Gender Portrayal in the Film Bad Guy - Essay Example

Gender Portrayal in the Film Bad Guy Introduction Bad Guy is both an intriguing and fascinating film directed by Kim Ki-Duk, revealing some of the ‘literary’ misfortunes that befall women every day. It might be disputable to make an assumption as occurrences that happen to women are explored in the film, but this is just a piece of fictional work and everything seen does not imply it is a reality. Therefore, it is important not to be skeptical while analyzing the film and relating it to people’s daily experiences. This paper calls for an open minded approach with sound arguments and judgments. Film summary The setting of Bad guy is quite oddball and somehow whimsical. It starts by a guy (Han-Ki) spotting a young lady (Sun-Hwa) sited on a bench across the street and decides to sit beside her. His constant glare towards her makes her uncomfortable and she sees it as rude. She moves away from her and runs to greet her boyfriend. The man grabs her and forcefully kisses her, the witnessing soldiers intervene beats up this guy. She demands an apology, but the guy remains adamant. It leads to her spitting on him, introducing the hidden desire for obsession and vengeance in motion. It is revealed later that the impetuous, quiet gangster is a pimp. Later, the young girl in the street is implicated in a cash theft which lands her in a brothel. It would be unwise to assume that the theme of Bad Guy is about revenge; the plot revolves around the escapades between captor and captive and the director Kim seems not to be arriving at a particular theme. The beguilingly and controversial climax of the film leaves viewers with hard questions to ponder. Therefore, Bad Guy can be termed as an enigmatic piece of work displaying the common issues affecting the society inclusive of race and gender themes. Overview of Kim Ki-duk works Kim Ki-duk is known as one of the prolific directors in Korea. He is majorly recognized as a remarkable movie producer outside Korea with his movies receiving a number of international awards. For example, the film Samaritan Girl (2004) has gotten him a prestigious international award for best director in the Silver Bear awards. It is fascinating that despite Kim Ki-duk’s international identification as a leading movie director in Korea, back in South Korea his reputation is mixed with many controversies. He has many discontented detractors and a small flock of enthusiastic supporters. He is well reckoned for his unreserved and painterly images. However, many movie critics are displeased by his use of gruesome, shocking, voyeuristic, violent and bizarre images, inclusive of his controversial political characters and stories. The general audiences in Korea have been also quite unsympathetic to many of his films. It is somehow impossible to identify a commercial successful film of his in South Korea with the exception of Bad Guy (2001). Moreover, the success rate of the film Bad Guy is somehow attributed to the leading actor Han-Ki (Cho Jae-Hyun). The actor was famous due to his role in the popular drama aired in television at the completion, but before the film was released. The numerous debates on Kim’s works have centered on the concept of violence against women that are widely seen in his films. Conducting a quick analysis of his films justifies the critics motif to center their discussion on misogyny as revealed by his films. The paper will analyze some of the race and gender issues as seen in the movie Bad Guy. Gender and racial stereotypes The title of the film Bad Guy has an ironical twist in that Kim Ki-duk is sometimes referred to as the Korean cinema bad guy. The film is a story about a college female student who is ensnared by a ruthless gang and forced to a life of prostitution. At first she is uncomfortable with this life and tries to escape, however, later she becomes accustomed to being a prostitute and accepts her fate. The turn of events raises a feeling of uneasiness to several audiences. The girl in the end settles down with the captor; a well renowned thug and the cause of her misfortunes (Hartl, 2005). Furthermore, after departing from the brothel they seem to be lovers and what is surprising most she continues with prostitution while the guy is still the beneficiary of her sexual labour. Moreover, the satirical happy ending is set with an unforeseen religious gravity, closing by the gospel song Day by Day that is sung in French. It seems to be a mockery to religious ideologies and feminist movements and lobbyists. Sun-Hwa seems to be liberated somehow by being free to move around the city far from the confinement in the whorehouse. However, she is still entrapped in the shackles of prostitution and manipulation of Han-Ki. According to the liberal minded view, this depicts a form of subjugation in another person’s ideas (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). On the other hand, the movie is not a happy ending at all. Any right minded person would expect that Sun-Hwa would be free from practicing prostitution. The modern society does not consider prostitution as a respectable job. From being a totally innocent college girl, with the desire for education turning out to be prostitute rings a sense of injustice. The loss of her virginity under unrespectable circumstances beyond her own will displays the violence women face. A dream of being an ideal woman she had for all those years; to be pure for her future husband is now shattered indefinitely (Bufkin et al., 2002). The journey of Sun-Hwa to the brothel is quite saddening. One can be obliged to blame her for the misfortunes that befall her. It is arguable that she also does not have good morals in that she spat on the strange guy although it was justifiable. The director of the film despite his controversial films among critics seems to be trying to reveal the darker untapped side of human beings. Sun-Hwa stealing of the wallet is quite her mistake. Although, the wallet was planted there to implicate her, it shows that she is not all that innocent. Apart from the magnificent, beauty and innocence she has there is a darker side of her which is evil. Han-Ki well utilizes this darker part to have his revenge after the episode in the streets and public humiliation (Nappeun, 2014). It is arguable that probably if Sun-Hwa had not shown resentment and hatred to Han-ki following the events at the street all these could not have happened. The act of forcefully kissing is morally wrong and is termed as sexual abuse. The girl would just have filed a lawsuit, to air her grievances. However, the director is somehow realistic in that most people take matters in their own hands and the results are usually devastating. The theme of gender stereotypes is more prevalent than race in the film. An analysis of most films by Kim Ki-duk reveals a particular trend; female characters in one way or another are prostitutes, and are regularly subjected to violence and abuse. These involve their bodies being sadistically abused, raped, violated, scarred and punished (Choueiti et al., 2010). Thus, it is no amusement that feminism film critics have the loudest voice in South Korea. They have a good knowledge on the reality of violence committed towards women. Therefore, one can understand the hostility the feminist film critics have towards Kim’s films that show a trend of only exploiting the wretchedness women go through without instilling a sense of punishment to the aggressors. It is significant for people to examine the method by which sexuality and gender are portrayed in most films, and how audiences perceive this, understand, embrace and utilize them. It is also crucial to recognize the significant role feminist critics’ plays that make salient the manner by which sexuality and gender are symbolized in films. Kim portrays both women and men in a peculiar way encompassing their social and familial grids (Elizabeth et al., 2011). Majority of the characters do not have much social or personal background. The little character traits revealed at the start of the film is inconsistent through the film and sometimes disappears in the middle of the film. In addition, the actions of the characters are contrary to the set and agreed moral codes of the society. The characters seem to be having totally no binding morals that are ethical. Their actions are filled with much unethical violence devoid of any sense of guilt or liability, and they do not get justifiable punishments for their actions. For example, Sun-Hwa punishment is quite severe since her act of stealing or spitting on Han-Ki does not justify her forceful enrollment to prostitution. Similarly, Han-Ki should have been severely punished for trapping and forcefully turning an innocent girl to prostitution and ultimately ruining her life (Ki-duk, 2001). In addition, the actions of the characters lack an impelling motivation which can lead to the contemplation of their atrocities acceptable or barely understandable. The director of the film does not seek for approval or understanding by the public. Rather, he tries to give no room for his audience to interpolate their perceptions of what is morally right in his films. Most of the characters are not easily identifiable by the audiences. Nevertheless, there is a sense of muteness of the characters and they show no interest in an elucidation of their actions and motifs (McDowell, 2004). Han-Ki is portrayed as unable to speak and in most instances does not speak at all. He does not have the courage to express his love or intentions to Sun-Hwa which makes him watch her, as she performs with her clients through a glass mirror from another room. Also, the kissing incident at the street presents him as a mute character. Kim’s style of giving no room for public application of their moral perspective, it gives space to formulate a new code of ethics. Thus, to make productive use of Kim’s film the public needs to avoid in engaging in a transcendental morality questioning. What should the characters do? Rather they should base their question in the immanent ethics. How different can they carry their actions? What potential do they have? The characters created by Kim are not moral beings; they act as ethical figures that relate with other forces. When combining these characters the outcome is clashes that involve cruelty and violence (Robin, 2013). The film Bad Guy tends to create a misogynistic audience or too willing audience to approve and accept whatever malevolent gender ideologies the film tends to put across. Moreover, the misogynistic stories and images seem to be very blatant making it hard for anyone to take them lightly, exclusive of a sense of being appalled. The role played by feminist film critics can be termed significant since they make salient some of the hidden gender portrayals in the film. According to Shaviro Steven, behind the tendency of conformity with the film’s ideologies, people have the capability of freeing themselves from subjugation and ideology through identifying and theorizing their entrapment within them (Shaviro, 11). It only implies that as people constantly subsume into these events under transcendental circumstances as gender hierarchy, they become much aggressive in strengthening and amplifying them (Shaviro, 1993). It is quite evident that many feminist critics usually focus more on women than men. They identify some of the common misrepresentations of women as female masochism, passivity and subservience. There is little attention on how men are degraded in most of Kim’s films including the film Bad Guy. An open minded study might see that males are presented shoddier as compared to females. The object of the film is probably not to glorify male’s misogynistic behavior or prove a justifiable point for such actions (Williams, 1991). For example, the film Bad Guy could have turned out to be a melodrama if it could have ended by the thug and prostitute going separate ways and the thug being punished. Contrary, the director of the film makes the pimp to be a continual beneficiary of the prostitute sexual labor. He then cleverly seals the probability of any salvation or redemption. The pimp is introduced as a villain and the film ends without him changing. From this perception, it does not imply that if films negatively represent women they should counter this by also representing males similarly. The main character Han-Ki is represented to be short of conversational skills throughout the film. He is first presented as possessing some strange features and traits such as having a scar in his throat, and he remains quiet till towards the film’s conclusion. The first time Han-Ki speaks, what the audience hears is a shrieking sound, somehow a primeval and stuttering language. The director seems to present the male character as disenfranchised and marginalized, and they find it difficult to fit in their society or have a sound relationship. The male characters being stripped from the probability of re-uniting with the society, they hide under their corporeal mastery even though this causes great misery towards women. The male character might not have a high esteemed position in the society, but it is not their priority to achieve a high status later. They may manage to have total dominion over the female for a short while, but creating male superiority complex is not their primary objective. The dominion is not only lost, but they also opt to remain a minority. The public should also be sympathetic to the male character. They should try to understand the trauma the character has and his sense of being unlucky. However, most audiences do not sympathize with their trauma or masculinity loss. The film vividly fails to portray a strong and successful woman character neither does it logically present a good male character. Conclusion Many feminist film critics in Korea are displeased with the way Kim Ki-duk presents his female characters. It is justifiable to condemn the film Bad guy for it has thematically and graphical negative representations of the female gender. The film presents the female character as a prostitute and in a number of ways she is a victim of humiliation, violence, abuse and rape. Kim plainly portrays women to be having traits such as female masochism, passivity and subservience. He looks like to be inscribed in the misogynistic virgin-whore dichotomy and the rape-romantic fantasy. Men are also negatively presented as being in loneliness and loss of their masculinity. They are quite unreasonable and are often the cause of women misery. It is noticeable that none of his released films goes through without hearing varying opinions from feminist critics in Korea. It is not wise to condemn all these critics for their one-sided approach in analyzing gender roles in movies. The society, today, is more concerned with the girl child than the boy child in all matters including education and empowerment. It is true from history that women have been neglected in major roles, in the society and are often considered to be less worthy than men. The society needs to develop gender equality by considering all the genders equally. One might overlook the negative aspect that men are tainted in the film Bad Guy. It is because the society emphasizes on women more than men that give the impression that men face no injustices. In conclusion, the film Bad Guy is quite an intriguing illustration of the themes of sexuality and gender in films. What is quite fascinating about this film is its closure of room for the audience to interpolate their sense of what is morally correct. Its ending is an utmost contrast to the expectations of the society. It raises a feeling of resentment and hatred to the characters and somehow to the director of the film. Filmography of Kim Ki-duk 1. Breath / Soom (2007) 2. Time/Shi gan (2006) 3. The Bow / Hwal (2005) 4. 3-Iron / Bin-jip (2004) 5. Samaritan Girl / Samaria 6. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring / Bom yeoreum gyeoul geurigo bom (2003) 7. The Coast Guard / Hae anseon (2002) 8. Bad Guy / Nabbeun namja (2001) 9. Address Unknown / Suchwiin bulmyeong (2001) 10. Real Fiction / Shilje sanhwang (2000) 11. The Isle / Seom (1999) 12. The Birdcage Inn / Paran daemun (1998) 13. Wild Animals / Yasaeng dongmul bohoguyeog (1997) 14. The Crocodile / Ag-o (1996) Bibliography Bufkin, J., Eschhoiz, S., & Long, J. (2002). Symbolic Reality Bites: Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities in Modern Film. Sociological Spectrum, 22 (3), 299-334. Choueiti, M., Granados, A., Katherine, M., & Stacy, L. (2010). Assessing Gender Related Portrayals in Top-Grossing G-Rated Films. Sex Roles, 11 (12), 772-786. Coltrane, S., & Messineo, M. (2000). The Perpetuation of Subtle Prejudice: Race and Gender Imagery in 1990s Television Advertising. Sex Roles, 42 (5-6), 363-389. Davis, Donald. (1990). 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