By Kim Ji-soo
Culture Editor
There is not a cloud in the sky, and the cicadas are humming in unison, all telltale signs that the peak of summer has been reached. If one were to compare the seasons to the various stages in a person's life, the marriage of a young couple may well be the summer of their life.
Summer is hot and fun, a time of light and heat, before the retrospection of fall sets in. Thus, it's with fun that a lot of viewers are tuning to a reality television program about young newly-weds. In ``We Got Married,'' a program now airing Sunday on major network television MBC, young celebrities live together in a house and learn to become a married couple as the camera observes their every move. There are five couples, including a younger guy-older woman couple, which has become a major dating trend here.
Each episode shows how the couples grow from virtual strangers to companions over time. The idiosyncrasies of the individual couples have even spurned trends of their own. One couple comprising a popular female singer Suh In-young of the all female group Jewelry and a male rapper Crown J is always talking about their love of shopping. Both claim unfazed love for shopping, he for ''limited edition'' and she ``sinsang,'' the new latest product.
A while ago, there was a very much derided word ``deongjjangnyeo,'' which refers to a materialistic girl who shops at Louis Vuitton, drinks only at Starbucks or Coffee Bean. But in the program ``We Got Married,'' the female singer Suh's unabashed fervor for ``sinsang'' is appreciated. Viewers have been lauding her for her frankness and courage, in that she does not fear possible criticism on her ways of shopping.
The program has been so popular that its fans have dubbed it in English and put it on YouTube. Not to be outdone, other network has adopted similar ones. SBS recently started airing ``Let's Live Well.'' Unlike the MBC program, ``Let's Live Well'' pairs a celebrity with a non-celebrity as a married couple. But beating these networks were the cable channels, which have been airing marriage-reality programs for some time. Only Comedy TV, a cable channel has a program titled ``My Pat,'' which couples an older woman with a younger guy and puts them in a co-habitation situation.
It's no news that reality television programs are the "it" media content these days. Of the most popular entertainment programs at the moment are reality programs such as ``Muhandojeon,'' which are about five so called under-average celebrities always reaching far beyond their grasp (thus the name of the program, ``Infinite Challenge'').
Another program is the ``One Night, Two Days,'' a program which casts five celebrities on a one-night, two-day tours to far-flung stations throughout Korea and their travails along the way. But unlike those programs, the setting of marriages in the recent programs throws some questions toward my way. Just how far will these reality programs go? Already in ``We Got Married," a few stars have openly talked of their fear that they will lose grip of what's real and what's not real about the program and their spouses in the program.
For example, in one scene the male rapper struggles to not kiss his virtual spouse as they shoot wedding photos (for fun), and Solbi, a female signer who is coupled with all-boy band Shinhwa's Andy, confesses she was afraid the program was becoming too real.
And watching the couples shoot their wedding photos ― with beautiful dresses, makeup and setting ― love seemed to pervade the small screen. The program's producer said that his intention was to send the message that marriage was something to go for. And it sure is fun to watch the lovely scenes of wedding photos, romantic events, the chit-chat and the frank talk given by the stars about their shoots with their virtual spouses. At the same time, that sense of fun is challenged by an unfading concern as to where the program is headed and if the audience were having fun at other people's expense. Also stars have impact on the youth, so what will the young, who follow these stars in fashion and style, think after watching the program?
Maybe this is all too serious a concern. We as audience are perhaps just supposed to enjoy the ambiguous yet teasing confusion of what's real and what's not and be thankful for the brief respite in our lives. But in the end tell ourselves that television is just television ― nothing more.