Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (2017)

The poor humor fails to hold up a very weak story with a very imbalanced message.

This drama wasn't trying to be too grand so it feels a little excessive to be too dramatic in denouncing it. I watched it for the humor, for a silly, bizarre story that didn't take itself too seriously. Which is largely what this was. The humor was humorous, even if sometimes it was quite cringey. The story was fairly cute, if love triangles don't bother you too much (they bother me, but whatever).

Stories like this, that do this deliberate switching around of gender roles, are always failures when they try to say too much. I've never seen such a drama that didn't get a worrying amount of basic stuff wrong.

The general idea here is that the Do women are the strong ones in their families, both in terms of physical strength and personality. To borrow an old expression, they wear the pants. In that sense I really appreciated that Do Bong Soon was actually more meek and submissive than her forebears. The contrast was more compelling and it allowed for growth as her character, presumably, would learn that physical strength isn't the only or even the most important kind of strength. And that was a bit what they were doing.

The difference in how the two male leads treated her was also interesting. They both still had an instinct to protect the woman they cared about (which is good and fine), but one did so because she was weak (he assumed) while the other was doing so because no one should have to endure dangers and hardship no matter how strong they are.

That was pretty much the only thing they did right. The rest of the drama was deeply weird in its depiction of "strong" women. I'm not sure I agree with viewers who say that Do Bong Soon's mother was trying to get her to basically rape the main guy. I only watched till episode 10 so maybe that occurred after that. What I saw was a wildly overbearing mother who insisted that her daughter make the first move with a guy who would definitely reciprocate because he's a hot-blooded male. Tasteless and vulgar, yes, but not rape. Somewhat funny at first given how inappropriate it was and how much Do Bong Soon hated it. But it dragged on way too long.

I'm also not sure I agree with other reviewers who say she was abusing her power the entire drama. The fact is that yes, the way she was slapping people around who were much, much weaker than her was pretty excessive. But that's where the tone and message of this drama fails. According to its own rules, the Do women can be physically abusive with their strength if it helps other, weaker people, or at least doesn't serve their own interests. Which seems fine, but it implies that smacking people around because you can is generally acceptable as long as the person getting smacked around is "bad." Too, Bong Soon almost always beat up men who were hurting women, children or the elderly. Which, again, is fine within the environment of the drama. But her beatings were BRUTAL. By anyone's standards. And this enormous imbalance of power is never addressed. It's all okay, according to the writers, because she's a small woman who has been underestimated. And therefore deserves to be brutal? Or has the right to be cruel enough to make her a villain in any other story? According to the writers this is all fine because it's funny.

All the Do women in the drama (Do Bong Soon being only somewhat of an exception) are terrible. If this drama were described without specifying the genders of any characters, Bong Soon's mother would be assumed to be a hated villain and the rest to be backwards and sexist. Funny how that assumption is reversed when you find out they're women. I have no problem with women being depicted as overbearing and prickly. I have no problem with women being depicted as too domineering and somewhat cruel in a relationship, especially if they experience growth along the story. But domestic violence is never funny. The rest, sure. A person could make a kind of comedy out of it. But things like domestic violence are not funny. If the gender roles were reversed and the man was bruising the body of the woman, it would never be depicted as funny. So why is it funny for the woman to do so?

I found that alone disturbing and off-putting enough to make it impossible to continue watching. The thing is, this drama's story is not great. Its success relies entirely on the quality of the romance and the quality of the comedy.

The romance was a long drawn-out love triangle. I hate love triangles so I'm a bit biased when I say it was therefore unwatchable. Strange, though, because there was some mature dialogue about how childish and selfish love triangles can be and how acting only on one's emotions always hurts people. And then the entire romance is a love triangle? Actually more of a love... octagon? I lost track.

The comedy was, at first, wonderful. Silly and absurd and nonsensical but with just enough heart. But then it lost its footing. The gangsters in the hospital, especially the one who lost his teeth, were more gross than funny. Humor suitable for a five-year-old maybe. The mother's abusive nature was never funny, despite countless scenes that made us believe that the writers seemed to think so. Their attempt to redeem her was set against the backdrop of kindergarten humor so it lacked both logic and drama.

The humorous interplay between Bong Soon and her boss was genuinely funny. Her ineptitude as a bodyguard was logically acceptable because how the hell would she know the first thing about being a bodyguard? And the absurdity of hiring her was another nonsensical illogical piece of comedy that could survive the environment of a drama that doesn't make any other kind of sense. But her almost mercenary motives painted her character in a selfish light that was never remedied with growth. And then the humorous interplay was taken over by semi-serious, semi-humorous love triangle antics so it lost all its charm.

The general idea of great physical power making a person able to dominate any relationship was never really addressed even though they set it up repeatedly. The dominant mother was never called out for abusing her own power -- physical or emotional -- as a strong woman hurting weak people with her strength. Meanwhile Do Bong Soon was expressing sorrow that the serial kidnapper was using his strength to hurt weak women. Is using one's strength to hurt people only bad if you're male? The writers of this drama definitely thought so. Thus you get humor that fits this world view and it never sits right.

Ultimately the humor fails to hold up a very weak story with a very imbalanced message. Eventually the humor becomes as much of a drag as the rest. I wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone.

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