TV Drama Series Dealing With Patriarchal Family System Only `Half Success`

TV Drama Series Dealing With Patriarchal Family System Only `Half Success`. August. 28, 2003 18:10. kathycho@donga.com.

TV drama series dealing with our current social issue of patriarchal family system are somehow revealing the problems of the system in an effective way. But in some parts, they are still far from escaping from the existent patriarchal vestiges.

A TV viewer ship group “Media World, Open-minded People” pointed out a few shortcomings of the related drama series “Yellow Handkerchief” aired on KBS 1 from July 28th and August 23rd and “Are you still Dreaming” aired on MBC, in its analytical report on August 26th.

The two popular soap operas are highly praised for their detailed description about the problems of the current patriarchal family system through deep conflicts between a single mom and a biological father of her son over the child custody. They got a good response from viewers by showing the seriousness of the systematic problems. For instance, a biological father can change his son`s name by simply applying for it without any complicated process or legal suits, according to the current law system.

However, the group pointed out the similar setting of the two soap operas as their limitation. Their concentration on a single mom’s suffering from the patriarchal family system might plant people with a wrong concept about the system, which seems to be only concerning single moms.

First of all, traditional preference of a son over a daughter is still remaining in the two dramas by starring a son instead of a daughter as the starting point of the custody battle.

Another problem is that the series imply that a childless woman, described as a wife of a biological father of the son is considered abnormal by society by depicting her as having a dual personality.

Last week, the KBS series recorded a number one position with 33.2 percent rating while the MBC series remained popular with 17.1 percent rating.