the way touch your heart (2019) attempted to explore and then failed to hold a consistent message about gender-based violence has me HEATED
The plotlines initially seem to say that just because a woman doesn't fit a particular expectation - why would Secretary Yang's daughter have the same coat as the bully, if she wasn't bullying? This girl who lies about everything refuses to take her charges seriously! Oh Jin Shim is a vapid, untalented actress so therefore she must be guilty of partying with drugs - that she can still be victimized; people can still be framed, bullied, and misunderstood even if they previously lie, etc.
The case of an abused woman appearing to have killed her abuser during a beating seems to explore the theme with genuinity. Is it understandable for someone to kills their abuser vs. calling for help? As Yoon Hui says herself, "should I have died instead"? Perhaps, the show hints, here is another woman being crushed by unfair social expectations...
...except, no, the abused woman actually intentionally remarried to an abusive man so she could murder him for the insurance payout, and framed a disabled man that had a crush on her to do so.
The character who comes the closest to guessing the victim's true character just so happens to be one of the most misogynistic and bullying characters in the series - Yeoreum's coworker, who mocks her upbringing, her father, and her past relationship with Se Won to her face. He also accuses her of overstepping with a case she was only given because they thought having a woman prosecutor would look better when they indict an abused woman for murder. The group of women's rights activists protesting the arrest? An inconvenience, more set dressing than an actual perspective for any of the characters to meaningfully consider.
In the first half of the show, Jung Rak puts a psychologist on the witness stand, to answer the question why a woman who has experienced abuse would ever date another abuser. By the end of the drama, this comes across less as a genuine attempt to explore the repetitive cycle of violence (and the actual reality that experiencing abuse is a risk factor for experiencing more abuse later in life), than it comes off as clumsy foreshadowing - no real victim would date an abusive man, unless it was part of a convoluted plot!
The 'framing' of a man that none of the characters are aware of, until they just so happen to cross his path, can perhaps be chalked up to poor writing - plot twists relying on coincidences that the mastermind character shouldn't have reasonably been able to rely on. But the very idea that someone would "allow themselves" to be abused, with a potential payout as a motive, is genuinely sickening.
It feels intentional that Im Yoon Hee is the only character who is depicted in scenes with significant physical injury; our beautiful main character may be drugged and stalked, but perish the thought that there be any meaningful physical or psychological depictions of that trauma.
This follows a frequent failure in media depictions of abuse, where once a character has attained the status of Victim, the narrative struggles to conceive of them as dynamic and complex enough to experience joy, romance, or the full spectrum of human behavior. A Victim can't also make spoiled, selfish, ditzy mistakes; a pretty and sweet actress crushing on her boss certainly can't also have any long-term symptoms of trauma. Physical and sexual assault is reserved for characters who become almost inhuman in depiction, whether as a Victim or when that victimhood is discarded to make them the true Monster.
Abuse culture requires us to look away from the reality of violence; whether literally (dialling up the visceral discomfort of Yoon Hui's face covered with blood and bruises), or metaphorically (that same face contorting in a sneer as she reveals her true intentions, transforming her from someone we can sympathize with to someone we must despise).
In an abuse culture, a Victim isn't, in fact, a Victim - whether because her trauma can be erased within 40 minutes through the love of a good man, or because she never was one at all.
