By Amalia Theocharidou,
South Korea has been known of trying to fight all the social phenomena and injustice of its until recently close-minded society through the usage of K-dramas and their worldwide popularity. Μore specifically, bullying is very apparent in the South Korean society. It indulges with every aspect of ones life in general, from their school years until their workplace and even their family. Especially in the school life, many students reach to the point of taking their own lives in order to escape from their harsh reality.
Weak hero class is a new K-drama following the life of Yeon Si Eun, an excelling student, who has based his entire life on being the top student of his class, not engaging with anything else. Si Eun is so concentrated in his grades, that they’re all he ever shows interest in. Having different interests from his classmates at an all-boys school, he is isolated but on his own comfort zone. Slowly, he begins to draw the attention as some of his classmates try to target him as their new bullying victim. But Si Eun, calmed and composed as always, stands up for himself, despite the great violence he’s experiencing. This “group mentality” is even justified by Keumjoo Kwak, a psychology professor at Seoul National University, who points out that the collectivist character of South Korea pushes the students to create some kind of pack, who chooses one person to ostracise by the community.
Through a series of trouble, Si Eun meets Ahn Suho, a laid back and funny classmate, with no interest in studies, which is rather appreciated in their school. Even though Si Eun is very taken aback by Suho’s open character, he soon finds himself comfortable enough to form a friendship with him, allowing himself for the first time to enjoy the company of his peers. Their small friend group gets complete with the addition of Oh Beom Seok, a new student, who also immediately becomes a target for their classmates and manages to overcome it with the help of his friends.
It is very important to mention that as governmental sources give away, more than half of the students experiencing bullying in the country are thinking of unaliving themselves, a result of the type of bullying they’re going through, which is continuous and persistent, creating an extended psychological war. The political interests as well as the image of the public figures still, sadly, play a very essential role in the country, as, in many cases, schools are just being silent watchers on these incidents. This is the claim of Mrs Lim, whose son was found dead in 2012, after he took his own life in result to the excessive bullying he lived. “The school wants to cover it up. Just five months before my son was killed, a girl in the same grade committed suicide because of bullying. But nothing was done, so it happened again.”
The oxymoron is that especially in the South Korean showbiz scene, the accusations of past bullying are some of the most severe in order for a celebrity to entirely lose their career and disappear from the public scene. The backlash is so strong, that these claimings are often fabricated and the entertainment companies need to actually conduct big researches in order to track down the involved people and prove the innocence of the celebrity.
The dystopian reality of Weak hero class isn’t so out of context after all. As Si Eun grows closer to his friends, the three boys find themselves entangled deeply in a lore of bullying, harassment and other incidents that concern boys of their class and go unnoticed in their school, shedding some light in a not so bright and modern after all society, as we get to experience through the melancholic eyes of Si Eun.
References
- ‘We torment others’: the dark side of South Korean school life. The Guardian. Available here
- South Korea teenagers bullied to death. CNN. Available here
