KJCKorea
Journal Central

This discussion is based on the film ‘insect-woman’, which was directed by Kim Ki Young in 1974, and it aims to examine various aspects of females to find traces of the ideology throughout the movie. The main character, Myoung-Ja, takes care of her family since her father’s death. Myoung-Ja is forced to work as a prostitute by her mother. It is her mother who contributes to form the woman character that can be traded as exchange value. The money shows power relations and their hierarchy among women (Mother-Myoung-Ja, Madame-Myoung-Ja, lawful wife-Myoung-Ja). Money for the handover of purity is confirmed by money-power from the mother to another woman named Madame, which makes Myoung-Ja’s submission. Her body becomes a kind of exchange value by the best value, money. In such transactions, women‘s purity is meaningless. In other words, ‘purity’, as fixed-signified in masculinity ideology, does not mean anything in this narrative. ‘The’ purity is only ‘a’ signifier. Time can be traded as the exchange value between the lawful wife, Mrs. O, and the mistress, Myung-Ja. Clearly, the film shows different images of genders, sexuality and brings the body as the exchange value. Therefore, boundaries between masculinity or femininity (male or female sexual characteristics) are blurred, even relocated, and women also form internal power-relations that reveal the value of the material. In the movie, the lawful wife (Mrs. O) and mistress (Myoung-Ja)maintain the husband’s health. While Mrs. O supports her husband financially, she ‘hires’ Myung-Ja to give sexual pleasure to her husband and to take care of his body. The lawful wife insists that the management of husband’s body, so called “presence-technology” should be needed to write ‘the record’ by women. But in fact, ‘the record’ should be based on actions of ‘the subject’. If so, why do other people take care of him? In conclusion, their husband produces illusions in the women’s mind and there is no reality. In the first place, masculinity is nothing. In short, <Insect-Woman> in terms of gender as exchange value,indicates that there is no clear boundary between male and female. Lawful wife (Mrs. O) has the Phallus-femininity and money-power. Particularly,she wants to ‘keep the family’. On the other hand, Myong-Ja wants to ‘create the family’, and this is the main difference between Myung-Ja and Mrs. O. The contradictory desire patterns (keep the family: create the family) show the many variations of Mrs. O and Myong-Ja’s relationship. A guardian of the two female figures showed that Phallus is not the sublime but merely an illusion. This movie shows the construction of a new moral as their position by replacing the male to the female. It is not ‘the other women’ but ‘the other men.’After all the events, this movie concludes all the things happened because of one woman. In other words, the voices of men are indelible. As a personal focus on Myong-Ja (or Mrs. O), fiction of masculinity, or a special issue of Giant Phallus illusion was reduced to a private problem. This is the biggest limitation.

젠더, 섹슈얼리티, 여성성, 남성성, 재배치