Marriage Graduation, Divorce and Non-Marriage, Dramas Far From Fantasy

Dramas that shed the fantasy of a 'normal family' and capture reality are coming to audiences.

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In the past, marriage and childbirth were considered 'mandatory things to do', but it has been a long time since this era changed. As a result, recent dramas are also drawing attention as they positively embrace different concepts such as chossing to stay single, exiting a marriage and premarital pregnancy. There have been many dramas about families that have changed in the past, but in recent years, they have been showing a different aspect in that they have been more explicit and realistic.

TvN's new Monday-Tuesday drama "My Unfamiliar Family", which will air for the first time on the 1st of June, catches one's eye with a sentence that seems to pinch a fantasy about family. Starring Han Ye-ri, Choo Ja-hyun, Jung Jin-young and Won Mi-kyung, "My Unfamiliar Family" is a family drama about a father who suddenly suffers from amnesia due to an accident after his wife's declaration to "graduate" from their marriage, and the process of three siblings overcoming misunderstandings and understanding each other in this difficult reality.

PD Kwon Young-il said earlier, "If the existing dramas about family members forced family harmony or brotherly friendship, we portray our family members very realistically now", predicting that it could be uncomfortablely realistic, but it will be a drama that makes us think about our family once again. Reversing the conventional wisdom that family is always on one's side, it will portray misunderstandings and understanding among family members like others.

KBS2's weekend drama "Once Again", which has been airing since March, also captures the changing social perception of divorce, as the title suggests. According to the National Statistics Office, 320,000 couples got married and 135,000 divorced last year, with that being one in three couples divorced. The drama was planned from the idea born from the headline of a newspaper article stating 'A generation where divorce is also a trend', explains the production team.

"Once Again" depicts the process of narrowing the gap caused by divorce between parents and children and completing their own search for happiness through the setting that all four children are divorced. It is also encouraging that the subject matter is quite different from that of KBS weekend dramas. In addition to "Once Again", jTBC's "The World of the Married", which recently ended as a big sensation, also drew attention for its careful portrayal of the divorce process of couples tied together by marriage.

Other dramas about 'non-marriage', which has recently emerged as a keyword slang for people in their 20s and 30s, are also drawing attention. TvN's "Oh My Baby", which is currently on air, begins with a setting that Jang Ha-ri (Jang Nara), a unmarried woman, is about to skip the marriage stage and have a baby. It's a departure from the formula of existing dramas that lead to romance, marriage and childbirth. The setting seems somewhat dramatic, but the reality is more dramatic. In a recent survey of 568 unmarried men and women by employment portal Incruit and others on the occasion of 'Married Couples Day', eight out of 10 respondents said "Marriage is not a must, but a choice" (85.3%).

According to the survey conducted by SM C&C platform "Tillion Pro", 34.2% of 389 unmarried women in their 30s said they wanted to have children after marriage. One out of ten respondents (10.3%) said they want to have only children without getting married and 7.5% said they want to have children regardless of whether they are married or not. In other words, 17.8% put childbirth before marriage.

KBS2's Monday-Tuesday drama "To All The Guys Who Loved Me", which is scheduled to air this summer, also puts non-marriage at the forefront. It's a close-up non-marriage romantic comedy drama that takes place when a woman who became a "non-marriageist" because 'they're all the same', gets asked out by two men of conflicting charms one day.

Although the setting and genre are slightly different, recent dramas seem to be trying to break away from the forced equation of "family = harmony". "It is true that dramas have not been able to reflect the reality of marriage or the form of family", a broadcasting official said. "Recently, there has been a marked change in the focus of individual happiness over harmonious families", he said.