By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
September 15, 2018
☆☆☆☆
Yoon Jin-Ah (played by Son Ye-Jin)
Seo Joon-Hee (played by Jung Hae-In)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.
“Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food” is sold as a May-December romance. That may be one reason I wasn’t eager to watch this series. While the central storyline delves into the relationship between the pretty noona and her childhood friend’s younger brother, the most compelling subplot — that wasn’t really fleshed out — was workplace sexual harassment.
By the way, this isn’t a May-December romance.
Joon-Hee is a 27-year-old college graduate who has already served his mandatory military service. Jin-Ah is a 35-year-old mid-level supervisor for a coffee company, who has a knack for becoming involved with inappropriate men. The age difference here is a non issue, unlike in “I Hear Your Voice” (where a teenager is involved).
When she catches her boyfriend — a weasel of an attorney from a “good” family — cheating, she breaks up with him. But despite this — and the fact that he will later assault and attempt to rape Jin-Ah — her social-climbing mother continually encourages her to try to make things work. All men have faults, she says, and there’s no perfect relationship.
While all this is true, it is unconscionable that a mother tries to convince her daughter to marry her abuser. What is so wrong with choosing never to marry? Or to work and provide for oneself, being happy with friends and choosing to have relationships (or not) that don’t end in marriage and children?
As the unsympathetic character, Jin-Ah’s mother is given the dialogue to say things about Korean society that I side-eye. For instance: Joon-Hee and his sister are viewed as being unsuitable catches, despite having steady jobs, their own apartments and being good people. Why? Because their mother died and their father has been married three times and abandoned the siblings to start new families with his new wives.
In other words, people like Jin-Ah’s mother blame the children for their father’s sins. In Episode 4, Jin-Ah’s mother says no decent family would welcome Joon-Hee because of his lineage.
Make no mistake about it: I don’t judge Joon-Hee’s father for his multiple marriages. But, I do find him to be a despicable person for throwing away his first set of children. It was not uncommon for kids to be thrown away in orphanages so that parents could remarry partners who didn’t want to take care of offspring who aren’t biologically related to them. Yes, there are some adults who cannot survive financially without remarrying. But all children rely on their parents for survival. Joon-Hee’s father was the family’s breadwinner, and left Joon-Hee in the care of his sister, who had to quit school to work and send her brother to college. Their father didn’t need to re-marry anyone for support. He chose to for his own happiness. So no matter how much the writers tried to pull at viewers’ heartstrings with his storyline, I wanted no part of it.
I wish the series had delved more into the sexual harassment aspect. It started off strong, with Jin-Ah and her colleagues banding together to fight their male bosses. But it piddled away into little more than an afterthought.
Observations:
The series title sounds glib…almost ridiculous. But it’s common in Korea for the elder party to buy their younger friends meals. So when Joon-Hee wants to see Jin-Ah — but feels awkward about confessing how he feels about her — he uses his younger “brother” status as a way to spend time with her … via meals.
I thought it was interesting in an odd way that the soundtrack was comprised solely of songs sung in English. I didn’t dislike it, but I also didn’t see a need for it.
Airdates:
Sixteen episodes aired on JTBC from March 30 to May 19, 2018.
Spoiler Alert:
Jin-Ah’s mother tries to rationalize her prejudice against Joon-Hee by saying that he can’t date her daughter, because she thinks of him as her son. I will give her a bit of leeway, since Joon-Hee and his sister were best friends with Jin-Ah and her brother. They did spend a lot of time with each other. But they didn’t grow up in the same household. It would be like saying that children from the same neighborhood can’t marry each other, because they hung out with each other throughout their childhood.
In Episode 10, the truth comes out. The mom says point blank that he’s not good enough for them, because of his family. Jin-Ah and her brother both point out that while she thinks of them as being better than other people, there are plenty of families who think the same of them — that they aren’t good enough, either.
PRETTY NOONA WHO BUYS ME FOOD’s sold as a May-Dec. romance. The story delves into the relationship between a woman & her friend’s 동생, but I wish the workplace #MeToo movement had been delved into further. BTW, this isn’t a May-Dec. romance. My review➡️https://t.co/hL0Kf2shtt pic.twitter.com/FZLcMZelXM
— Jae-Ha Kim 김재하 (@GoAwayWithJae) September 15, 2018
© 2018 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved
This was a very sweet drama but I agree that they dropped the ball on the sexual harasment issues. They could’ve given the men a comeupance they deserved!
If you’re looking for a drama that addresses sexual harassment properly definitely check out Because this is my first life
It would seem to me that since Jin-Ah’s mother watched (fondly, I suppose) Joon-Hee and his sister grow up with effort and integrity, that the mother would realize that indeed they are “good enough” (in contrast to what their lineage would suggest).
The character I disliked the most in this drama was Jin-Ah’s mother, not just because of her bias against Joon-Hee and his sister, but also because she thinks so highly of herself.
The music became an irritation to me. I literally began to hate the main OST. 🙂
I liked the ending, sort of. I’m glad that Jin-Ah didn’t just end up marrying Joon-Hee and live happily ever after. She still has some growing up to do- and needs to do so as an independent woman.
P.S. Why didn’t the writer see through the work place harassment storyline? I kept wanted that to be dealt with correct to the end. I understand that it is a touchy subject, one that needs attention, especially in Korea with the hierarchy system in the Korean work place. But this drama was a perfect opportunity to do so without having to name names (as in real life).
I haven’t watched it. But anyone interested it is on Netflix as Something In the Rain