I loved your beautiful ode to A Beautiful Man. (Even as someone pretty new to BL and unfamiliar with Yaoi I felt the power of that show.)
In it you wrote in passing, "Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." If you have further thoughts on that I'm curious to hear them.
Semantic Error vs Utsukushii Kare how two BL’s tell us A LOT about Korean vs Japanese approaches to cinema
"Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." (from this post)
Ah I was referring to the KBL inclination to create a perfect bubble in which being queer is not just irrelevant and unspoken, but ironically untouchable.
As characters, JaeYoung and SangWoo can only exist within this bubble.
It renders their perfection unmoored and somewhat etherial feeling to viewers. As if they are the gods on pedestals that Hira is trying to turn Kiyoi into. There is no attempt to address the impossible nature of their existence. JaeYoung and SangWoo aren’t meant to be REAL in any way, they are meant to be fantastical - almost like mythical caricatures.
I say this not as criticism, Semantic Error is one of my favorite BLs of all time. But it is almost too perfect, as if we are watching the fae perform for us - ageless and immortal. It has no real grounding, no tether at all to reality. It is the ultimate escapism.
This is fine, I watch BL for the escapism. It’s why it got a 10/10 from me. But it’s also why it’s never whipped me into a verbal frenzy. It’s exactly as perfect as I always expected Korean BL to get to. It is the pinnacle of the mountain they have been climbing - but they never faltered on that path to perfection. They were always gonna make it. It’s what Hallyu does. They did it with music (Kpop). They did it with horror (Parasite, Squid Games). They’re doing it with romance.
But Semantic Error’s innately KBL nature renders it, in a strange way, almost the polar opposite to something like My Beautiful Man, for all they share some really stunning visual similarities in filming techniques, manga framing and staging, uses of color and light, etc...
The very perfect beauty of Semantic Error (both in visuals, execution, production, script, story arc, tropes and archetypes) is like the BL on the pedestal that A Beautiful Man is challenging within itself.
Ironically of course, My Beautiful Man, is about the harsh honest ugliness of really loving someone, Semantic Error not only has no thought to address this, by it’s very nature it could never do so, since it sits on that pedestal with nothing to tip it off (yet) and nothing to pull it down to ground (yet) because KBL is still (mostly) at the pedestal state of it’s BL journey.
Korea is focused on producing perfect BL. Which I might argue they did with Semantic Error. But as nothing more than a perfect BL. Classic. Typical. The opposite of challenging. Easy. Easily enthralling and riveting.
Utsukushii Kare is work. Work to watch. Work to tolerate. Work to understand. But it’s work I enjoy.
Japan has always farted around with that kind of thing. Japan doesn't have anything to prove. But Japan has also always been one to use film to examine itself, it’s that uncompromising point of view thing I talk about and the reason people get frustrated with Japanese cinema. It’s not about anyone but Japan.
Korea is a the opposite, it’s producing its pop culture these days explicitly with an expansion agenda. It’s all about how perfectly can they hit it so they can GET us. Like, capture us. Make us watch. Make us happy. Dazzle us with their brilliance and beauty. Lure us into the fae realm, under the green hill where time passes differently.
Often I think Japan wants us to be uncomfortable. Ironically, that’s why I have such faith and confidence in them.
But that’s also how they can surprise so beautifully. (Old Fashion Cupcake. Minato’s Laundromat. Gah.) They stay BL without shying away from difficult content, sometimes I think they stay BL so they can directly tackle it.
Korea is doing everything they can to keep themselves safe and idealized, or to keep up the appearance of that. It comes off as disingenuous at worse, unfixed and fantastical at best. Semantic Error was all this, but correct, almost mathematical. I admire the precision art of it and the targeted intent.
They are both master manipulators and I like watching manipulators at work.
But with Korea there’s always a part of me that’s like, “I see you doing it. I see what you did there. Very good.” I’m noticing how good they are.
And with Japan, occasionally, I forget to notice. I’m still surprised. Even knowing what they are capable of. Even living in the shadow of 15 years of BLs. They can still surprise.
