The crisis of Korean masculinity described in Cho’s article can be applied to “Oldboy”. When Oh Dae-Su is first captured and imprisoned, we see him desperately begging with his jailer to learn why he has been locked up and for how long. He grabs the jailer’s legs, groveling, and occasionally slips into torrents of rage, threatening to kill the jailer. After this, he slips back into a groveling position and apologizes. Through imprisonment, Oh Dae-Su has lost control over his own life and thus, in a sense, he has been emasculated. If the masculine position is one of authority and action, he has been reduced to a passive and dependent feminine position. His sudden bursts of threats can be seen as a rebellion against this subordinated and powerless position. In his cell, Oh Dae-Su watches a huge amount of TV and comes to over identify with it. The divisions between the real and the imaginery are blurred as he grabs the TV monitor in an attempt to penetrate into the depicted space. This kind of spectatorship is very different from typical, detached TV viewer---instead perhaps is more akin to the position of the female film spectator, described by Laura Mulvey, who over identifies with the images on screen.
Once released from prison, it becomes very clear that Oh Dae-Su is the object of Woo-Jinn’s gaze. We are given numerous instances of Woo-Jinn spying on Oh Dae-Su either in person (standing in the room with a gasmask) or through electrical equipment like cameras and monitors. In fact, in Woo-Jinn’s first phone conversation with Oh Dae-Su, he says that he is a scholar studying Oh Dae-Su. Oh Dae-Su has assumed the feminine position of the object of the gaze. Woo Jin gets sadistic pleasure through toying with Oh Dae Su and watching him attempt to get vengeance. Oh Dae-Su responds to this metaphorical castration with extreme violence and a mission of revenge. Like Yong Ho in “The Aimless Bullet”, Oh Dae-Su’s attempts to reclaim his masculinity are ultimately futile and self-destructive. Although Oh Dae-Su would like to believe that he is now in control of his own life and getting closer to completing his vengeance, much like Yong Ho who must ultimately accept his position as colonized, Oh Dae-Su must ultimately accept his position as a pawn in Woo-Jin’s sadistic game. Oh Dae-Su has not acted on his own volition----he has been hypnotized and has followed the elaborate plan lain by Woo-Jinn. The only way to escape this realization is to disavow it. This disavowal is made literal through the splitting of Oh Dae-Su’s personality by the hypnotist at the end of the film.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
While Oldboy definitely presents the idea of an emasculated hero and his attempts to win back his sense of masculinity, the film doesn't seem revolutionary in terms of gender roles. For while Oh Dae-Su is made into an object to be seen, Mido is made even more so.
While Oh Dae-Su fights to win back his masculinity, Mido is continuously in situations which she cannot free herself from, being shown as the object to be rescued, rather than the subject that handles the situation herself. Even her bold decisions to take in and assist Oh Dae-Su, we learn later, are a result of her hypnosis. She is seen from the beginning as an object of desire, as can be seen from Oh Dae-Su desperate assault of her while she is in the bathroom. She and Woo-Jinn's sister are both shown with their breasts exposed; the men's bodies are not objectified on screen in that way. She is left in the powerless position of being the only one not knowing at the end of the film; she is not given the option of choice and disavowal. In fact, Mido even asks to be controlled, as she tells Oh Dae-Su that he must continue even when she protests.
So while Oldboy plays with the typical gender role of the male hero, it is at best blurring the lines of the male position, the female being kept in the classic position of the object to be looked upon.
Post a Comment