Media Rants: Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo

My first and favourite kdrama, and for a good reason. The characters are charismatic, relatable and layered, the writing is both humorous and eye-opening, and most importantly, Nam Joo-hyuk is hella good looking. 

the personality, the hair, the shoulders, the face, the biceps A++

I am someone who despite was a media student, didn't really watch 'new' shows or movies - I always rewatched the same ones over and over again. The anxiety I experience when watching things I haven't yet watched manifesting through *literally* running away (if possible), hiding behind my friends, family or under my jacket when at the cinema, skipping ahead if I'm watching by myself or searching up/asking about the plot reflects the way I worry about the future and imagine the worst case scenario. My list of dramas, shows, movies and animes to watch is ever growing and I want to start writing my thoughts of the things I watch to encourage myself to watch 'new' things. 

Although in this instance I rewatched this drama, I watched it because I needed a feel-good thing to watch and this drama brought from memory brought so many laughs and smiles, I was not disappointed. My overall feelings about this drama is I would give my soul to forget this drama and rewatch it. However, particularly this second viewing I noticed many of the implicit messages embedded throughout the plot that I didn't notice which really resonated with me. 

Your body is able and beautiful

I really appreciated how this drama used the issue of body image and eating disorders to illustrate how all bodies are beautiful regardless of weight. Keeping in mind the initial target audience and the culture surrounding physical appearances, it was interesting to follow characters who are struggling with both weight loss and weight gain issues and the message that your body is able and beautiful really stuck out to me personally. I struggle and still am struggling with my weight - not so much as before but I still am. Constantly getting comments from your family about your figure or what your eating compounded by friends making comments about my round face, arms or stomach most definitely didn't help in the positive body image department. In my Control post I opened up how I was having appetite and digestive issues which caused me to lose weight for a while. I am ashamed to say that although I knew it was unhealthy, I was to an extent 'happy' and liked seeing my body with a more defined hourglass figure and flatter stomach. That wasn't too long ago and these days I'm doing better - I'm eating and trying to eat more healthily especially as exams have finished so I have more time to cook but this show really served as a reminder that my body is beautiful in all its glory.

Don't care about what others think, just do what you love

As Bok-joo says, weightlifting isn't conventionally 'pretty' or 'sexy' however her mantra of not caring about what others thought about a female competing in this sport, persisting when the recruiter at the warehouse doubted her abilities and just focusing on her love for the sport is the manifestation that I really need. In many of my recent blog posts I have opened up how I have cared too much about what others thought, that their words dictated the way I lived my life but no more. Like Bok-joo, I will not let others' opinions which in the bigger picture do not matter have power over my feelings, my thoughts and my actions. 

Other than the life lessons, I really enjoyed the depth of the characters. Yes Bok-joo is a bit annoying in the way that she's loud, whines a lot and doesn't experience too much character development but I think there's some sort of personable charm because of that - that the intended audience of young, female viewers relates to Bok-joo in the sense that we want to achieve our goals but societal expectations serve as barriers, that we want to find love even though we're hella awkward and inexperienced and that we just wanna live our best lives. Other characters such as Jae-yi experience greater character development and although he is the original heartthrob of the drama, he exposes things about kindness that hasn't yet been discussed or revealed. And yes, we can talk about Joon-hyung's character development but man the writers did a really good job of writing his character and for a model, Nam Joo-hyuk did a really good job in portraying the multiple layers of the character. 

If you haven't watched this drama, I really do recommend it and I'd give it a 10/10.

Written on: 24/12/20