Letter #38: Because This is My First Life

Good morning, Erin. 

I mean, honestly: when have I ever said no to you when you’ve pointed at your screen and said, “Watch this”? (And there’s a new season of Derry Girls out. That’s how much power you wield, Erin.)

 

Let’s talk about Because This is My First Life:

 

1. To get the obvious item out of the way…CHAE-RAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!!!! #bestgirl

 

2. That we start out with Ji-ho working as the person who writes product placement into TV shows is incredible. I don’t know that they could have chosen something to get me more immediately on board with her character. (Except, y’know, to make her Chae-ran.) I loved that.

 

3. I love the whole fake marriage thing. The only way the situation would have been better would be if, rather than one of them owning the home, they’d both been scammed into renting the same apartment as what they thought would be the sole occupant but then find that they can’t afford to get a different place so they agree to live together and split the rent. That would have been a great show. Which I know because it was a great show: Good Morning Call. Which I love to death. And I’m mentioning because…I think they pretend to be dating, for a little while, in that. Or maybe not. Whatever. It’s a fun show.

 

4. CEO Ma ended up being my (non-Chae-ran) favorite character. Just thought he was fun. Good energy.

 

5. I had a massive crush on Ji-ho. She’s so easygoing, unpretentious, and (mostly) straightforward. And she’s also that wonderful kind of imperfect-pretty that sneaks up on you and won’t let you go.

 

6. Se-hee (who I know from My Liberation Notes) is an odd character—and I don’t just mean because he’s an odd duck. No, I was a little unsure if his robotic personality was believable enough or just a contrivance to get the whole tenant-marriage thing to shake out. There seemed to be a little inconsistency with it, especially when they get to his “tragic backstory.” Which is not to say that I think he couldn’t be a Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory kind of guy, but…it’s hard to keep that kind of thing grounded, and I’m not sure they landed that.

 

7. I’m pretty sure that was IU on the advertisement poster at that restaurant where Ji-ho tricks her feuding friends into meeting up. (I think she then tells them that she’s getting married. That scene.)

 

8. I had no idea (500) Days of Summer was so popular, particularly in Korea. This is the second show I’ve seen that’s referenced it! It’s kind of an old movie by now, isn’t it? Did this get some kind of post-release boom like Mean Girls or The Princess Bride? I’m just curious.

 

8A. Fun fact: Ji-ho’s favorite movie is The Graduate, which they watch in (500) Days of Summer.

 

9. They really went to town with blurring out…everything. Including Ji-ho’s poster for The Graduate. Which was especially frustrating, to me, because I had no idea what it was a poster of, for the longest time. And it looked like a wanted poster. So I didn’t have a clue why she had it up nor why it would need to be blurred out.

 

10. Thank God Se-hee cut his hair.

 

11. Speaking of haircuts, though: Ho-rang’s heartbreak short-cut looked fantastic.

 

12. Bo-mi was absolutely (non-Chae-ran) #bestgirl. She was great. And I’m glad she got to stick around the plot and do things.

 

12A. But I’m still mad that she and Won-seok didn’t get together. I was certain they were destined to end up together when they run into each other in the lobby of the office building and she recognized him as the short guy from the wedding. But no—the show decided to only tease me with it. The jerks.

 

12B. …seriously, though, what the heck were they thinking getting Ho-rang and Won-seok back together? I really feel like the lesson for them both was that they didn’t know themselves apart from one another. Which…now that I think about it, they’re like the mirror to Ji-ho and Se-hee, who had absolutely no reason to break up, but did. I mean, then they get back together, but…whatever—Bo-mi x Won-seok!

 

13. I was NOT a fan of…um, Tall Girl. (And I will eventually get into why.) But she had my favorite line of the series, right in the very first episode, when she declares that they’re going out to get Ji-ho pregnant because of how she got kicked out of her apartment.

 

14. Okay, okay, okay—you just want me to talk about the whole thing with Secretary Brother from A Business Proposal, I know. Well…what a mess. I mean, I laughed when it turned out that he had been working at the wedding and was sort of teasing Ji-ho with all his knowledge from being at that event. But the show didn’t so much trick us (as the main characters were tricked) as it did absolutely lie to us about the whole thing. And that wasn’t cool.

 

14A. Like, a stalker plotline was always going to stand out as an odd addition to the story (though, really, is it any worse than the last-minute ex-girlfriend plot?), so it was never going to be an easy sell. But they leaned waaaaay too heavily into him being stalker-y to just lol jk it away in the end. There’s a way for them to have done the mix-up, but they overplayed the bad behavior in a way that we cannot in hindsight interpret as other than bad behavior—no matter how much “it was a misdirect!” they try to throw at us.

 

14B. Which, even accepting that it’s exaggerated for effect, still doesn’t explain away his questionable behavior towards Ji-ho. I mean, he was both way too familiar with her and went pretty close into what I don’t think would be unfair to categorize as “psycho” mode.

 

14C. And explain to me how no one remembered seeing him at the wedding. I can believe that Ji-ho wouldn’t have remembered him, but her friends? If he’s that good looking, they’d have absolutely seen him and recognized him when they saw him again. I just don’t buy it.

 

14D. …be honest with me: is he why you picked this show, or was it a happy accident? Because you told me you recently rewatched A Business Proposal. Coincidence? (EDIT: You have told me it was a coincidence. And I believe you. Mostly.)

 

14E. And, yes, I am now more excited to watch Alchemy of Souls knowing that Ji-ho is the main girl in that. Why do you ask? (And, hey, it’s got supernatural elements! So, I should watch it!)

 

15. While we’re talking about Secretary Brother, though: interesting how quickly Ho-rang and Tall Girl changed their tunes on his improper behavior when they saw how handsome he was. Which is a point I want you to keep in mind for later on, when I put on my serious face.

 

16. So, is there a Korean Thanksgiving? There are multiple references to it, but I’m wondering if that’s real or just something the translators thought would make sense to American audiences. (Actually, wait, I’m going to look this up…oh—Chuseok! I remember that. I think. And, if I do remember it, I think I also remember writing in one of my letters that I knew what it was…but that we’d have to see how long I remembered it. Apparently not very long.)

 

17. Some pretty solid smooching, in this show. Nothing too steamy, but definitely romantic.

 

18. I am torn between Ji-ho’s frilly nightgown in Ep 12/13 and her checkered gray dress in Ep 2 being my favorite of her outfits. Because, yes, I actually wrote this down, I was so smitten with them.

 

19. Aha! Ji-ho’s dad is one of the [REDACTED] from [REDACTED]. That’s why he looks familiar!

 

20. Oh, going back to the Secretary Brother arc of the show…can you explain to me why Ho-rang thought nothing of casually going through a giant pile of sexy lingerie while sitting in public? Or, more specifically, why Ji-ho thought nothing of her doing so? (Also: keep this in mind for when I put on my serious face.)

 

21. For the record: I think there are way worse reasons to get married than because it would be a mutually beneficial relationship (on a purely practical level). At least the reasons are tangible and understood by both parties.

 

21A. …though, really, marriage is supposed to be about creating a family, so that would obviously be the best reason to get married. I’m just saying that people frequently treat marriage too lightly, and there are a lot of reasons for that. Yes, as Ji-ho points out, she and Se-hee treated the idea of getting married with no respect for it as an institution or tradition or—most importantly—meaningful/purposeful social matter, and she’s also ashamed of how little she regarded the role love plays (or should play) in a marriage. And she’s right, of course, about both of these. But I think the broader point (and this is why the show has the Ho-rang and Won-seok counterbalance relationship) is you really need all of that stuff in equal amounts, because love isn’t enough in the same way that pragmatic agreeability isn’t enough in the same way that tradition isn’t enough to dictate success.

 

22. At the wedding, I didn’t need to hear the contents of the mother’s letter to Se-hee. All it took was for Ji-ho to open the package and for me to see that the mother had left the photo album for me to start crying. That broke my heart.

 

23. Which is a good enough time as any to put on my serious face and get into the real meat of this discussion—which is what the heck was this show trying to say, exactly? Because it was obviously trying to push some kind of message or have some kind of moral to the story (depending on the moment). And I don’t think it pulled that off.

 

23A. In an overall sense, I think the show wanted to say that there are reasons for things (the easiest example is it’s discussion of marriage), but that there doesn’t have to be a set reason for those reasons or a set methodology within those reasons. It’s a complex idea, and I both like and agree with the sentiment that sometimes a thing is both exactly one thing and also not that thing at all. But I also think the show bogs itself down with a variety of other themes and ideas and messages that end up sort of obfuscating this central theme.

 

23B. I’m not sure why, though. Like, why it’s so jumbled and messy. Did the writer want to say a bunch of different things? Say a bunch of different things that were thought to all be under the same umbrella but turned out not quite to be when pen hit page? Was there studio interference? Were the ideas so raw that the (for lack of a better way to describe it) arguments on display simply weren’t honed enough?

 

23C. ‘Cus there are some weirdly shallow attempts to say something, in this show, when it comes to tradition versus the old how-it’s-always-been fallacy, particularly in the area of how women are seen or treated in Korean society—but also, to the show’s credit, unfinished attempts to critique how that critique manifests itself. (Because it’s one thing to be against something bad but another thing altogether to champion an antithetical and assume that must be good.) Bo-mi might be the strongest example of when the show does this stuff correctly, easily balancing between Tall Girl’s  “What’s all this ‘woman’ nonsense?” gruffness and Ho-rang’s too-short-sighted and insistent “traditional femininity.” But we don’t focus on her or how she navigates this seeming divide—but neither do we focus on the inherent pros and cons of Tall Girl’s or Ho-rang’s way of thinking. Instead, we get questions about being on your period, sweatshirts with slogans off of feminist YouTube, and wish-fulfillment tell-offs of the “and then everyone clapped!” variety (looking at you, CEO Ma), all of which feel cheap and empty, like they were late additions, rather than intrinsic to the story. And, as I see it, commentary of any kind that feels like it’s in the voice of the author rather than in the voice of the story totally undermines the significance of that commentary. Which is a shame, given how strong a theme seemed to be in the author’s sights.

 

23D. Like, remember how fleeting Tall Girl and Ho-rang’s sympathy for Ji-ho’s mistreatment by Secretary Brother turns out to be after they see he’s handsome? Is that meant to be a sign of complex character work, because they are both being hypocrites? (We all do this kind of thing, if not this specific thing, so it’s very human of the two of them to act this way.) Is it a larger message about how unprincipled our judgments against others can be—particularly when it comes to good and bad behavior? Is it supposed to be funny and so, lol, who cares? I’m trying to come to terms with moments like these, when we have—just because she is the biggest example of this—Tall Girl suffering near-constant harassment at work, but then wishing she could be harassed by Secretary Brother. I don’t know how to read this. Nor do I know if we’re supposed to look at how easily the “mob” came for Secretary Brother when he didn’t actually do anything. (I mean, he did, despite the show forgetting about it 10 minutes later, but certainly not what he was accused of.) Is this a critique of how easy it is to presume harassment where there is none? Is it a cautionary tale about the difficulties of navigating personal interactions? Is it just a joke? Are we able to jump from one moment being genuine social critique to the next being a lighthearted gag in the same vein?

 

23E. And can we just…what the heck were they thinking with the whole drunken sexual assault storyline? It happens, it goes away, then they bring it back after a dozen episodes of it not being even a little bit important to her character, let alone to the overall story—and then they decide to drop it again! It’s either so important that it influences every decision she makes after it or she doesn’t think it matters all that much to her but then is brought around to realize how much it matters to her when the ex-girlfriend CEO presses her to find out why she doesn’t want to get back into the industry. And, regardless, if this is an issue that’s either on her mind or on her mind without her realizing it, the whole of the Secretary Brother stalker incident barely pinged on her radar—and I’m going to need someone to draw me a chart to explain how that’s even possible.

 

23F. I want to credit the writers for doing some things right, though—but I’m not sure if those were deliberate or an accident. For example, Se-hee is very protective of Ji-ho when it comes to her being put out. Which is very much a function of his personality as it pertains to him not wanting to do things he doesn’t like and therefore affording her the same assumptions. But he’s also got this background with the ex-girlfriend where he can’t stand the idea of her being put out in the cold to deal with the pregnancy and then miscarriage all on her own. And then Ji-ho is put off, however slightly, that Se-hee never gets mad at her (or in front of her). She doesn’t like that he’s always so fastidious in his deference to her concerns—even if she likes that he does in a general sense—which should be spawned from an overcompensation for what happened in his past. But…it’s not. Or it’s not discussed in any fashion. So…is that subtlety or coincidence? I can’t tell. And the rest of the show isn’t filling me with confidence that it’s the latter.

 

23G. Which is not to take away from moments like the argument about what a parent’s responsibility to his kid is supposed to be. The father has a sensible position about protecting the kid at all costs, to the detriment of who cares who else so long as the kid is okay. And Se-hee has a sensible position about how that protection can’t be so narrow as to exclude those affected by the kid. It’s a philosophical difference, and though the show clearly wants us to think Se-hee’s position is the correct one, it doesn’t make the father out to be a caricature for the writers to abuse for the sake of their point. Rather, we get a specific perspective that we can easily understand and justify, whether we agree with it or not. That’s how you broach these kinds of subjects, in my mind, when it comes to making a point.

 

24. Oh, and Ji-ho’s whole solution to the issue? Where she leaves without explaining anything to Se-hee? Incredible how stupid and selfish it was. I was baffled by the whole thing. And she doesn’t even seem understand how her leaving hurt him. Like, the magnitude of the suffering. (And don’t think I didn’t notice the time skips, show. Just because you were sly about it doesn’t mean I’m not still angry at you!)

 

25. For the record, it has been my experience that expectation is a major factor in gumming up a relationship. Standards are important, of course, but it can be a problem to judge everything by an image that exists in your head and not in front of you. Oh, also be honest and unafraid to make your feelings known—about standards or otherwise. That’s probably equally as important. It’s also what the show eventually says is a big deal, and I want you to know that I had that in my notes waaaaaaaaay before that point. Because I am the world’s greatest detective relationship know-how-to-do-er!

 

25A. That is a lie. A very obvious lie that I know you already know is a lie. I’m sorry.

 

…and that’s all I have to say about that.

 

For the parts that worked, I had a very nice time. For the parts that didn’t, I had a very nice rant to myself.

 

I agree with you that they could have done more, but I think we can both see that…well, maybe they couldn’t. But I don’t think you’re wrong to be annoyed that things shifted to “typical” story beats (…sort of), as things went on. Just like with Twenty-Five, Twenty-One, it’s not the attempt to do something different that you’re objecting to, nor are you objecting to the concept of the something different—it’s the failure to execute that something different that got you pouting. (If you pout. Do you pout? If not, let’s say it’s more of a figurative pouting.)

 

Ah well. They can’t all be Vincenzo.

 

…but, gosh, imagine if they could all be Vincenzo!!!

 

Sigh. Well, my next letter will be a surprise. One from the mystery box. But, if you are very clever, you will have deciphered the clues and figured out what it is.

 

I guess we’ll see.

 

--Daryl