SBS Fri-Sat Night Drama Good Partner Ratings Stagnant Around 15% in Recent Episodes as Viewers Begin to Complain About the Push Towards Keeping Families Together with Cheating Spouse
So the South Korean conservative culture remains strong despite in modern times divorce being more and more acceptable and even adultery being decriminalized. SBS Fri-Sat night legal drama Good Partner dealing with a family law firm started off very strong with increasing ratings each week up to a high of 17%. But the last three episodes dropped and is now averaging 15% and with it comes complaints about the storyline, namely that the drama appears to be using the child of a divorcing couple due to infidelity by the dad always missing the dad to make it seem like divorce is a bad idea even in this situation. While its normal for a child of divorcing parents to miss one parent when with the other, this drama appears to be making it extra obvious with the kid always asking for the dad when with her mom moreso than usual, with the implication that a family is only complete when the parents are together regardless of any reason.
And terrible timing too, with the discovery of the telegram rooms with SA on sisters, mothers etc as well as testimonies of some of the victims, especially minors.
South Korea has a huge problem with a conservative, misogynistic society. I find it harder and harder to watch pretty dramas when atrocities happen irl.
Atrocities happen everywhere.Some just hide it better then others.
No, we are talking about so called developed countries, not Afghanistan.
Show me a country where things like the nth room and the huge rooms discovered on Telegram now exist and are so systematically organised. These are massive numbers of men engaged is sexual assaults of women with little to no consequences in Korea. The last number for Telegram I saw was over 200000. There was also a new nth room on a smaller scale. This is not “everywhere”.
I agree, for the most part. It’s crazy how so many men – young men at that, not some pervert grandpa- engage in stuff like that. And then the Korean society acts all coy and righteous if a 30 year old unmarried actor is found to be dating a 30 year old unmarried actress. Or if an idol is too drunk to stay on his e-scooter.
It’s a problem on a societal scale. It would require a large, years worth undertaking by the government to get changed going but how do you start that when the government is extremely conservative?
I have so much respect for Korean women that are trying to get change going because the abuse and threats they face are horrible yet they are still doing it.
@Hmm I think ur comment is unrelated to the drama and these complaints are just baseless, but to elaborate more on ur comment ab SA rooms ,I would say the biggest prb is not the conservative society, cuz there are other conservative societies other than Korean where you don’t see this crazy phenomenon, the reason of spread of AS room is lAW, in Korea,R**e and SA can be solved with money settlement which not only pushed by the predator but by police and prosecutors and even judges, I am puzzled how a serious crime like this can be settled with money, in my opinion any crime that can settle with money is not a serious crime
I have a friend who SH in a club in SK and the police keep trying to convince her to just settle with a predator.
Pingback:SBS Fri-Sat Night Family Law Drama Ratings Stagnant Around 15% in Recent Episodes as Viewers Begin to Complain About the Push Towards Keeping Families Together with Cheating Spouse | Parlour News Korea
I don’t get the complaints. The parents are divorced, the child is having a hard time adjusting and is hurt. These aren’t abnormal things. It’s pretty normal reactions during transition from a married to divorced family. Koreans complain about the most absurd things. Divorce is messy, being honest about it doesn’t mean that divorce is a bad thing.
I haven’t watched the show so I can’t tell. But if the viewers complain, maybe the drama is showing the mother having second thoughts and actually considering staying with a deceiving and cheating husband so that the kid stops complaining?
They are saying that a woman should stay married to a husband who is cheating on her because of the child.
Which is absolutely wrong because it’s not just the woman who will suffer but the child learns unhealthy relationship modes which will be reflected later on in their adult lives. Staying “for the children” is the worst possible solution for both the woman and kids.
There were situations though that seemed too much like when her daughter got hurt on their first mom daughter time.. the nurse all of a sudden emphasized the absence of the girls father and that sparked the girl to tantrum and fret over her father not being there and lash out at her mom. It’s understandable for her to miss her dad but the overall situation seemed out of place with the nurses input at that moment. In a way insinuating her efforts are wasted and almost implying as a matter of fact they need the husband there because that is the lay of their land or Korea. It’s the underlaying double standards. I agree they overdid it a bit but that might simply be her trying to show both sides of the situation or their cultural perspective. No matter what her victory in gaining custody the prejudices will remain at the end of the day. They just did this so awkwardly is all. Everyone thinks she might either give the father custody or God forbid get with the husband which is so absurd but the vibes it is giving for now makes it seem so. Hence the annoyance from viewers.
@Rero
Korea is patriarchal. The nurse saying that BS to her face or her company wanting to fire her because of her divorce is reality women in SK face. Why can’t they show reality of things. Eun Kyung was the bread winner of the family. The transition is hurting the child so much because the dynamics in their household was different. Eun Kyung had the role of the traditional father while her ex filled in the emotional spot. I don’t think showing how she and her daughter her having trouble adjusting is the most unrealistic here. I think they are complaining because its a bit more realistic than it is fantastical.
My issue is they never put the child in first. I don’t know if it’s the law or the drama. But for the father case who discovered he wasn’t the father, in my country, the justice would have taken the child happiness in consideration and let him be the father. In the case of the FL, they could have made a 50-50 custody, it’s usual when both parents can assume it financially and the kid is not too young. But they need a winner… it’s really weird.
This post is completely misleading. Out of all those messages written in Korean that have been posted, only THREE are complaining about the father being mentioned. And if you watch the show, you will see that the show makes it clear that the divorce was the right choice and the only choice in this situation, but that divorce is still very painful for everyone, including the child. There is no implication at all that the “family is only complete when the parents are together regardless of any reason.” Please stop lying and mischaracterizing Korean media assuming that your readers can’t read Korean.
Seems Koala likes comments too much
No, it’s pretty clearly another attempt at biased commentary about Korean society.
The complaints are ridiculous, the child is missing her dad who was mostly the one who raised her, and it always shows how ppl always ask for the dad and reminds the child that she has one parent now, it’s a reminder for ppl to mind their business and stop discriminating against a child of divorced parents, I never felt they were promoting staying with cheating husbands; it’s the opposite they really took a realistic approach of divorce where everyone have something to lose even if they win not like other dramas.
World of the married showed it even more than that – the kid wanted to stay with a dad and asked mom to forgive him. And mother was ready to bring a psychological trauma on her son to make him stay with her and to make him hate the dad. And she did it. It was really frustrating to watch, and many things happened for 18 episodes, female lead even wanted to reunite with cheating husband on some episodes. But full picture known only if you watch all episodes, not to make assumptions by 1-2 episodes during show or by some scenes you don’t like. And the main topic was – child was a main victim in that drama, not because of divorce, but because of how parents faced it. And parents should be responsible to soft their divorce for him, not to make things worse, they need to care about his feelings.
I didn’t watch Good partner yet, but by comments it seems drama showed realistic thing – for a kid it would be hard at first times, and as a parent you need to comfort them. I never ever saw a drama where wife reunited with a cheating husband. It’s hard to believe they would bring this topic in a drama about divorces.
Ugh, reading this reminded me of that family drama called, “Beautiful Love, Wonderful Life” minus the kid part. The second couple’s ending was horrendous! 2nd FL chose her cheating ex husband OVER the 2nd ML who did everything to help her move on from that toxic relationship. Some people were even rooting for that ex husband and in the end writer made her chose him. Like what just happened?…So, she didn’t went through sh** and all the times spent with 2nd ML was nothing? Her mother in law was a b***h and her ex husband was a coward and as*h**e but nope, lets make her end up with him. Sighs.
This drama was really bad…
The big sister never helped her sister who was bullied. She was just thinking at marrying a rich guy. When she became a person we could like, they made her returning with her bad husband.
I sympathized with the FL lead so much more than the daughter. I myself got divorced (learnt only a year after the divorce that he was cheating for 13+ years) and at the time I did not even understand clearly why I must get divorced right in the midst of a miscarriage and emotional break down and 4 children! and the ex-husband walked out of the marriage citing that I am a horrible person who does not respect his mother’s wishes ( S. Korea is not the only country with horrid mother-in-laws) and then I had to travel to Italy for a conference and I ended up crying my eyes out in the airports when seeing parents with children traveling! out of my 4 children, only the oldest 19 y.o had a total break-down when she learnt her father’s cheating. I blocked everyone and everything from our lives while trying to recover. So the show portrayed it well. It is interesting and equally devastating that cheating spouses accuse the victim for the reasons they cheated instead of apologizing for causing so much trauma and financial losses!
I’m sorry to hear of what you went through. yes a divorce is better than getting back with a cheating husband. psychologically, the party having the affair will try to deny any wrongdoing. there’re other cues/behaviors as well. I’ve yet to watch Good Partner, waiting for it to finishing airing before I binge watch.