'Non-Marriage' Dramas on a Tightrope Between Trend and Romance

At the press release of the new KBS 2TV drama "To All The Guys Who Loved Me" last week, the leading characters said, "Love is the most important thing in humanity" and "Marriage is the completion to relationships". Non-marriage was born out of a sense of criticism of the word 'unmarried' which means 'must be married but not yet' but it seems they have not understood the concept itself. If the completion of life is marriage, does that mean that the lives of the single people who are not married are incomplete?

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Recently, a series of non-marriage-based dramas have emerged, but they have not escaped the limits of traditional romantic comedies. Critics point out that there is a strong possibility that it will lead to a doctrinaire message to find meaning in pointing out the reality that non-marriage is a social trend.

Seo Hyeon-joo (Hwang Jung-eum), the female lead of "To All The Guys Who Loved Me" is a woman who refuses both pregnancy and marriage as well as dating. On the first broadcast, she said, "Seo Hyeon-joo has decided to love and trust herself till the day she dies". However, the atmosphere turned around with the appearance of Hwang Ji-woo (Yoon Hyun-min) and Park Do-gyeom (Seo Ji-hoon). Seo Hyeon-joo is expected to create a triangular structure with them and her thoughts on non-marriage are likely to change.

What the actors said during the production presentation is the basis for anticipating such a scenario. Choi Myung-gil, who plays Kim Seon-hee, said, "Shakespeare said marriage is the tomb of love, but our drama constantly shows that marriage is the completion of love", and Hwang Jung-eum said, "The way we live is all different, but the most important thing for humans is still love". Director Choi Yoon-seok-II said, "I can't speak for all unmarried women, but I've made the drama so that female viewers in their 30s can empathize. It's a drama that can encompass society and romance. It's a simple life-oriented drama that makes it easy, comfortable and fun to watch", he said. However, non-marriageism, which is related to various social issues such as career breaks, cannot be expressed lightly, easily and comfortably.

What about tvN's "Oh My Baby" that recently ended? "It's a drama that asks questions", writer No Sun-jae said in a media interview. "I wanted to show that there are various ways of life because people in their 30s and 40s face various inflection points such as non-marriage and childcare". However, she borrowed the love triangle from traditional romance dramas and in the end, the heroine met a man she loved and gave birth. Therefore, he faced criticism for his classic portrayal of women's narratives for reflecting the non-marriage trend.

Experts say it may still be burdensome to exclude romance from commercial dramas. One drama writer said, "It is not easy to lead the story with only non-marriage material without romance", but added, "If you try to melt love, marriage and parenting in it while containing non-marriageism, the direction of the work can be confusing. We can capture the quality and popularity of our work while melting social problems without romance, such as the drama "Incomplete Life" and "My Mister"", he said. "We need to think a lot when making a trend that involves social problems".