KJCKorea
Journal Central

Despite the fact that Korea is now an aging society, elderly women still face double discrimination, being in the minority as a woman and as an elderly person. As such, in TV dramas, elderly women remain in supporting roles as the mother or grandmother of a young main character. The media have also continued to portray elderly women as old and weak people who are in need of “care” and “welfare”, or they are introduced in a stereotypical, negative way, such as the obsessed family centric matriarch that cause conflicts or the silly old fool who contradicts herself in her actions and words. This study conducted a narrative analysis from a feminist perspective, of the TV drama series <Dear My Friends>, which was praised for using elderly women as main characters, under the premise that the media’s portrayal of elderly women can create distorted social discourse and incur generational conflict. The results of the analysis found that the drama series <Dear My Friends> depicted the elderly women, who are elementary school classmates, in ways which are drastically different from the conventional representation of elderly women, by portraying them not as “elderly”, but wise and experienced “adults” who are independent individuals and living each day to the fullest while taking care and consideration of others around them. In addition, the narrative of female friends, seniors and juniors, mothers and daughters, and multi-generations helping each other through pain and resolving conflicts using their stronger-than-blood “friendships” and “sisterhood”, has suggested possibilities and direction of “female solidarity” and female-oriented writing.

elderly women, feminism, narrative analysis, representation convention, TV drama series