#mothers who are complicit or supportive of normalized abuse were seen as strawmen while Enough (old jlo movie) moms are every mom

[zoobus]

has reading a lot of girlsekai from south korea made you more interested in learning about south korea in general, considering many of them involve social commentary? i've read a couple but i always wonder if i'm missing some cultural context/nuance

I have a card of hangul letters from when I tried learning Korean, if that's what you mean.

I'm sure we're always missing cultural context/nuance when we engage in foreign media, i don't think it's something to worry about once you're past your "idealize and worship your newfound idol" teenage phase.

Also outside of european ambiance isekai comics? I would say I've found Korean works on normal life to be remarkably relatable, especially after years of being a weeb. At some point, I'll probably make a rec chart for office and school life Korean comics because they capture the spirit of humans interacting with humans so well.

The only major cultural differences that stick out for me are:

-Gossip: it comes up often enough where I genuinely do think this is a cultural thing, where characters are driven to near madness over the chance of being gossiped about, like gossip will be treated as high stakes. "Ignore what the haters say" doesn't seem like an option

-misogyny: Internalized, blatant, causal, normalized. It's unfortunate but if you get into korean comics, at some point you're going to read the most hateful thing you could say to a woman, and the character will be like "haha yeah I know mom, you always say that😄" If they introduce a grandmother character? Brace yourself. Women perpetuating the cycle.

-subpoint: while it's uncomfortable, it also means I get a lot of stories about characters (and implicitly the author) dealing with their complex feelings towards their mothers. Abusive mothers are a recurring theme overall, and frankly it's feels good to know you're not alone.

An aside: I'm not going to say they're westernized, but i will say you're going to encounter way more American pop culture references than you anticipate. I could make a full compilation of Korean webcomics that reference the Tom Cruise laughing meme alone.

#like maybe it's just me but I always felt like our norm is to praise mothers as selfless loving and maybe a little quirky heroes #they protect you and they only put you in bad circumstances because of society or an evil father who tricked her somehow #mothers who are complicit or supportive of normalized abuse were seen as strawmen while Enough (old jlo movie) moms are every mom