Penthouse 3’s Offensive and Absurd Use of Park Eun Seok Playing a Gangster Older Brother Unites Every Drama Fandom in Anger, Indignation, and Now Mockery

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• I've never wanted to blame the actors for the shit which the writer and director were done. But, Park Eun Seok himself lived in US for 15 years, I'm sure he knows all these things, but still willing to do this. He could have stopped the director and writer by guiding them some knowledge about this. Looks like he will do anything for money. I hope he will never be a more successful actor. He doesn't deserve that.
  SBS I going too far, first in Backstreet Rookie, now in Penthouse. They really want international k+drama fans to stop watching the k-dramas, right? I'm pissed off this time. I may be very emotional about this, that came from my experience.

  • We hear of K-writers who pull out of ongoing dramas when they're being forced to compromise their artistic integrity in a cheap grab for ratings. Just as there are K-actors who have pulled out of ongoing dramas due to creative differences. This guy grew up in the US — one of the OG hometowns of racism, cultural appropriation, offensive stereotyping and more. He KNEW in his bones and his balls that this was offensive. But he sold out anyway. And so he deserves some of the criticism too. Not all of it, but some of it. The bulk goes to the writer, producers and shady network who okayed this. And what did he mean in his cliche apology by paying tribute? For what, exactly? How exactly is that hideous caricature a tribute? Is it the dreads? The tattoos? The tacky clothes? Or his gangsterism? Is that the sum total of the culture they're supposedly paying tribute to in that crapjang? What a load of poppycock!

    • 1000% everything here. ???

  • I agree that the issue is totally inappropriate and needs apologizes from all participants.

    However, even if PES should know better, it still doesn't mean as an actor he has the power to change something on set in an hierarchical culture like the Korean society, where seniority is everything. No Script writer or director will follow his lead unless they want to, even if he would have poited out any concerns. Which we don't know, if he did or didn't voice out.

    So, tell me, in an working environment where you don't go home before your boss and don't speak up to them unless asked, how could you refuse to do something asked be a director without loosing your job?

    I wouldn't call that money hungry. Just human.

• I wonder if this contributed to the slide in the ratings for the second episode; let's see if the decline continues next week.

  Speaking of Im Sung-han, even Marriage Lyrics is not doing as hot as the previous season since it has to go up against Mine and Bossam.

• I hope kdrama stop with the season thing. I watch kdrama before because they only have 1 season so usually the plot still make sense.

  Everyone know any drama will never be as good as first season. They should stop after two season. The plot gonna be nonsense when it strech too long.

  • secret forest

    • Secret forest 1st season was way superior that 2nd season.

  • Amen

• i am frustrated with the writer to waste the logan lee chracter like that.i rather choose logan lee to died forever than bring back his chracter as twinny like that.arghh common they lost the momentum.hurm..lee jiah also comeback with her doopelganger and now park eun seok comeback as twin

• I think this apology is right, I'm not with the people who says he shouldn't apologize because he isn't the writer. To apologize is correct...but on tiktok? not where the mayority of people was demanding his apology?...Really, he's again in another controversy, didn't he or his agency think twice?

• I'm glad he apologized, but I think the blame lies with the writers 100%.

• Dressing up in another person's cultural clothing and hairstyle is not cultural appropriation and never will be. If it was non Americans can stop wearing heana now and non westerners and ditch their entire wardrobes now too. The way you wear another cultures clothes can sometimes be tacky but it ia not the crime virtue signallers are making it out to be. Assimilating other cultures innovations and giving them your own tweak has long been the way humamity has developed. What next? Are we going to call it cultural appropriation when eating another cultures food or speaking their language?

  • To me it was less cultural appropriation and more a racist stereotype/cartoon. It was so unnecessary.

  • You completely missed the train. But keep waiting, another one will come by.

    • If it was the common sense train I caught it, thank you very much.

• There is a difference between wearing "local clothes" and what we saw in Penthouse. Though it is surprisingly common seeing non-black people with dreadlocks but maybe if it wasn't for it...

  When I was in Japan, I rented a great kimono for an entire day and was walking the lengths and breaths of Kyoto. And I looked good - so many Japanese people told me so lol. I ended up putting a picture of me dressed in it on FB as my profile and got accused of cultural appropriation. By a white western person. Who also accused me of putting Nazi images because I put up a stone statue with a swastika on it.