I was about a year late to the party and wrote this hoping to post it when season 2 was announced but uh... Anyway I'll just go ahead and post it because it lives in my brain space. What follows is primarily a breakdown of the queer subtext in Begins Youth, particularly Cein, Jeha, and Mingook. And also reminder that you can't apply your own cultural lens and norms to another culture's media and complain that it doesn't measure up to your standards of those norms or topics because it's not following your rules, you were not the target audience.
This is about the rumblings I keep seeing about Cein and Jeha's relationship being "queerbaiting". Hello all, I have lived in Korea, I speak Korean, I went to Seoul Pride and have interfaced with the actual queer community in Korea. This is absolutely NOT queerbaiting. It almost never is when people say queerbaiting, but 1) you can't really queerbait in a country that's hostile enough to gays that don't and can't represent a significant enough population (including allies) to be a marketing niche. You not only can't make money by appealing to them, you stand to LOSE a lot of money by outright supporting them, and the actors involved are likely to receive a ton of hate that could potentially ruin their careers even if they maintain that they're just acting. And 2) this situation could be described at best as queer-coding, but frankly I'd argue it goes farther than that, most westerners just aren't familiar enough with the very underground Korean queer scene and all the subtler insinuations Koreans would immediately pick up on.
I will explain! First, I was very disappointed by the scene between Hwan and Cein wherein it seems like Hwan is confessing to Cein and Cein's response is very "haha GAY"/doing that "ew dont touch me perv" motion. I was like damn, we're really doing that kinda joke in 2024? In the HYYH DRAMA? WITH MIN YOONGI'S CHARACTER?? BUT. My opinion changed later on. I still think it would have been funnier for Cein to just kindly decline him, but the way they did it was likely either for plausible deniability later (again, rather than queerbaiting, they actively CANNOT confirm a gay relationship because it would alienate a lot of viewers) or to show Cein's internalized homophobia/him hiding his sexual orientation with strong, fear-based rebuttal. Note that he doesn't know Hwan well yet at this point. Note that they're IN PUBLIC. Moving on to my evidence the show was actually being very progressive.
On a subtextual level, you have Jeha stalking Cein on his phone like an overly attached girlfriend, hanging off his arm (like couples) and even barging into his- specifically HIS out of all the friend group's- classroom to flip out because he hasn't been answering his texts. You could take these all at face value. Take it or leave it, that's how subtext works. Straight people would see one thing, harmless, queer people would read it another way.
But then the show continues and I was very surprised. Cein finds out about the tracker and truly I think he was just pissed that it tipped off the principal about his investigation, but he texts Jeha that it's creepy. Again, subtext. Gross, people might get the wrong idea, but he doesn't go any further and call Jeha any names like many Korean men would. Then Jeha comes to his classroom to apologize, and here's where it gets interesting:
It's not about what they say to each other at all, rather it's about what the people AROUND them are saying. As this is happening, as Cein storms out, onlookers begin asking, "are they dating or something?" and talking about the tracking app, just like an overly attached girlfriend, just like the subtext led us, only now, they are VOCALLY telling you that is behavior is aberrant, that this would be viewed as homosexual in their own society and the world of the show. If the show doesn't acknowledge the behavior is strange, but the audience may or may not take it as such, it's subtext. If the show outright tells you, this shit is pretty gay,
It's fucking gay, and they wanted you to know that. But the scene doesn't end there. No, then we hear Jeha's stepbrother responding to hearing about this decidedly gay behavior by referring to him as cute, which his own friends are like, "... Huh? Also I thought you hated him?" and what follows is the scene in Cein's old house.
Holy jesus, the entire scene in Cein's old house. I have never seen a more homosexual display in my life. We need to talk about Mingook again.
Mingook has it out for Jeha. This was about his place in the family, trying to maintain his own father's love, or so we thought, but suddenly he starts monologuing and a different picture emerges. He says he hates Jeha and he wants to, needs to make him miserable because he couldn't stand the thought of them being happy together. Them meaning Cein and Jeha. But wait, there's more.
If you felt like Mingook was make some insinuations about their relationship in this scene by saying things like, "what are you to each other?" congratulations, you were right on the money. But did you know he makes a very pointed statement using a known Korean gay organization?
Probably not. Because the translation you're given is "birds of a feather". Exactly written as that, with quotations in the official sub. Two things struck me immediately: 1) the quotation marks really weren't necessary, or were they? Everyone knows birds of a feather, similar types of people, it's a very common idiom so unless it was an approximation and the korean was different, a different idiom with the same meaning, it wouldn't need quotes because no one would misunderstand. The translation isn't direct, in fact, but I'll explain that in the second part. 2) I recognized the Korean itself and thought I'd heard it before specifically in a queer context, like this was one of those euphemisms that everyone knew meant gay. I was right. I looked up the actual Korean phrase and found this:
“When social discourse claims that one does not exist, or in other words, when one is coerced into remaining...
Mind you it was pretty buried, but I'm relentless like that. Anyway, the term Mingook uses is 끼리끼리, which can be used to mean similar people, basically the same as birds of a feather, but it also just so happens to be the name of the first Korean Lesbian organization ever established. If he just wanted to call them similar, losers, equals at the bottom of the social ladder or what not, there are maaaaaaaaany alternative phrases, but he uses that one. In quotations. And he does because 1) he's trying to force Cein to get so angry he hits him, or have to defend his own honor, and perhaps 2) Mingook sees shades to their relationship that he can't stand. Shades that make him jealous. And that's where we move on to my last point.
Another subtextual thing I'd like to point out is that all three of these boys have similar family dynamics which also deeply echo the gay experience- they were or are closer to their mother, and their current father figure is a strict, hyper-masculine person they don't know how to relate to or stop disappointing. Cein's military dad is the emotional equivalent of a rock, he may as well be a wall, and he was hard on his mom about her depression, which now he has. Mingook's dad is patriarchal, rich, competitive- and violent. Everything (barring the last one, technically) a traditional Korean man should be. Jeha's dad is AWOL, abandoned the family in HYYH lore. Now he has Mingook's dad in his place. But see, there's weight to this interpretation because Cein even points out that Mingook's reasoning makes no sense. His story about his mom dying- ok sure, great sob story and we've all got one, but Jeha could make the exact same argument about his dad. Only he's not doing all this psycho stuff.
So then what is the underlying message about Mingook's reasons here? Well from Mingook's perspective, he's done everything right. He gets good grades, he puffs his chest out and bullies weaker men to assert himself, he does sports with dad, he has friends at school. He should be fine. But Jeha? Jeha is a waifey twink that neurotically follows a group of upperclassmen around. He gets terrible grades and he has no dad. He clings onto Cein relentlessly, even stalks him, but they still don't cut him off. Cein still showed up to protect him. He's somehow becoming dad's favorite. He should be bullied mercilessly, he should be friendless and unable to smile. But he isn't because somehow he's made friends that accept him as he is. Somehow he's endeared this upperclassman to him so much that he lets him get away with behavior that makes everybody wonder in public and will drop anything to come protect him.
I can't stand to see you two happy together.
Happy "together"? Why these two?
I strongly believe it's because the show wants us to know that all three of these characters are gay. And they have gone out of their way to more than queer-code it with flamboyant gestures or haircuts, but to thoroughly and frequently imply as far as they possibly can without saying the word.
Oh and the nail painting? Gay. Unless you're into glam rock, men in Korea do not do that. Idols get enough flack for admitting they get manicures.
Cein getting drunk and hallucinating Jeha smiling at him because they've been separated for a while?? I think you'd be very hard pressed to find a heterosexual explanation for that.
In short, for this ridiculously long post, there's a whole boatload of Korean cultural context that is SCREAMING these characters are gay, but they are unlikely to come right out and say it. Especially in season one, not because they're queerbaiting and they want to cultivate a gay audience for profit, but because the culture is genuinely anti-gay enough that if they did, it would be a mess. Also, the actor playing Jeha was under 18 when they filmed and is just now nearing 19, so there is absolutely no way they would have him say, kiss the adult male actor playing Cein. FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. I still doubt it would happen in future seasons if we get them, but perhaps we'll get even more delicious subtext until all the characters and actors are older and then, if Hybe has some big ole balls, maybe they'll say fuck it we have enough money to fund this ourselves and make a canon queer couple but eh... It's not likely.
All that said, I'm not a homegrown Korean gay myself, so correct me if you are and I got anything wrong, but from everything I can glean it seems it was entirely the intention of the show writers to tell this story within in the constraints of threadbare plausible deniability. And I think they did an absolutely brilliant job at it.
