First there was Park Hye Soo in Dear M, with allegations of her high school days bullying ways, and discussions whether the drama should be postponed or shelved as it has finished filming and is on the cusp of airing. The production will barrel ahead there and release the drama despite netizon complaints, and now this is a second what-to-do situation with Lee Na Eun of the girl group April. She is accused of bullying her former group make Hyunjoo who left the group in 2016 and it’s since expanded to her bullying classmates back in high school. The allegations are quite detailed so go read for yourselves, and the agency DSP isn’t doing a believable job of answering questions or quelling the fervor. Lee Na Eun is the second female lead in upcoming SBS drama Taxi Driver with Lee Je Hoon and Esom but the drama has been filming for the last 3 months already so replacing her now would be logistically expensive and problematic. We have until April 2021 to find out how this plays out when the drama is scheduled to premiere.
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And then there’s Jo Byung-gyu and Kim Dong-hee (his twin bro in Sky Castle) as well as several other actors and idols. It’s all just… sigh.
Jo Byung Gyu already came out with an explanation….the person who spread information of bullying back tracked when his agency probed the accusations and he is pretty much in the clear now. The guy who accused him stole pictures from another classmate and later deleted all of it when they tracked it down.
From very recent news articles I’m reading, he isn’t cleared yet. Another also reports that he’s stepped down from the variety show with Yoo Jae Suk due to the controversy. However, since the internet isn’t exactly a bastion of truth, I’ll hope for his sake that the allegations will be irrefutably proven false and he weathers this storm.
Oh boy, now I just read about a bullying allegation against Penthouse star Choi Ye bin which her agency has denied and threatened legal action. Given the timing SOME of these allegations are coming out of the woodwork, it’s hard to deny the possibility that some of them (not all) could be mere smear campaigns.
Wait what! Really? If so, the way he handled the thing and posted in Instagram was stupid.
I heard he lost a show with Yoo Jae Suk. Idk in details. K-netizens are not going to forgive him soon. Looks like we still don’t know the truth.
Their bullying must have been so horrible that we should destroy their careers and ostracize them. And hope they learn their lesson (or do something “crazy”). Oh, and it’s up to the netizens (some of, if not most, are bullies themselves) if that’s enough punishment. Wow. Social media has brought us back to the Dark Ages.
I’m all for exposing the truth. But letting the netizens decide what should be done and giving in to pressure from them is reminiscent of the times people chose between crucifying or freeing a prisoner. Or the time they threw stones at an accused as if they were perfect morally upright citizens. This cancel culture is scary.
I don’t know if the allegations are true or not. I hope the truth comes out. But I couldn’t count anymore the many, many k dramas ive watched with plots where bullying the weak, the poor, the less pretty is so typical and expected which makes me think it is normal in the Korean society. It’s the reason I have difficulty finishing up a k drama nowadays. Because it seems so unbelievable at this day and age but yet there’s always one in almost every k drama. In real life, is it indeed a common occurrence in Korea? And therefore these stories come out one after another? At this day and age, as many as this still?
Saw a Reddit thread explaining the gravity and extent of school bullying in Korea and apparently it’s a lot closer to the bullying we see portrayed on TV. And it seems like there are no effective enough institutional measures put in place to help teachers address the problem. In most instances they are left powerless and of no authority at all to do anything. There might be some witch hunting going on along with legitimate claims, but this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed on a much bigger scale. And probably societal reckoning too.