본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

The Beginnings of TV-Drama Culture as Women’s Culture- Kim Soo-hyun’s Work as a Screenwriter in the 1970s

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2026, 32(3), pp.561~606
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2026.32.3.016
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : September 6, 2026
  • Accepted : October 18, 2026
  • Published : October 31, 2026

Han, Kyung-Hee 1

1한국학중앙연구원

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The popularization of TV drama in Korea began with the cultural development of an urban middle class resulting from modernization and economic development. This popularization coincided with a feminization as well. Among the urban middle class, it was women in particular who formed the primary viewership for TV dramas, and as a consequence, TV drama’s popularization could only be secured by realistic representation, from a women’s perspective, of women’s everyday lives, emotions, and desires. This change in the culture of TV drama can be seen in the activities of Kim Soo-hyun and other up-and-coming female screenwriters of the 1970s, emerging as they did through the ranks of male screenwriters who dominated the field. These emerging female screenwriters were particularly active in the genres of “home drama” and melodrama. This is because both genres appealed strongly to women of the urban middle class, and therefore needed to reflect women’s everyday lives, emotions, and desires. Urban, middle-class women had developed an identity in accordance with patriarchal institutions and developmentalism. However, this identity was an unstable one which could only be maintained through the tempering of irrational emotions and desires incompatible with economic productivity. Through home drama’s realistic representations of family life, women of the urban middle class were able to experience the pleasure of stabilizing this unstable identity by reconfirming the meaning and value of their ordinary everyday lives. Through melodrama, they were able briefly to set aside the burden and responsibility of tempering irrational emotions and desires, thereby relieving the stress of managing family life. As can be seen in Kim Soo-hyun’s work as a screenwriter, the popularity of the two opposing genres was made possible by this ambivalent feature of TV drama’s primary viewership at the time.

Journal Copyright Policy

BY-NC-ND 아이콘

This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only if attribution is given to the creator.

Statistics

  • 15 Viewed
  • 5 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2025 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search