For his role as Seong Gi-hun, a divorced father and gambling gambler who is lured into a deadly game of survival with a huge prize money, Lee emerged as the star of Squid Game, which is still ranked as his most important game Netflix. -ever watched series (despite having a storied career in Korea for decades, including Grand Bell and Baeksang awards). Lee is arguably the most recognizable Korean actor in the world right now – and his star will rise even higher after landing a lead role in The Acolyte, an upcoming Star Wars series. But if we’re going to use Lee to celebrate all that’s great and different about Korean TV, we also need to acknowledge everything else he represents—including how, similar to the West, male Korean stars are reaping the benefits of an industry that’s bending backwards to protect and maintain their image. In 1999, Lee was arrested by Gangnam police for driving under the influence and causing a collision with another driver, a 23-year-old woman. His blood alcohol content was 0.22 percent (in South Korea, the limit is 0.05 percent). Lee disputed the charge, claiming his manager was driving. Three years later, he was charged with the same offence. In the same year, 1999, he and a friend drunkenly assaulted another man and were charged with assault. He was charged with assault again the following year after he allegedly dragged a 22-year-old woman from a nightclub in Busan and kicked her, causing injuries that required two weeks of hospital recovery. Fast forward to 2013, where, in an interview with Vogue Korea, Lee appeared with his friend and prominent stylist, Woo Jong-wan, shortly after his suicide. Before he died, Lee claimed: “I said so [him], “You need to stop being gay. Weren’t you enough?’ He went on to describe Woo’s homosexuality as “an annoyance.” The excerpts were then drawn from the online versions of the interview. Fans argue that it was so long ago that it doesn’t matter. Indeed, we should recognize and encourage growth if we see it. But we don’t have. Lee has not fought the allegations in interviews or shared information about the steps he has taken to rehabilitate himself. Instead, they have all been swept under the rug. Nor do we know if this is the sum of Lee’s past. We can only judge what we see, and as you can probably tell from these disappearing clips, what we see of Korean stars is heavily curated — by the film and TV industry, by the media, and by fans. This is not entirely unique to Korea. It is, in many ways, universal for modern celebrities. But while this kind of normalization of fame in the West often focuses on humanizing celebrities, in Korea it’s about upholding an unrealistic, aspirational ideal that can’t be compromised. After all, when we recognize public figures as human beings, it is easier to pin their transgressions on them. In Korea, red flags are carefully hidden under layers of branding that can be impossible to remove — at least if you’re a man. The leeway Lee enjoyed in these reports was compared to Johnny Depp. It’s the same kind of entrenched, manufactured image that allows Depp’s fans to completely dismiss the overwhelming evidence of his abuses — or even sanction them. So, too, do Lee’s fans casually ignore reports of his assaults and homophobia. Who cares? they ask, much more interested in the image they’ve helped create over the years. This kind of violence just doesn’t add up to the Lee Jung-jae they’ve convinced themselves they know, driven by the pervasive strands of misogyny that protect men in the film and television industry around the world. The same misogyny that insulates Lee from these reports means that, in Korea, men can survive accusations of sexual harassment and assault, while rumors of bullying can derail the careers of Seo Ye-ji or Song Ji- a wearing fake designer clothes makes her branded dishonest and hunted by social media. “The same misogyny that insulates Lee from these reports means that, in Korea, men can survive accusations of sexual harassment and assault, while rumors of bullying can derail the careers of Seo Ye-ji or Song Ji -a wearing fake designer clothes gets her branded dishonest and hounded by social media.” This same misogyny allows Depp to continue to garner endorsements and acting gigs while Amber Heard may never work in the industry again – and other men use her as a way to discredit their accusers. It’s easy for Western audiences to forget all of this while watching Korean television, losing themselves in a culture that many of us know precious little about. But if we’re going to engage with Korean TV (and we should, it’s incredible) we have to understand that what we’re seeing is a carefully crafted construct of what Korea should look like, where anything could be considered a flaw. censored out of broadcasts. And its stars are similarly insulated from ideas that run counter to Korean ideals — for example, that one of Korea’s biggest stars might not be as clean-cut as managers, assistants and bodyguards want him to appear. I want people to fall in love with Korean television—it’s a rewarding love affair—and to welcome the success of its stars in a global market. But we also have to understand that beneath the seemingly happy stories of men like Lee Jung-jae achieving global stardom, there can be as much darkness as there is in places like Hollywood.
