Today, male androgyny in East Asian pop culture has become predominant in film, fashion, music, and animation industries—so much so that critiques in these fields commonly say that “androgyny is the key to success.” There have even been attempts such as in films like The King’s Man to further exploit androgyny by linking it to homosexuality or bisexuality. But Korean culture is still strongly governed by strict Confucian and religious values that leave little room for these new ideas. Attempts are mostly considered provocative and experimental, seeking to profit off of new and shocking concepts.

When asked how he feels about male actors portraying sexually ambiguous roles, Choi, who acknowledged himself as a conservative and devout Christian answered, “I will respectfully refuse any such offers. While I respect all genders, I do not wish to acknowledge homosexuals as I have been taught that God created Man and Woman with specific characteristics and duties. I realize that with globalization, there are many [entertainers] who do not share my views. There are those who are value-oriented and those who are success-oriented. However shouldn’t an actor deliver an image to his audience through roles he chooses to portray, based on his beliefs in life?”

Liberation and Empowerment

Female androgyny is also on the rise, though to a lesser extent. Last summer MBC, one of Korea’s three major public television and radio networks, aired Coffee Prince, a TV series about a man who falls in love with one of his male employees, only to discover “he” is a woman in disguise. The show enjoyed surprisingly high ratings as it brought in 29.9% of all viewers at prime time hours. Since the show’s success, there has been a noticeable trend among top female celebrities to acquire “masculine” or “boyish” looks by cutting their hair short, wearing male clothing, and appealing to their audiences in non-conventional female character roles on TV.

According to Sang Yup Lee, Producer and Director at MBC, the most important target groups in terms of TV production in Korea are women between their 20s and 40s. In modern day Korea, women of this age group have emerged as the principal consumers of popular culture. Their newly gained financial independence and social status enables them to voice their desires for new entertainment.

As Lee told the Globalist, “Today, women long for a role model, or a character on TV to gain vicarious satisfaction as a goal-oriented and successful woman.” Lee pointed out that this is the reason younger and more sensitive “boyish” males were popular in movies or on television in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to this logic, Korean women find androgynous males appealing because they enjoy the idea of having more freedom in their relationships. The Ggot-mi-nam character of today is essentially an embodiment of this idealized male.

Such trends have become prominent in a relatively short time-span, with Korean women realizing that they no longer need to repress their dissatisfaction with Confucian ideals of female submissiveness. According to Lee, “This trend is not simply limited to the younger generation. Even when we produce TV shows targeted for women in their 40s to 60s, we often use Ggot-mi-nam characters. The ability for such characters to receive so much love on a national scale is because they come hand in hand with the empowerment of the modern women.”

Lee sees this phenomenon as a positive development. To him, established gender roles might work in traditional agricultural societies, but are no longer useful or even desirable in the modern world. “Of course, just because this is true in the entertainment business does not mean that all people have changed their perceptions of gender roles. Television shows verge on fantasies and territories governed by desires. Therefore, they may be somewhat ahead of their time.”

This new cultural phenomenon reflects Korea’s changing social climate, in which males and females are increasingly breaking away from the age-old and stereotypical Confucian norms. These norms have long held sway, but today Korea is approaching global standards of gender equality. Many other East Asian nations are undergoing similar changes. If Korean popular culture is any indication, traditional gender norms might not dominate other parts of society for much longer either.

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