Putting the Bro in Romance

Only Kwon do-eun writer nim has, to my knowledge, both queer-baited and het-baited with such grandness- but I'm joking- I didn't feel queerbaited by this show. Heedo (Kim Tae-ri) and Yurim (Bona) are only the "secondary" love story here because this is first and foremost a drama about falling in love with yourself. Heedo and Yurim are each other's so fundamentally from the start to the end, that it seems irrelevant that they are also portrayed as having romantic feelings for other people. Is there a more romantic moment in kdrama than Heedo saying "The greatest privilege in my life is that I was Ko Yurim's rival"??? I THINK NOT.

I'm sorry, you just can't put Woo Do-hwan in a show with these many men and two women and then expect it not to be gay? Nam Seon-ho's  (WDH) tortured love for his bestie-nemesis-bae while also being Yi Bang won's  (Jang hyuk in his sexiest avatar) sidepiece is what this drama is and will always be known for. Again- not a show I felt "queerbaited" by because Woo do-hwan does, sincerely, play Seon-ho as a man in love, and it's beautiful and heartbreaking.

Another Kwon do-eun show! Her wheelhouse is truly queerplatonic relationships between women, and this is the OG example of that. This show is what I do want the post-feminist world to look like, and not whatever horror story we're being sold by capitalism gone feral. Anyways, this is the one where Lee Da-hee and Jeon Hye-jin are in love, and there's a baseball bat to prove it too. 

One of those shows that heavily marketed the "bromance" between the lead actors and generated a dedicated fandom- but my interest was in the tragic Park Jung-je (played with quiet despair by Choi Dae-hoon). For a show that marketed the bromance hard, it was allergic to actual queerness; and for that reason I feel comfortable calling this the most queerbait-y show on this list. 

"It's a blessing to know someone wants a funeral for you" was written about Mo-ran (Lee Hae Young) and Ok-sun (Kim Sung ryung) actually; the show was practically unwatchable makjang, but I did it for them (some regrets).

Gay and never coming out of the closet except to have an orgasm alien abduction experience with your bestie? Live your best life, girl. I think this was THEE queerest drama of 2022, and while the pacing and plot were not great, everything about Jeon Yeo-been and Nana as two childhood friends who fall apart and then get together (TOGETHER) was great. 

Absolutely revolting show, but Nana (Mo-mi v2.0) and Han Jae yi (Chun-ae) were amazing and this show was fucking homophobic for what it did to them.

The only movie on this list which will ALSO find a place in my "officially LGBTQIA" list- because it was so very much framed as a love story,- albeit between two losers who barely know how to live or love- and there's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of quality to the magic that Lee Jung-jae and Jung woo-sung generate here together and it drives me INSANE. It's on youtube with subs- hit me up for the link if you want to watch it. (WATCH IT!)

Can I just say that a fake Rolex ("Roles") is the new wedding ring? (2023's Worst of Evil apparently tried to replicate this almost literally? Laughable.)  This derivative gangster flick would never have worked half as well as it did if it weren't for the SIZZLE between curly haired menace Hwang Jung-min's batshit insane Jung-Chung and Lee Jeong jae's pressure-cooker-about-to-explode Ja-Seong. You'll CRY, I promise.

I feel a teeny bit bad putting this on the list-mainly because it does actually feature a queer couple, but also because this series does not feel seriously heterosexual at all- but the "bro" in the romance here is between Jin Hwa-Young (Choo Ja-hyun) and Oh In-joo (Kim Go eun). Kdrama twitter was busy manufacturing "chemistry" between Wi Ha joon and Kim Go-eun, but all the fire and melodrama was actually between In-joo and Hwa-young. All in all, this is one of those dramas for girls who are slightly weird in the head  from having studied in all-girls / catholic schools and lesbians. 

Literally everybody is queer and nobody is: THE SHOW.  That makes it sound homophobic, but the show itself is extremely loving and sensitive and I think pushed the envelope on gender and sexuality- in 2007!- in ways that current shows in this genre are both unwilling and perhaps unable to do. There's a willingness to accept and celebrate that love, gender and sexuality are MESSY and FLUID in this show ; an exploration that seems increasingly absent in our present media, where those lines are becoming increasingly rigid, much like everything else about our politics. Anyway! please enjoy watching Gong Yoo playing a DISASTER bisexual and Yoon Eun-hye playing a CHAOTIC GENDER, both putting their entire hearts and souls into their characters, resulting in something that feels like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of screen magic. 

There's a  framing shot in the beginning of this movie that will remain imprinted in my brain- it asts a few seconds, no more- two young men lighting up a cigarette after escaping the police- and it made me go, oh, this is a love story. And it is- you can argue that it's Min fierce love for Tae-soo that acts like gravity on his life; his love for the troubled Romy, on the other hand,  is something more poignant and aspirational- especially at the start, before she falls apart, and then more mirror-like, after. This movie doesn't go as heavy on the "bromance" as City of the Rising Sun, but I know Director Kim Sang-su knew what he was doing when he has Tae-soo wash up on Min's doorstep every now and then, hungry for love and unable to ask for it except in a way that will destroy both of them; and it ends with Min saying "I thought I had nothing to lose, but I had you." 

This is a love story. 

In what is probably very typical for this genre- violent movies about violent young men- the homoeroticism is strong in this one.  One can argue that, though never verbalized, it's  clear that Beom Seok's obsession with Su-ho is romantic/ sexual and that the tragedy that unfolds is a direct result of it; that Su-ho's affection for Si-eun (and vice versa) is a little too intense for it to be "just friends"- and again, in the genre typical manner- called attention to via "jokes" between the characters. Gay sex would fix all of you, but I guess you prefer to DIE.