Aesthetics and realism in BL manhwas
I find it interesting that of all the BL manhwas I have ever read, not a single character was written to have had plastic surgery. Which is funny because all of these characters are always described as being super good looking. The hyperbolic description is always the same, they don't even look normal pretty, but movie star or k-pop star level good looking. The need for such a description on the writer's side seems pretty realistic given how appearance obsessed South Korea is. It's an effective selling point. South Korea has the highest rate of plastic surgeries in the world, more than US, about one in 25 people. Women lead of course, but men aren't that far behind. Plastic surgery is extremely normalised and often given as graduation gifts to students and are not only encouraged but even celebrated. I don't want to think what plain looking people have to go through in such a society. What's more tragic is that people are influenced by the specific beauty standards promoted by k pop and k dramas, which are essentially designed after a pedophile man's tastes. Johnny Kitagawa was a Japanese music mogul who owned numerous talent agencies for many boy bands in japan. He would also make the artists take hormones to keep them looking young, and he raped all of them. The music flourished and influenced the beauty standards in korea as well. And now people go out of their way to look like little boys and girls. Beauty standards for women have always been designed after pedophilic tastes. Now its the same for men as well. This is one of the reasons why I hate it when ukes are made to look like feminine little vulnerable boys, i find the lensing extremely problematic. I expect fan service in BLs of course, but more often than not, creators go overboard. There are other themes that BL manhwas use that are realistic, such as school bullying which is very rampant in korea. So it's not like writers don't inject realism in their stories, they won't read convincing or believable otherwise. But more often than not, writers seek convenience, flash and not logic or realism. Stories, good stories, are supposed to reflect the lived experiences of people and society, and most manhwas don't do justice to it. There is only one manhwa I have read where the uke had himself douched before sex. Only one. It also has a female character who says, as long as the guy is good looking, the rest can be ignored. And I have read other manhwas where the female characters were written to think like this.
The excessive emphasis on looks and the shallow relationship standards pushed by a lot of BL manhwas definitely need to change. Everytime I see the seme having six pack abs, not even four pack or just like a nicely toned body, but six or eight pack abs when otherwise he is an extremely busy guy who doesn't even have time to eat or some semes even proclaim that they hate working out, but they still have bodies like professional body builders. Lol. It not only goes against the character traits given to them but also reads and looks silly. Hope it all gets better with time.
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I like how you described your dislike for the infantilised bottom trope without being misogynistic. You link it to its real root (pedophilia). Some people think that as long as they're calling out problematic tropes, they can say whatever they want. And you often hear them say stuff like "the bottom looks/acts like a woman." What even is "acting like a woman"? What they're referring to is being a doormat, having no personality, accepting abuse, not defending themselves etc etc. it's shocking to me since most BL consumers are women themselves. Do they really not go outside that much that all their exposure to women comes from misogynistic media? They think they're smart because they're critical of certain portrayals but readily accept that woman = passive, submissive, empty, emotional, timid, indecisive, doormat... Idk how they don't realise that these portrayals are caricatures and exaggerations of femininity and if these authors intended their characters to be modelled after "being a woman" then they have a very warped view of women. Readers are so caught up criticising bad characterisation because they believe the characters are written as self-insert for women they don't stop and question how the authors, and they themselves, view women.
I think there's some misunderstanding here. It's not that they are criticising characterization of ukes because they 'act' like women. The problem is that women are typically portrayed as weak, agencyless and submissive in misogynistic media which translates to the misogyny in BLs as well as ukes are often written in the image of "stereotypical misogynistic portrayal of women". It's not that the readers think badly of women, it's the very opposite. What it actually means is that they hate this type of characterization of women which essentially comes from a misogynistic outlook, which is totally understandable. Additionally, both women and ukes are often written to have the most tragic backgrounds which are then used as a plot device to justify their submissiveness, timidity, or complacency to the seme and the world. There's even a literary term for this, it's called fridging or 'women in refrigerators" (it's not a coincidence that the term itself includes the word women) where women are written facing overwhelmingly disproportionate harm which then is used as a plot device. And more often than not, writers don't justify it intelligently and their tragic backgrounds become a commercial tool for cheap and uninspired titillation.
I think we might have different types of readers in mind because the ones I'm talking about are of the "ugh I read BL cause I wanna see 2 men, not a man and a woman with a poorly attached dick" variety. I don't sense any critical thinking from these types and their comments give the impression that they implicitly accept the stereotypes. There are plenty of readers who are genuinely critical of these depictions though and it's evident from the language they use. They don't describe the bottoms as "woman-like" but as typical shojo protagonists. My issue is that some people have a really hard time being critical without sounding misogynistic in the process. I don't think it's a stretch to say that misogyny is very rife in the BL fandom with the way people react to minor side female characters who dare be emotional or, god forbid, get in the way of their ship. They don't blame the authors for reducing female characters to plot devices that spark jealousy to further the MCs' relationship, but you'll see them calling these characters every dehumanising slur that was ever made up to degrade women. I understand the readers you're describing and they're very valid. I've read so many stories where the bottom doesn't even feel like a human being and is very clearly only written with tropes in mind, and that these tropes come from misogynistic depictions of women which themselves come from infantalising and dehumanising societal expectations of women. The problem starts when people conflate the real thing with the stereotype and I've come across these people far too often over the years to know that's just how they think. Plenty of female readers have internalised misogyny unfortunately.
@___ i have firsthand experience of how people on here hate to acknowledge the problematic elements of what they like to read and see in this readership. They also HATE to take accountability for what they think and believe.
Yeah sometimes the characters' aesthetics dont look traditionally korean. However it's difficult to tell because most of the plastic surgeries men and women go for in korea are modeled after white people aesthetics and not korean. Like double eyelid surgery to get rid of monolids, rhinoplasty for a straighter nose and jaw surgery to get v shaped jawline. So I don't know if that is the inspiration behind these designs or the original source. Either way, it's not a very comforting thought. Like these days, more and more Hollywood and music industry celebrities in US look the same, they all look like kim kardashian clones. Most of them don't even look good, they look like what you called unnatural uncanny valley humanoids. To imagine there will come a day everyone will look the same, brrrrr.
This was such an interesting read, thank you for sharing. I definitely have to agree with how superficial a majority of the BL manhwas are - and that too to the point I don't consider the characters drawn in such stories to be human at all some times, what with their over masculinization/feminization. These no-brainers or "leave your brain outside" type manhwas are what got the BL industry booming in recent years so they're sticking with the formula, no matter what other possibilities outlie it.
This is not to say there aren't any good ones out there - because there are and they speak for themselves.
I also wish to see more variation and diversity in the genre, hopefully as they get more influenced by queer media from the west.
Another thing which I find really unrealistic is the lack of vers, there's always been this exclusivity which needs to be stated beforehand about the characters "roles" or "positions" in bed which feels forced more often than not. And this has also in turn influenced audiences who want to see the exclusivity Only. I've interacted with readers who get very aggressive or disturbed at just the thought of their pairing being "switch" and I'm sure that line of thinking has more been induced by staunch marketing of reader self-insert perspectives in the smut scenes more than anything else.
I really hope this changes too, because as these stories get exposed to younger audiences more and more it inculcates a more restricted and essentially misogynistic way of looking at things in them.
Agreed. I have been at the receiving end of these aggressive users you spoke about so i know what you are talking about. You go to the comment section and you always find users asking questions like - but who is the top and who's bottom??! Or - but when are they going to FUCK??!
About the marketing, I don't know, it seems like such a chicken or egg first question. I am a comparatively new user so I am not sure what the past readership was like and what their preferences were but I have seen veteran bl readers ask for more dainty ukes because that's what they are used to and that's what what they like. Maybe there's a nostalgia element, not sure. But I also don't know if no - brainer BLs are marketed because such is the demand (honestly a lot of these badly written slop stories sell better than decently written ones, which is why I never go by ratings, they are almost always deceptive) or because they want to shape readers' preferences with low effort trashy reads because it's easier and cheaper to produce. Could be the latter, like you said. However, i personally don't possess the generosity to place a lot of trust in the critical capabilities of this readership. It's almost like common sense and emotional intelligence is anathema to their nature.
See people won't really care because if you do that dude I also have recognize real life archetypes like Femboys (I said this because notice it has boys and not men )and how it's an archetype mainly about young or adolescent people. But no one's going to take it seriously. The feminine component or aspect of femboys is literally that of a young pubescent girl because there are somewhat similar in bodies (children generally have similar bodies until they puberty). But everyone and their mother is going to fight against acknowledging this because it would mean acknowledging that half of the stuff people consume isn't really normal. When it comes to comics is one thing for it to be the art style (exaggerated features etc). But it's another thing when you can clearly see major differences in characters. Not even with the main characters but with even average side characters, which make a point to show and emphasize the main character's designs(though this is not to say that I don't acknowledge that male body types come in all different shapes and forms. However, the archetype is mainly based on minors). Also when it comes to seme archetypes just notice how the live action actors look versus their comic counterparts. And also take notice of those mentally ill uncanny valley looking bodybuilders. My point being that a lot of the features that semes are drawn with aren't even really Korean sometimes. They're mostly Western features (European and sometimes African,eg sometimes I'll see a Korean illustrator using a white model as a reference and sometimes a black model as a reference using their jaw and head shape, however not using their nose)so that's why they look like that visually.