Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
8-2025
Abstract
Korean Boys' Love (K-BL) dramas represent a growing subcategory within South Korean media, exploring romantic relationships between male characters and challenging historically rigid gender norms shaped by Confucian values, modernity, and hegemonic masculinity. Grounded in Social Constructionism and Queer Theory, this chapter employs content analysis on five K-BL dramas—Wish You, To My Star, Semantic Error, Jun and Jun, and Love for Love's Sake—to analyze how masculinity is constructed, portrayed, and subverted. The study reveals that K-BL dramas depict a spectrum of "Seme" and "Uke" roles that soften rigid gender binaries through emotional openness, gentleness, and playful intimacy. While these portrayals push back against hypermasculine and toxic tropes, normalize same-gender affection, and foster homosocial bonding, they simultaneously navigate narrative constraints—such as keeping queer relationships hidden, relying on heteronormative relationship patterns, and adhering to uniform, polished beauty standards. The chapter concludes that while K-BL dramas serve as a transformative force for fluid expressions of masculinity and LGBTQ+ visibility, fully realizing their progressive potential requires greater diversity in character aesthetics and storytelling.
Recommended Citation
Magoncia, Jeremiah Estela. "A Sociological Examination of Masculinity in Korean Boys' Love Dramas." Changing Cultural Landscapes of South Korea, edited by Niki Alsford and Nora Kim, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, pp. 11–35, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-89494-7_2.
