A genderqueer reading of Coffee Prince
I wanted to examine why I keep coming back to a show I first watched 12 years ago and why it seemed to mean so much to me. I think it's because I saw in this show an extremely raw portrayal of the struggles I have felt as a genderqueer person, which is wild for a Korean show from 2007. While I rewatched, it was so clear to me that Eun Chan is genderqueer and many of her struggles are not only about her relationship with the love interest, but her relationship with her own gender.
A brief synopsis: Eun Chan is mistaken for a man, and ends up going along with it and getting a job under these pretenses in coffee shop. She ends up falling in love with her boss, Han Gyul, who still thinks she is a man. Han Gyul is also falling in love, but really struggles with the fact that this would make him gay. He eventually decides he is willing to face homophobia to be with Eun Chan. She then decides to reveal to him the truth, but it is Eun Chanās struggle with having to confess this which feels so familiar and painful to a genderqueer person.
Eun chan has forgotten shes in a lie, she is not in disguise like other gender bending shows, she is just being herself, wearing what she wants to wear, acting how she wants to act It is others who place her in a binary, and assume she is a man. She says right out, āI'm not a guy nor a girl", and she is terrified of what that means.
So when Han Gyul says āWhether youāre a man or an alien, I donāt care anymoreā, how can she not run with that? All she is feeling in that moment is relief, you can see it in the way she hugs him.
She does feel like an alien, that much is clear from how she describes herself, and the soundtrack brilliantly confirms this ā āI feel like an alien, not part of the human race...it should be such a simple thingā (Alien, by Arco). This song plays when both of them are in the car together, it could refer to Han Gyul, coming to terms with being attracted to who he thinks is a man, or to Eun Chan, who feels she exists outside of the binary.
When Han Gyul finally asks her if she really is a woman, she is reluctant to answer. Some might interpret this hesitation as fear of his anger, but it could also be that she doesnāt want to admit to and be punished for something she doesnāt even feel to be true. He has to ask multiple times because she doesnāt answer, and finally she only slightly nods her head, looking sad and scared.
Later, he begs her to say its not true, that she isnāt a woman. Again, she cant answer to confirm or deny, all she can say is āIām sorryā, and she breaks down. He is so angry at her for being something she doesnāt even feel herself to be. He said heād love her if she was a man or alien, but he doesnāt want her to be a woman. The one thing she never felt like she was sheās now being punished for.
When Han Gyul finally comes around and says heās actually glad sheās a girl, her face says it all.
There are many more hints that she doesnāt feel that she conforms to femininity. She said right from the beginning, that he would never like āsomeone like meā, showing she had a preexisting view of herself before she ever got involved in this whole thing.
You can see she has internalized this failure to conform, saying its her fault for looking the way she does. She is not shocked when his grandmother called her a thing, She has become used to being treated poorly as she has not conformed her whole life. But Han Gyul gets angry having to grapple for this first time with non-conformity.
Although Han Gyul has a lot of issues, he does have to get some credit for eventually coming out of the woman-man binary thinking he fell into earlier. He realizes she was born this way, and when he shops for a ring for her, he tells the shopkeeper āshe is not feminineā and buys her a simple band.
One final thing Iāll mention is the music choice, again. The song that keeps returning at different points is a beautifully sad song with the lyrics āAnd now Iāve travelled across the ocean, with the same shoes, just longer hairā. At the end she does come back from overseas with longer hair, making her seem more feminine. But she remains the same, and you have to hope Han Gyul realizes she is still the same person, existing outside of a binary, and he is at peace with that.
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