This may be one of the most controversial movies disguised as a completely innocent romantic comedy that I have ever seen. The whole movie is about a girl who has a beautiful voice but can never be a star because she weighs too much. To make ends meet she is the voice behind the curtain of a popular kpop singer and she also is a telephone sex operator.

Maybe I’m wrong, but in the deepest femininist parts of me this drama makes me so angry I want to scream! The romantic bits are cute enough that they can try to cover it up – and her voice really is good. The main song “Maria” is still being played on radio stations from time to time and most of my former college students knew the song. What makes me angry is that young women are expected to be sexual on the inside and outside. And in order to do so they go to extreme lengths including plastic surgery. One of my former coworkers (a Korean) went with her sister to a plastic surgery clinic for some minor non-invasive procedures and they heard screaming – it turns out a girl was getting her jawline shaved down.

I’m not completely opposed to plastic surgery – heck I went to one myself here in Korea for laser hair removal with hopes that I’d never shave again (a tempting thought) except I gave up when I realized that lasers are for dark hair and I’m a blonde – not worth the pain and money if it’s not going to work. But I’ve heard and seen some pretty wicked horror stories of plastic surgery gone wrong.

Also, where do you draw the line? I’ve seen far too many beautiful girls go under the knife in order to be “more beautiful” and instead end up looking like another cookie cutter image. A good example of this is the recent (I’m writing this long after the making of the movie) Miss Korea 2013 meme. While I agree that they don’t ALL look the same there are very distinct defining features in them that are rare in South Korea but highly seen as the ideal. The super pale skin, big eyes with (circle lenses) and straight full eyebrows, the long and thin nose, the small mouth with a perfect smile and the “v line” jawline. I’ll admit a lot can be done with makeup and the like – contouring, whitening cream, eye glue, and fake veneers. But Korea has taken it to a whole new level.