I’ve been watching Bon Appétit, Your Majesty lately, a pretty delightful Korean time-travel drama about a Michelin-style chef who is magically pulled 500 years back in time, where she finds herself accosted by, and forcibly-hired by a despotic Joseon tyrant, who just happens to be a gourmet.
The show is hilarious and highly entertaining with its combination of slapstick and court-machinations-drama.
However, I’m anxiously awaiting the moment the show is destined to become a romance. Honestly, any episode now. The despot is played by a man too pretty to waste on a straight drama, I get it.
However, the show creators have made the choice in the early episodes to make the man entirely unredeemable. A capricious, murderous, lecherous tyrant, who threatens to murder or maim the female protagonist every ten minutes or so, is not exactly #relationshipgoals.
Looking at the moon wistfully when thinking of her is somehow not enough to make us forget he was wholly entertained by a competition where the losing cooks were to have their arms sliced off (he only let them go when a whole bunch of women including his grandmother, the entire kitchen staff and the female protagonist begged him on their knees, whereupon he stormed off like a toddler in a tantrum).
‘But he bought her pretty fabric she didn’t ask for!’ One might whine. ‘He drunkenly forcibly kissed her then maintained she should be thankful!’
Now, each country has its own brand of misogyny, and I am no way qualified to place this drama within Korean conventions. I might be missing context here.
But I can’t help but wonder if, like the US romcoms from the 90s and 00s, if women aren’t being systematically primed to again accept and normalise abusive behaviour in the name of love.
He almost murdered me, therefore he didn’t, therefore he loves me, is a bit of a mental stretch, to be honest.
But the show is entertaining, the show is great, the show makes me watch and absorb and laugh, yet I hope not quite accept what it’s serving.
No matter how delicious it might be.