“Call Me Mother” (마더)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
April 6, 2018

☆☆☆☆
Soo-Jin (played by Lee Bo Young)
Hye-Na / Yoon-Bok (played by Heo Yool)

What makes a mother? The question arises throughout the series, “Call Me Mother” — a compelling drama starring a precocious child actor who owns every scene she’s in.

Hye Na is a little girl of about 8. But malnourished and underweight, she can pass for a kindergartener.

The first episode is difficult to watch. Hye-Na is shoved down the stairs by her mother, Ja-Young (Ko Sung-Hee). She is beaten by her mother’s good-for-nothing boyfriend, Seol-Ak, who calls her disgusting and stuffs her into a trash bag.

When Ja-Young asks her boyfriend not to beat Hye Na, it’s not to protect her, but because people are starting to notice the little girl’s swellings and bruises. She tells him that he’s a wonderful man for putting up with a girlfriend with a child, and that if he wants, she will drop Hye-Na off at an orphanage and bear his own genetic child.

WTF?!

One day, while his girlfriend is at work, Seol-Ak wakes up Hye Na, who finds safety sleeping curled up inside a suitcase. He forces her to eat a roll of kimbap that’s much too big for a child her size. He tells her how he killed her pet hamster. He tells her that if she cries, she will be punished. She cries. He puts lipstick on the little girl, sprays her with her mother’s perfume and it’s clear he is going to rape the child.

Ja-Young walks in, sees her daughter and, instead of rushing the child to safety, blames the girl for being a slut. This time, they both stuff the child into a trash bag and leave her outside on the curb as they go to the movies.

Honestly, by this point, if both of these abusers were hit by a car and died, I would’ve cheered.

 Soo-Jin, a substitute teacher at Hye-Na’s school, knew the child was beaten at home. She and another teacher reported the abuse, but without evidence and the girl’s testimony, the police could do nothing. So when Soo-Jin finds Hye-Na outside in the trash bag, she makes a decision that will alter both their lives. She kidnaps the child to keep her safe from her abusers.

I finished watching this series three weeks ago, but I needed some down time to get my emotions in order. While there were several overly theatrical and improbable moments, there were also so many touching scenes.

I understand why the series was scripted the way it was. But I kept wishing for an alternative storyline.

We know that Soo-Jin is the adopted daughter of a wealthy movie star. With that kind of fame and money comes the power to make important people (politicians, police chiefs, the media) listen. As we would find out later in the series, her mother had the kind of pull to have Soo-Jin’s bullies removed from school and sent to study overseas.

Her mother could’ve gotten the ear of somebody high up in the police force to look into the abuse allegations. Soo-Jin’s colleague already had photos that documented Hye-Na’s abuse. Even without her famous mother’s intervention, the word of two teachers vs. an unwed mother (who are looked down upon in Korea) and her scumbag boyfriend (who has a police record) would carry some weight.

And if that didn’t work, they could’ve gone to the media to report that the police were endangering the life of a helpless child by not removing her from an unfit household.

But instead of doing so, Soo-Jin takes Hye-Na — who has renamed herself Yoon-Bok, after a local restaurant — on the run in what she knows is a hopeless case. Even if they were to allude the authorities, living on the lam is at best a stressful life for a youngster.

As we learn more of Soo-Jin’s backstory, we understand why her biological mother left her at an orphanage, where the youngster was cared for by Miss Clara. Soo-Jin takes Hye-Na to visit the elderly woman, who now suffers from dementia. Miss Clara’s heartless nephew wants to send her away to a nursing home so that he can turn her orphanage into a bed and breakfast. While she doesn’t have the capability to remember everything, she knows that her nephew views her as an inconvenience.

Watching the bittersweet scenes between Soo-Jin and Miss Clara…Oh, the feels.

Hye-Na, who lived with her own grandmother until she died three years ago, attaches to Miss Clara immediately. She wants to stay there and take care of the elderly woman. But they are on the run and have to leave much too soon.

Near the end of the series, Seol-Ak kidnaps Hye-Na. As he tortures her with the promise of her fate, he says, “Do you know what you and those other two kids (from my previous relationships) have in common? You all have mothers who don’t love you. … I just love watching mothers cry after their children die.”

Son Seok-Koo was so good at portraying Seol-Ak that the actor said he was receiving death threats on his Instagram account. After his last episode, the series included a cute, behind-the-scenes “thank you” to the actor that ran with the credits. It was obvious that the showrunners wanted to make it clear that the actor was playing a part; and that he should not be confused with the sadistic character he was so good at portraying.

Airdates: This 16-episode series aired from January 24 to March 15, 2018 on tvN.

The Adoption Element:

This whole series essentially is one big adoption story. There is an adoption back story to all the major characters (see the Spoiler Alert below). A common element running throughout the plot is that you are not a “real” child if you don’t share your parents’ DNA. One of Soo-Jin’s sisters views herself as superior, because she wasn’t adopted. The emphasis on a family’s pure bloodline is still in effect today in Korea. And though more adoptive families are telling their children about their adoption stories, many still let their kids assume they are biologically related to their adoptive parents.

Soo-Jin’s adoptive mother has the best outlook about families, saying that it’s not giving birth to a child that makes you a mother, but raising that child with love and care.

The writers clearly are trying to make a point, showing that Soo-Jin was raised with love; while Hye-Na was raised in a house of horrors with her biological mother.

That said, I didn’t like how single moms were vilified. It is incredibly difficult in Korea for an unwed mother to get a job. If her employer learns of her family’s status, she can be fired with little repercussion. Without a job and her own parents’ support, it is so difficult for a woman to meet the needs of a baby. Many parents will disown a daughter, force her to get an abortion or send the baby away for adoption. None of these are loving options for a woman who would like to raise her own baby.

Certainly, most single moms don’t turn out like Ja-Young. To imply that a single mom will latch onto an abusive boyfriend at the expense of her child is a dangerous rhetoric, when the real question is: How can an unmarried woman raise her child in a country where no one wants to acknowledge them?

Spoiler Alert:

Throughout the series, we learn the backstories of the main characters. Ja-Young got pregnant as a teenager. Her hopes of raising Hye-Na with her boyfriend are dashed when the young man throws some money at her in the hospital. It’s clear he wants nothing to do with either of them. Though her family wants her to give up the child for adoption, Ja-Young says she wants to raise her baby. “I may be a terrible mother,” she says, “but I’m going to raise her.”

Seol-Ak was raised by his mentally ill mom, who left him alone at home while she went on dates with her abusive boyfriend. One morning, he wakes up to a breakfast feast his mother had made for him. When he goes off to find her, he discovers that she had hung herself.

Soo-Jin and her birth mother had both been abused by her father. One day, her mother killed her husband. She knew she’d be sent to prison, so she dropped Soo-Jin off at Miss Clara’s orphanage.

Young-Sin adopted Soo-Jin from the orphanage. Afterwards, she adopted two other girls. Unlike Soo-Jin who was 8 when she was adopted, her sisters thought they were their mother’s natural-born children.

Say My Name:

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