• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.583-591
• /
• 2018

Increasing rate of late or deferred marriage in our society may have been inferred from alleged contribution of media use on people's idealistic expectations about marriage. This study examined the relationship between Korean-Chinese romance drama viewing and various sub-concepts of idealistic fantasy about marriage. Results from survey analysis indicate that although romance drama viewing has a positive association with life satisfaction, it was positively associated with various aspects of idealistic marriage fantasy (i.e., less materialism in marriage, more belief in love at first sight, and more unrealistic expectations on marriage). Further, differential cultivation effects of Korea and Chinese romance dramas were discussed.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.87-120
• /
• 2020

The study noted the characteristics of the web novel's 'Book Travel' motif, which reflects the characteristics of popular culture content, which is free to use familiar genre grammar or code. The imagination of the main character entering the work he read in the real world is a reinterpretation of the existing genre grammar of the web novel, and studying the motif is meaningful in reviewing the intertext of the genre. This motif, summarized as 'Book Travel' differs from other genres in the romance fantasy genre, which can also be used to reveal the gender characteristics of the genre. The study noted that the 'Book Travel' motif was born from an interactive interpretation of existing narratives, thus having a affinity with dimensional shift, regression, and alternative historical objects, and referring to the writing norms of Fanfiction. Through this, it was predicted that the re-combination of existing narratives and interference between genres would continue in the future. Next, the original move in the romance fantasy genre was seen as quite conservative and revealing the logic of self-improvement even though people around him became the main characters and overthrew the narrative. The characters should use their knowledge of the future of the real world to fight in a world of survival where destruction has been predicted. The appearance of an ethical and self-help subject is interesting, but on the other hand, I could look at conservatism in that romance is a way of survival and achievement of characters. The research is meaningful in that it reviewed the characteristics of the original transfer motif, which started fairly quickly in the romance fantasy genre, and reviewed its appearance background and characteristics. There was a limit to the collection of physical works and limited platform. The above limits are intended to be supplemented by further reviewing and supplementing later works.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.349-383
• /
• 2019

This paper examined the meaning and task of romance research with a focus on Reading the Romance(1984) by Janice A. Radway. This book, which analyzes romance texts by examining the situation and meaning of reading romance by women readers integrating between cultural studies and literary studies, is one of the most popular studies on the romance genre. Radway scrutinized the practical significance of reading romance in a community of women readers. Through a study involving questionnaires and in-depth interviews, she found that for women, romance reading is a 'compensatory fiction' that brings happiness and emotional redemption through a sense of liberation achieved by escaping from patriarchal daily life. The romance that women prefer is composed of 4 stages and 13 divisions: 'Encounter → Attest → Recovery → Happy End'. It also maintains a formula that begins with an immature female character's identity crisis and ends with a blissful union that recognizes the intrinsic value of the main character, who has turned into a man who is considerate of the women. Therefore, romance plays the role of pursuit of the 'female utopian fantasy' and at the same time a reconciliation of women to patriarchy. Feminist critics of the day criticized this argument. However, reading romance is a 'feminine reading', and romance is literature about the functional relationship between women's lives and patriarchy. Yet the interpretation could differ depending on the different viewpoints and definitions of the women's utopian fantasy. In recent years, the conditions of female reader's lives, awareness and imagination have been changing rapidly. As a result, the female utopian fantasy has also changed significantly. Nevertheless, women's lives in the real patriarchal system are still contradictory, and their adventurous imagination is spreading in alternative spaces such as the subculture. In this regard, the question is about the definition of romance and the meanings of romance research are still important task.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.38
• /
• pp.195-216
• /
• 2015

'Convention' refers to custom and practice as the dictionary definition; it means genre custom. Readers feel intimate with the pattern and grammar that a genre has, and they participate in the work, predicting and expecting the next in the 'truism.' So, all popular arts targeting the public have genre custom-that is, convention. A cartoon (comics) is one of the popular arts whose convention is developed most to the extent that its law comes across our mind just with the genre's name such as 'sports comics', 'detective comics' and 'romance comics.' However, although the fantasy cartoon is a genre that has been loved for a long time, it is one of the cartoon genres that has rarely been studied on its convention. There are several reasons for the lack of studies on convention of the fantasy cartoon. The most fundamental reason may be that its basic concept has not been properly prescribed. There are some precedent studies prescribing the fantasy cartoon as an extension of the fantastic literature, but it is hard to analyze convention that only fantasy cartoon has, because its range is too wide. So, this study considered J.R.R. Tolkein's 'Lord of the Ring' had made the genre custom of fantasy novel and fantasy comics, and classified concept and type of the fantasy cartoon. And through analysis of various cases, it investigated convention of the fantasy cartoon into 6 types. Genre is not the complete format. It is subdivided and differentiated, and it becomes one with other genres and makes a new one. For that reason, there exist limitations always when we study a genre convention of a certain genre. This study confesses in advance that it also has limitations as it just suggests convention of the general fantasy cartoon.

• The Critical Review of Religion and Culture
• /
• no.25
• /
• pp.77-122
• /
• 2014

A Japanese director Sion Sono(園子溫, born in 1961), who is not so familiar to us yet, has been depicting the world of violence and sexuality filled with poetic and philosophical messages through the shockingly impressive works such as Strange Circus(2005), Love Exposure(2008), Cold Fish(2010), Guilty of Romance(2011), and so forth after the great success of Suicide Circle(2001) and its second film Noriko's Dinner Table(2005). In addition to these, he has also presented a kind of realistic visions in much more direct ways by Himizu(2011) or Land of Hope(2013) after 3 11 disaster. The purpose of this paper is to try a psychoanalytic interpretation of Sion Sono's film, centering on his Guilty of Romance(愛のむきだし), in terms of the concepts of Jacques Lacan(1901-1981), for example, gaze, objet petit a, fantasy, desire, the imaginary-the symbolic-the real, jouissance, etc. In so doing, this paper will pay special attention to the discourse of love on one hand, exploring the way how to show any new perspective to the religious studies by reading film and religion in association with Lacan on the other hand.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.135-158
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the characteristics that make Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth (2006) a fantasy film, and the meaning and function of the labyrinth motifs closely related to it. Tzvetan Todorov defined the 'fantastic' as the hesitation between natural and supernatural interpretations in the face of supernatural events that invade reality. In Pan's Labyrinth, the fantastic continues to be seen, because the film does not allow the hesitation to disappear; thus, the fantastic does not enter the 'uncanny' genre or 'marvelous' genre, and because it keeps its fantastic state. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes art as a passage into the fantastic world and a space that represents it. Rosemary Jackson saw the fantasy as a "literature of desire to compensate for a lack resulting from cultural constraints" and thus repeatedly dealing with unconscious materials. Del Toro's film shows the character of the fantastic as an expression of desire by allowing 'family romance' to take place in the fantastic world. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the mind as a place of desire. Kathryn Hume defined fantasy as a reaction to reality, like mimesis, and 'departure from consensus reality.' The film, operating in a 'vision' genre, satisfies its definition by allowing the fantastic world to illuminate the reality world through 'contrastive' technique, and brings out the fantastic it has. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the world as a mirror of the world of reality. Thus, Pan's Labyrinth is representative of fantastic film in that the fantastic functions very effectively, and the labyrinth appearing in this film can be evaluated as a motif that is full of meaning by symbolizing all three elements of art, world and mind. The significance of this paper is to shed light on how a motif works in a particular genre through the above considerations.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.9 no.9
• /
• pp.114-124
• /
• 2009

73 percent of online games in Korea hold perspectives of medieval times in them. So far in history, about a millennium in medieval times is said to be a period of darkness and savagery, but it is newly revived in the digital virtual world. Such phenomenon is paradoxical and meaningful to often bring out 'medieval times' as a theme for online games, which are revealed by up-to-date technologies in present days. This research examines the background of views of medieval times appeared in online games and how they are realized. Medieval fantasy games have appeared because people dream about escaping from pre-modem times and have fantasy about medieval times. Moreover, perspectives of medieval times have enormously influenced background epics, quest stories, creation of characters in a game scenario. The dual structure having coexistence of nature and super naturalness acts an important role to set up the epic for medieval fantasy games. And medieval romance literature, which has a three-step quest narrative of 'targeting - adventure and fight - achievement' is reflected in a quest story of medieval fantasy games. The strict pyramid system represented by feudalism forms a meaningful metaphor for designing characters, and players organize communities for online games through horizontal collective consciousness in such vertical system of history at the same time.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.53
• /
• pp.73-102
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study was to explain, using Jacques Lacan's theory of desire, how Ellen Olenska functions as the object petit a in her relationship with Newland Archer and to connect the impossibility of Newland and Ellen's love with the impossibility of desire, in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. In New York society in the 1870s, the unpleasant truth was avoided, personal opinions were excluded, no room for imagination existed, and other-ness was expelled. In that society, Newland realized that true love and true emotions were lacking in his life. For Newland, Ellen was the gap in New York society and the object that could fill that gap. Ellen functioned as the object petit a. But the romance between Newland and Ellen was forbidden in New York society, where everything was dominated by strict social codes, and especially because Newland was engaged to Ellen's cousin, May Welland. Ellen became inaccessible to Newland and this set Newland's desire for Ellen in motion. He idealized Ellen as the objet petit a, based on the fantasy that she would fill the void in his life. However, at every critical moment, Newland delayed unification with Ellen by resorting to social codes. His actions betrayed that the goal of his desire was not the fulfillment, but the reproduction of desire, with its circular movement. His decision not to see Ellen in Paris again at the end of the novel can be interpreted as Newland's effort to maintain Ellen as the inaccessible object, objet petit a, forever. It is this impossibility of desire that the romance of Newland and Ellen is predicated upon. Another purpose of this study was to expand this impossibility of desire to the relationship between man and woman and to interpret The Age of Innocence as a story showing the characteristics of the relationship between the sexes. The relationship between Newland and Ellen shows that there is no harmonious relationship between the sexes and that woman exists only as a fantasy object, objet petit a for man.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.18 no.9
• /
• pp.510-520
• /
• 2018

This study explored the phenomenon of heterosexual women embracing Boys' Love manga within the heteronormativity context from a feminist psychological perspective. Specifically, the issue of genre characteristics of Boys' Love manga, women's psychological mechanism of reading Boys' Love manga, and the functions and effects of embracing Boys' Love manga were discussed. As a theoretical framework of analysis, I started from the classical psychoanalysis and critically adopted the concepts of the various camps of feminism, queer theory, and Huizinga's Homo Rudens. The results show that Boys' Love manga can be classified as a sub-category of the romance genre, which fulfills heterosexual women's desires of eternal love and equal partnership. From these wish-fulfilling fantasies, heterosexual women attempt to be decontextualized from the heteropatriarchism, to enjoy distancing and voyeuristic separation from the characters in the texts, and to disturb the dichotomous gender system through gender reversal identification. These processes, which can be regarded as a women's play challenging sexual rigorism, ultimately bring about an awareness of the female sexual subjectivity.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.1103-1122
• /
• 2009

In this essay, I compare the ways in which the mid-thirteenth century English romance, Floris and Blancheflour, represents relationships of the Spanish pagan queen to her adoptive Christian daughter who becomes her daughter-in-law, with the ways in which Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale and other so-called Constance romances delineate relationships between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. What draws me into these romances is the fact that they both convey the intergenerational relationships of women. However, the texts become distinct from each other in the way in which each depicts women characters and their relationships with one another. In this paper, I argue that the level of intimacy that the mother-in-law figure has with the daughter-in-law figure plays a defining role in making the former perform her agency for or against the latter. In the Man of Law's Tale and other Constance romances, the daughter-in-law figure is in every sense an alien or 'outsider' to the mother-in-law figure. To the contrary, Blancheflour in Floris is a sort of 'insider' to the queen because they lived in the same household for fourteen years-ever since the girl's birth. The queen, therefore, should have a high degree of intimacy with Blancheflour. I argue that the pagan queen's intimacy to the daughter of a Christian-European captive has enabled the queen to protect the girl as her adoptive daughter first and as a daughter-in-law second, namely contributing to her unreserved endorsement of the inter-racial-religious-class union between her only son, Floris, and Blancheflour. This is one major factor that distinguishes the relationship of the queen and Blancheflour in Floris from the dysfunctional relationships of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in the late medieval Constance romances, where women of different generations are strangers to each other, and no way is imagined for women of different races and religions to get along with each other.