences including Kim as a high-school student being followed and harassed by a man; Kim’s father accusing her of wearing short skirts and smiling too much to seduce men; and Kim’s sister being accused of “being shameless” when she catches an exhibitionist.

The potential sexual violence permeating daily life, together with victim shaming and slut shaming, exposes the prevalence of rape culture in South Korea. Rape culture refers to “an environment in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture.” The result being limitations on women’s behavior and women living in “fear of rape” (“Rape Culture”). This fear is depicted in the film when Kim wants to use the women’s bathroom after changing her daughter’s diaper. Out of concern for hidden cameras, she hesitates and decides to wait until she has returned to her home. Male voyeurism, victim shaming and potential violence resulting from the rape culture, drive women back to their imprisonment out of anxieties over personal security.

Possession by devil, predicament and self-expression

In Born 1982, a woman’s imprisonment inevitably leads to her “madness”, as termed by characters in the film. It is usually manifested by deliriousness, bizarre monologues and violent inclinations. Possession by devil is rare, making it more symbolic than an actual portrayal with a ghostly effect. The precondition for possession being that only when the subject is empty, can she be possessed by devil. In Born 1982, Kim is deprived of her social identity as a highly-educated professional, and hence her social value. Her sense of worthlessness reduces her to a hollow person. Due to the lack of time and energy she dedicates to herself, Kim is unable to identity who she really is, other than being somebody’s wife and mother. In other words, she becomes the other to herself. Thus, she is unable to speak for herself and requires a mediator to do this in her place.

The possession occurs three times in the film, beginning at the house of Kim’s mother-in-law, and with Kim’s mother as the subject of possession. Speaking through Kim, Kim’s mother states that Kim cannot stand being ordered around by her mother-in-law and that she needs a rest. The mother-in-law, who occupies a privileged position within the Korean family, can discipline her son and order around her daughter-in-law. She benefits from patriarchy and also maintains patriarchal family lines (Jiping Zuo 2012, 17). This is where the paradox lies. As a woman, she does not speak in the interest of the female members of the family, but instead is crucial in passing down the norm of femininity. In Born 1982, Kim’s mother-in-law urges Kim to get pregnant, allows her son to avoid all domestic chores, and vetoes his parental leave. This ultimately maintains the conventional gender division of labor. Within the power hierarchy of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Kim is not in a position to revolt. Therefore, her mother, a powerful counterpart to the mother-in-law, steps in and speaks for her.

On the second occasion, Kim is possessed by the spirit of her best friend. Through Kim, the best friend verbalizes Kim’s desire for a job. This desire has been previously uttered by Kim, yet was overruled by her husband. Although the power relations between husband and wife is romanticized by their love for each other and thus rendered negotiable, the power distribution remains asymmetrical. Only the husband has the right to decide whether Kim can return to her career. The spirit who possessed Kim belongs to a mutual friend of the couple who died during childbirth. Her tragedy gives weight to her speech, and cautions Kim’s husband about the risk of losing Kim if their bond fails to release her helplessness.

On the third occasion, Kim is possessed by the spirit of her grandmother, who shows gratitude toward Kim’s mother for her previous sacrifice and rejects her offer to take care of Kim’s child. This possession situates three generations of women in the same space. They share the same identity as sacrificing mother, and the same predicament—being failure of self-fulfillment. The historical repetition needs to stop. Kim turns down her mother’s proposed sacrifice for her, while her mother interrogates a male-centered family structure. Furious, she hurls the tonic bought by her husband for her son, and blames her husband for passing down the gender bias and causing women’s tragedy.

Three individuals speak for Kim through three possessions. The things they say are what Kim tries to utter, but fails to say. Such a woman’s aphasia is caused by powerlessness against a rigid gender hierarchy. Nevertheless, the ravings during possession become her alternative language. Unconscious, pathologic and delirious, such a language is used to rip open the rigid gender norms and convey an authentic will from an imprisoned and voiceless woman. Moreover, such raving during possession represents multi-agents, which is plural and collective with superposition of generations of women, because what Kim faces is not an individual predicament.

Writing with confirmed subjectivity

If women’s ravings during possession can be translated to rational language, of course, its power will be amplified. Women using rational/masculine language to enter the discursive circulation can be called discursive mimicry, which is the sole path for women to possess discursive power (Luce Irigaray 1985, 76). In Born 1982, the transformation to discursive mode occurs after Kim visits a psychologist. A symbolic sequence tells Kim’s transformation from monologue to rational communication: the psychologist opens window-blinds and sunshine lightens the dark room, as well as Kim’s face. At the end of the film, Kim starts to write.

The key to writing is the confirmation of the writing subjectivity. The repetitive appearance of the name “Kim Ji-yong” depicts Kim’s transformative process from being the other to being herself, to her real agency. The camera captures the engraved “Kim Ji-yong” on the pen sent to Kim by her brother, which is used by Kim to write her stories. The first word of her writing is “Kim Ji-yong”, a confirmation of the narrating subject. Furthermore, this autobiography she writes is entitled Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, which manifests not only her full-awareness of her narrating subject but also her representation of a whole generation. This representation is testified in the wide public acclaim of the book and its later film adaption, emphasizing resonance among female spectators.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Misha Kavka for her invaluable suggestions, continued support and encouragement. I also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their generous feedback on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fan Yang

Fan Yang is a PhD. candidate at the department of Media Studies at University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are women’s cinema; discursive trajectories of various feminisms in mainland China, such as socialist feminism, liberal feminism, consumerist feminism; feminism and social media. E-mail: [email protected]

Notes

1. Abbreviated as Born 1982 later in the article, to avoid confusion with Kim Ji-yong, the name of the female lead.