Discussion thread for today’s podcast: Something In The Rain
Added 2024-05-01 14:28:08 +0000 UTCA thread to adding your two cents, unburdening and asking questions :)
Comments
Don't be embarrassed, you are brilliant.
Cate
2024-05-02 01:53:57 +0000 UTCI love how you put this in a broader context. I saw the mother as a classic narcissist. Everyone walks on eggshells around her, no one expects or even asks for self awareness or change from her. There's only her way and everyone else has to keep the peace. However when amplified by the cultural tendency to live through your kids, boast about them, use marriage to climb the status ladder and not face up to the fact your child is desperately unhappy or being mistreated, she was loathsome. And whilst I didn't expect a redemption arc (because narcissism doesn't work that way) I'm embarrassed to say that narratively was hoping for something that caused her pain and balanced up the ledger.
Cate
2024-05-02 01:53:25 +0000 UTCThe feminism I put it that way because that’s where the show’s sympathies seem to lie, understanding that definitions of feminism vary wildly. At any rate, SITR is an interesting look at what Millennial and younger generations of SK women face: restrictive traditional obligations plus sexual harassment in the workplace that they are expected go along with. Coffee Bay colleague Bo Ra, whom I love, never says she’s a feminist, but she’s coded that way, right? She doesn’t play that game, is furious at those who do, and finally says, screw it – I’m opting out, doing it my way, in my own place, on my own; but hey, sis, you’re welcome to join me. As to how the case sort of fizzled out and we didn’t get to see any public apology: would have been nice, but I am too old to expect justice or satisfying comeuppances, because life is not fair like that! I will stop now. But if anyone wants to talk about Kyung Sun (bff) or a character who was TERRIBLE but so interesting to me (that'd be Jun Hui's selfish, libertine dad, I am ready. Seriously ... so embarrassed. "GET A GODDAMN SUBSTACK, KATIE."
Katie M
2024-05-02 01:38:44 +0000 UTCThe Mom I mean, yeah, but I think I had less trouble with her than many—maybe because Afternoona Asks had educated me a bit about the cultural traditions that Sarah talked about on the pod. Also maybe because the mom is very like the (awful, damaging, almost certainly has a personality disorder) mother of a dear friend, or because I’ve spent enough time agonizing over conservative women’s way of voting “against their own interests” to understand that to them, it’s liberal/progressive women like me who are the fools. Overgeneralizing, but I see freedom and self-actualization as the key to a happy and good life; my sense of security comes from knowing my life is mine, and I fight for rights that will keep me and other women from being controlled. However, generations of women (here in the US, generations of white women, in particular) have reviewed the evidence and determined that the smartest and safest way to operate in a [white supremacist] patriarchy is to secure proximity to the patriarchy’s power: literally, Stand By Their Man. Jin A was raised to be Ms Tambourine because her mom felt duty-bound to raise her that way, just as she feels dutybound to keep her child from allying with a “low status” man who cannot protect her. Which leads me to …
Katie M
2024-05-02 01:34:46 +0000 UTC
