We’ve all had one. That one relative who’s always breathing
fire down our necks because we’re not good enough. The one who criticizes what
we eat and who we date. The one who thinks that the only people good enough for
us are those of equal or higher social status. The one who meddles in our
affairs and sets us up on blind dates. Yes, dear readers. I’m talking about that person: the evil mother/grandmother
in the family. Or maybe that’s just in Korean dramas.
I don’t know what possesses all the mothers and grandmothers
in the Kdrama world, but there is almost always
an evil mother/grandmother in any given Kdrama. I have no idea if
that’s a cultural thing or just something Korean drama producers picked up and went wild with, but in any case, it makes me glad I don’t have one.
These mothers and grandmothers aren’t just mildly unpleasant
or grouchy, either. They’re downright sinister. Perhaps one of the worst cases
of evil mother I’ve ever seen was in the drama Secret Garden, a romantic comedy about a rich male heir and a poor
stuntwoman who swap bodies and fall in love with each other.
...I
know that storyline sounds like somebody was snorting something illegal when
they wrote it, but it’s a really good drama...I swear.
In the drama, the male protagonist's mother despises the fact that her son has fallen in love with a stuntwoman, and she pulls repeated antics throughout the show in
order to separate the two. She even threatens to destroy her own son’s career. If that isn’t the definition of an evil mother,
then I don’t know what is.
I do not come across evil grandmothers as
often, but they’re still lurking out there. One of the most recent ones I came
across was in the drama Rooftop Prince. The male protagonist's grandmother ends up working
with the evil daughter/sister in order to get rid of her grandson’s love
interest, Park Ha. In the drama, the evil grandmother is somewhat subsumed by
the even more evil daughter/sister, but the grandmother is still
controlling and oppressive throughout the drama.
So there you have it. If you didn’t learn anything else from
this post, you at least now know that all the evil mothers and grandmothers in the
world are located in South Korea.
