The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    Suspect in grisly Busan murder sent to prosecutors for further probe

  • 3

    Roland Garros 2023

  • 5

    Luxury brands continue hiking prices in Korea

  • 7

    Seoul imposes sanctions on North Korean hacking group for role in space launch

  • 9

    How artist Michael Rakowitz resurrects lost past of Iraq through food packaging

  • 11

    POSCO, GM expand joint EV battery materials investment in North America

  • 13

    HMM tasked with preventing sale of Hyundai LNG to foreign firm

  • 15

    Korean stocks feared to lose steam on prolonged trade deficit, real estate doldrums

  • 17

    Hyundai Elevator launches AI, IoT-powered maintenance service

  • 19

    Yoon receives flak for saying social welfare spending needs greater scrutiny

  • 2

    Stray Kids drops 3rd LP with 'unique, enjoyable' lead track

  • 4

    Airlines fiercely compete to acquire additional aircraft

  • 6

    'HyeMiLeeYeChaePa' producer Lee Tae-kyung hopeful of second season

  • 8

    KAERI distances itself from Oxford professor's claim on Fukushima water

  • 10

    LG Chem joins Korean firms strengthening ties with Japan

  • 12

    More banks offer daily interest payments on deposits

  • 14

    Indo-Pacific region highlighted as important for Korean economy's future

  • 16

    B.I puts drug conviction behind him as he makes fresh start

  • 18

    TREND REPORTCheckerboard print newest trend among stars

  • 20

    US deepens trilateral cooperation with S. Korea, Japan against N. Korean threats: Biden

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
Sun, June 4, 2023 | 04:02
Guest Column
'Minari' portrays strong Korean women
Posted : 2021-03-16 14:18
Updated : 2021-03-17 16:00
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link
By Nadia Kim
Nadia Kim, professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University / Courtesy of Nadia Kim
Nadia Kim, professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University / Courtesy of Nadia Kim

Although there are so many charming and poignant layers in "Minari," the critically acclaimed film by Lee Isaac Chung about a Korean immigrant farming family, most describe it as an American Dream story. While
others have rightly argued that it's not at all about the dream (spoiler alert: think lost lifelines, lost marriages, lost identities), one tagline that seems to have garnered less attention is the gender conflicts that, in my view, are the real story.

Minari revolves around the tensions between the traditional masculinity of Jacob Yi ― the farming husband and father played exquisitely by Steven Yeun ― and the resistant womanhood of Monica Yi ― the wife and mother brought brilliantly to life by Han Ye-ri.

It's Jacob's status as patriarch that forces the family to a place in which none of them wants to be. His lofty dreams and gritty resolve to grow a successful farm on a "cursed" Arkansas plot forces the entire family out of California, where Monica was content and longed to stay.

At least there were Korean immigrants, Korean churches and Korean food there. In the opening scene we witness in the station wagon's rearview mirror her eyes dart with dismay and anxiety as she drives towards her (and their) new life. While Jacob swaggers like a king, her finely acted facial expressions betray her internal dialogue: 'What is this?'

She most certainly did not want the jaundiced mobile home sagging over concrete blocks that made up for its missing stairs with fake wood paneling, slumped furniture and enough cracks to lose badly to a tornado.

Monica's disgust is most palpable when Jacob hadn't anticipated how Arkansas' unforgiving columns of air could destroy them in a matter of seconds. She glares at her husband and throws down the rags that she desperately used to mop up the water flooding in through rickety walls. Was this what she gave up her own dreams for? Did Jacob even care about what she wanted?


She asks the questions that
many Korean immigrant wives and mothers were forced to ask. This, I believe, is at the heart of "Minari."

Oscar-nominee Youn Yuh-jung, down-to-earth actor with self-deprecating humor
Oscar-nominee Youn Yuh-jung, down-to-earth actor with self-deprecating humor
2021-03-16 16:30  |  Films

Despite all the cash and hours Jacob was pouring into the farm, Monica still had to do paid work with her husband, the same job they were doing in California but without the added burden of the farm. Now on a plot that caused the previous farmer to kill himself and far from the hospital that David's heart needed, they sorted chickens by sex while their kids looked on, separating out females for their egg-making and the males for killing (even the couple's job in "Minari" involves gender!).

Nadia Kim, professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University / Courtesy of Nadia Kim
A still of Lee Isaac Chung's movie "Minari" / Courtesy of Pancinema

During a brief work break, Jacob tells little David that the smokestack bellowing black smoke in the sky is the aftermath of the male chicks being thrown into kilns, being sure to impart that men like them had to be "useful," lest they too went down in flames. Although the view that men must be productive is the most defining feature of a standard masculine ideology, one that transcends race and nation, the difference now for Jacob is that he has become a man of color on the white man's land.

"Making it," then, was even more dire. For instance, he declines to hire a white male water douser ― someone who uses a stick to feel the vibrations of the water underground ― because Jacob finds it ridiculous that Arkansians pay big money for something one could figure out for free. He teaches David that "Koreans use their minds," not the white man's gadgets that verge on mystical garbage, and hugs David for figuring out that water is always where the trees are (notice that he never teaches his daughter Anne any such lessons).

Of course, it's also Jacob's male and ethnic pride that lands him in trouble, as the water he sought to find with his mind was, in fact, nowhere to be found in the ground. And later, when he might lose everything in his life, he still refuses to accept prayers for God's help from his eccentric hired hand, Paul. That was tantamount to admitting failure as a man and having to do so in front of a white man. Perhaps he even extricated himself from California's Korean immigrant community because he did not want to fail in front of them either. Failure was not an option.

Nadia Kim, professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University / Courtesy of Nadia Kim
Actress Han Ye-ri played Monica in "Minari." Korea Times file

It is precisely this quixotic obsession with a pressurized ideal of manhood that emboldens Monica to stand her ground. Although she resents the farm, the house on wheels, the tornados and a lost Korean community, these were just byproducts of the ultimate truth, that Jacob placed the farm's success above the success of his marriage and family. To be fair, Jacob's refusal to return to California with them was also his need to model to the children that fathers make something of themselves.

Yet, she refuses to accept this prioritization of (immigrant) male productivity above loving each other as an intact family. Jacob even hints that she and the kids are less important than the farm and grants her permission to leave him (and, of course, be responsible for David and Anne). Most women in Monica's position, with enduring love for her partner, few economic prospects, non-English fluency, little family in the country and an early 1980s culture less accepting of Korean American divorce, likely would have relented. Yet, Monica's feminist/womanist strength in the face of incredible heartbreak is a leitmotif of the film, one that should be discussed and celebrated more.


Furthermore, from a wholly different, real-life gender angle, South Korea's Han Yeri should have garnered similar awards recognition as Korean American Steven Yeun for her embodiment of Monica Yi. Make no mistake: Yeun's performance is breathtaking, as it was in "
Burning," and deserves more nominations than it has earned (and, as a U.S.-made film, Minari should have won Best Motion Picture-Drama at the Golden Globes; race-biased categories are backwards). But the praise heaped on Yeun does not negate Han's gripping portrayal of Monica's struggle to keep her family together while Jacob's male privilege threatens to rip it apart. That is, Monica's struggle with patriarchy carries the film just as much as Jacob's internal struggle with it does.

When audiences and critics characterize this movie as about the American Dream, the American nightmare, immigrant generations and race, I hope they will grant gender center stage as well. In every way, from the marital dynamics to David's disrespect for his grandmother (would he have fed the grandfather-patriarch urine?) to the questionable real-life exclusion of Han from awards recognition, we can't appreciate Minari without appreciating what it tells us about gender ― strong Korean women in particular.

Nadia Young-na Kim is professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University and author of the award-winning book, "Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA" (Stanford, 2008), and of "Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA" (Stanford, June 2021).



 
wooribank
Top 10 Stories
1Roland Garros 2023 Roland Garros 2023
2Airlines fiercely compete to acquire additional aircraft Airlines fiercely compete to acquire additional aircraft
3Luxury brands continue hiking prices in Korea Luxury brands continue hiking prices in Korea
4Seoul imposes sanctions on North Korean hacking group for role in space launch Seoul imposes sanctions on North Korean hacking group for role in space launch
5KAERI distances itself from Oxford professor's claim on Fukushima water KAERI distances itself from Oxford professor's claim on Fukushima water
6LG Chem joins Korean firms strengthening ties with Japan LG Chem joins Korean firms strengthening ties with Japan
7HMM tasked with preventing sale of Hyundai LNG to foreign firm HMM tasked with preventing sale of Hyundai LNG to foreign firm
8POSCO, GM expand joint EV battery materials investment in North America POSCO, GM expand joint EV battery materials investment in North America
9More banks offer daily interest payments on deposits More banks offer daily interest payments on deposits
10Indo-Pacific region highlighted as important for Korean economy's future Indo-Pacific region highlighted as important for Korean economy's future
Top 5 Entertainment News
1[INTERVIEW] 'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series INTERVIEW'One Day Off' star Lee Na-young, director on creating subtle, feel-good series
2'HyeMiLeeYeChaePa' producer Lee Tae-kyung hopeful of second season 'HyeMiLeeYeChaePa' producer Lee Tae-kyung hopeful of second season
3How artist Michael Rakowitz resurrects lost past of Iraq through food packaging How artist Michael Rakowitz resurrects lost past of Iraq through food packaging
4From hardcore action to heart-throbbing romance, series to hit in June From hardcore action to heart-throbbing romance, series to hit in June
5[INTERVIEW] Lee Jun-hyuk unrecognizable in 'The Roundup: No Way Out' INTERVIEWLee Jun-hyuk unrecognizable in 'The Roundup: No Way Out'
DARKROOM
  • Turkey-Syria earthquake

    Turkey-Syria earthquake

  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group