The psychology of Coffee House (Part 1)

As I've already mentioned a billion times in this blog, Korean Drama Coffee House pretty much took over my entire summer.

What is Coffee House? Coffee House is a romantic comedy about a writer, Lee Jin Soo, his publisher, Seo Eun Young and his secretary Kang Seung Yeon. Seo Eun Young's ex, Han Ji Won, a director of a company, makes up the usual quadrangle.

Sounds like the typical kdrama romantic comedy set up? Yes.

Kdramas usually have:
A naive or spunky lead girl
The cold/arrogant lead man
The cold/arrogant lead man's best friend, cousin, brother, sunbae (senior) etc etc (Second lead man)
The cold/arrogant man's ex-girlfriend, first love, crush, or best friend/younger friend who's always loved him. (Second lead woman)

The usual set up is that after a whole bunch of drama, the leads find true love. Generally, on this bumpy road to love, the lead man puts the lead woman through hell and she finds solace and warmth with the second lead who pines for her and loves her unconditionally. Of course, there are times the second lead turns evil, like in Delightful Girl Choon Yang but more often than not, he loves her and gets nothing in return.

The second lead girl on the other hand is a very jealous, spiteful girl who will stop at nothing to try to get the man. In most cases, the arrogant man starts the drama in love with the second lead girl but she's arrogant or a bitch or takes him for granted or whatever it is. However, when his focus starts to shift to the main girl, she becomes a jealous psycho. Sometimes, the second girl isn't mean and is just unhappy at losing her love (like in My Fair Lady).

What are the character relationships in Coffee House?
Lee Jin Soo and Seo Eun Young have a 10 year friendship.
Lee Jin Soo and Han Ji Won have also known each other for at least 10 years. Ji Won is Jin Soo's sunbae.
Kang Seung Yeon is a clueless, spunky, naive girl who meets Lee Jin Soo at the very beginning of episode one. So at first glance, this is the classic kdrama romantic comedy set up.

LJS = lead man
KSY = lead girl
SEY = second lead girl
HJW = second lead man

Like in all kdrama rom coms (and American ones too), LJS and KSY have a meet-cute. SY's family runs a failed coffee shop that JS walks into one fine day. A bunch of stuff happens including SY being locked in the restroom. Other stuff occurs and this leads to SY becoming JS's secretary.

While the first episode introduces Jin Soo and Eun Young's relationship and we get to see they are business associates as well as frienemies, we are also introduced to Seung Yeon's family. Oh, and did I mention that the spunky girl is generally poor and from a loud, "funny" and happy family just like Seung Yeon's?

Kdramas have the stereotype of rich people being unhappy and/or boring but poor people being lively and fun. So part of the appeal of this set up of the arrogant, rich guy meeting the poor, spunky girl is the poor girl opens his world and he starts to live. He's no longer so uptight and closed off in his rich world and gets to see the world through her more "real" eyes. I don't know why this stereotype exists in dramas. If the rich are so uptight, boring and don't "live," why do so many people covet their lifestyles? Or does this stereotype exist to make the general masses feel better about their social and financial status? And is it true that poor people are somewhat satisfied with their status and manage to be happy and lead full lives despite it? Because more often than not, the poor family is full of love and happiness while the rich family is cold with a whole bunch of drama.

Anyway, I digress. So Coffee House starts off the usual way except for that lead man and supposed second lead girl's relationship. What's different about it? In most cases, the lead man has a crush on the second lead girl but she's never paid him much attention. Or they were previously in a relationship. Or she's always had a crush on him but he was never interested. There's the rare case where the second lead girl and lead man aren't involved in a love triangle but that's not what this discussion is about.

Moving on... instead of the usual set up, what we have is the frienemy set up which is quite common in romantic comedies. In rom-coms, the lead couple is usually at that stage in like episodes 3 or 4 although not as deep as here where it's clear that they are way more friends than enemies. The 'enemy' part of their relationship is like that of a game - it's the device they use to hide their true feelings because it becomes increasingly clear that underneath these barbs, these two don't just merely like, but care about each other deeply. So when you look at the big picture, this isn't just a case of love-hate, it's more of one of unrealized or suppressed love. That alone should tell the audience that the 'rom' part of this 'rom com' refers to the Lee Jin Soo/Seo Eun Young story, right? However, instead of providing clarity, it created both confusion and division. Why? Because the spunky, naive, clueless underdog female was very much present in this story.

To be continued...