Love in the Big City Part 1: It's Gay
We’ve finally made it to the Love in the Big City TV adaptation. Despite all the drama going on around this show’s release, we got the whole show at once. We won’t get canceled midway through. Though I hoped for a global weekly release schedule, I understand the decisions that led to dropping the whole thing at once. Thankfully, Nam Yoon Su is so charismatic as Go Yeong, and I have much to say about how this show doesn’t hate BL, has great regard for the humanity of its characters, and so far is one of the better adaptations I’ve experienced in my life.
Nam Yoon Su’s Go Yeong
I just want to state plainly that I love how queer Go Yeong feels in this show. I love his pissy little expressions. I love his frustration and anger at gross straight men. I love his gay little run. I love his dancing in the street to girl pop artists. I love him making out with men in public.
I loved opening with Yeong in the midst of a new fling and openly having lots of sex before the military boyfriend came back home. I loved Yeong ending things before later going to a club to seek new partners. We haven’t had that in so long, with Queer as Folk being the biggest cultural memory for many.
More than anything, I love how lonely he felt. Many others have noted it in the tag, and I think that’s the part that resonates when something feels queer for a lot of us. It was notable that they brought Yeong’s friends forward this time, which gives us insight into the shallow nature of most of his relationships. His connection to them is through the club, music, and boys. Go Yeong keeps everyone at a distance. It’s the hardest part about being queer sometimes. You try to connect with others, but something always seems to come up to prevent that closeness.
Kim Nam-Gyu
I think casting Kwon Hyuk as Kim Nam Gyu was such an excellent decision. He previously played my man Jong Chan in The New Employee, and it feels like a nod from this production that they are not opposed to BL. BL is a drama full of romance tropes and huge optimism about relationships, and they cast the actor who played my favorite version of the ideal man in a way that showed empathy for his lonely, quiet nature. Casting Kwon Hyuk feels like a tactful way for this show to say, “We’re not BL, and we respect the work others are doing.” The New Employee was directed by a Korean gay activist, and I love this show giving K-BL a polite nod.
Nam Gyu is a quiet gay. As one myself, I get a lot of what I saw in Nam Gyu. He takes pictures of hot models because it’s a socially acceptable way for him to be close to hot men. He leaps at the chance to be with Go Yeong, and speed runs the intimacy route. He missed that he was smothering Go Yeong, and I think it’s because it’s clear he lacks friends.
I feel so sad for Nam Gyu, because it’s clear he overinvested in his relationship with Go Yeong. He was so ready to give Go Yeong everything, but it was way too much for a club gay. Despite all the ways he rushed in (like a fool), he was otherwise so safe in his life. He stayed in the lines everywhere, and it’s so tragic that he died while speeding.
I thought a lot about the lack of Kylie in this section and the health scare, and it adds a layer to the situation with Nam Gyu as @twig-tea pointed out in one of our conversations that Go Yeong asked how he died because he might already know his status. Did Go Yeong wonder if he’d infected Nam Gyu? It also makes me wonder about the sex we didn’t see with Nam Gyu and IG guy.
Finally, the empty funeral hurts me to my core. This man was so decent, and no one was there to see him off. I am still thinking about how all of the breakups mirrored each other in this section.
Choi Mi Ae
I think @lurkingshan already covered Mi Ae in this adaptation very well. I’ve been thinking about her for a few days, and I’ve decided that I like that we get to see more of her outside of Yeong’s POV in the show. We can see how her circumstances rattled her, and how it was clear that she couldn’t make it on her own long term.
I get her taking the cushy job. I get her finding a nice enough guy who didn’t want kids. I get her choosing to protect herself when cornered. The most tragic thing about her outing of Yeong is that she told the truth and it only seemed to make things worse. Jonho could never understand the solace she and Go Yeong found in each other, and he was not ready to ever hear the truth of Mi Ae’s life.
I feel more sympathy for Mi Ae in this version because we can see that their relationship meant so much to her. Learning that he actually went on to become a writer touched her because it feels like he’ll immortalize a time in their lives that was mutually important to them. It also means that one of them may not have to settle for the choices available to them. The singing at the wedding hits so painfully here because it’s the last fun memory these two will ever have. Yeong goes back to the apartment Mi Ae left for him to eat the last of their blueberries, and that’s the last we’ll see of her.
Final Thoughts
I’m so relieved that we have book club discussion again. I’ll be reading and reblogging people’s posts, and I’m looking forward to the next part to see how Hyung fits into the show’s narrative. This adaptation has been so beautiful so far, and it’s been really great to see how the show has softened some of its edges by putting us in third person perspective. We are giving room to understand Mi Ae, Nam Gyu, and the T-aras by not seeing them exclusively through Yeong’s eyes.
