K-drama Narrates the National: Korean Identities in Crash Landing on You

Abstract

This article considers how a very popular South Korean TV drama, Crash Landing on You, both interprets and produces Korean identity through its imagining of the 'national'. We draw on constructivist literature that explores the biographical parameters of national identity narratives and their significance in global politics to examine changing representations of North Korea on South Korean screens. We analyze Crash Landing as a set of representations that mirror South Korea's construction of Korean national identit(ies), with real-world, sociopolitical consequences. We argue that nostalgic depictions of North Korea on screen situate it as the receptacle of a Korean past characterized by ruralness and intimate community life. In contrast, capitalist (post-)modernity is South Korea's inescapable present, signifying its material victory over the North by virtue of its developmental successes. Finally, reunification is the future-oriented project that unites the divided biographical trajectories of both Koreas but remains materially elusive.

Juxtaposition images of two Koreas portrayed in Crash Landing on You and its effect on Thai audiences' perspective

“…Despite its romanticizing of the political situation, Crash Landing on You brings the division's sorrow to a personal level for a generation of Koreans who, unlike their grandparents, have no knowledge of what it was like to be a single nation." A television show has concentrated on the bonds that link the two Koreas after the breakdown of discussions between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jongun and as interest in the possibility of a formal inter-Korean peace deal has diminished (Son, 2020). It is the same as how Yonsei University professor John Delury applauded the series for drawing connections between strong families in both the South and the North, as well as for humanizing North Koreans beyond stereotypes (J.…”