Does life imitate art, or is it the other way around? The lines between them seem to be growing increasingly thin, especially since the advent of the digital age and social media. Furthermore, for digital natives, the post-analogue generation, life seems to have shifted to digital spaces. This is particularly true for influencers, YouTube stars, TikTokers, and their dedicated followers, for whom life unfolds on their platforms. Distinguishing between what is real and what is fabricated often feels futile.

Two young Korean actors and YouTubers imitate two of the most equally loved, revered, and gossiped-about actors, Kim Soo-mi and Youn Yuh-jung, in their hilariously satirical videos. In one video, Kim plays the role of a complaining customer of an e-commerce retailer from which she recently ordered pork belly, while Youn portrays a call center agent. Kim expresses dissatisfaction with the delivery, insisting that her order has not arrived, but Youn suspects that Kim has eaten the already delivered pork. Their non-stop laughter-inducing phone conversation is something that could happen between a fraudulent customer and a sharp tonged customer service rep. While listening to it, however, one cannot help but wonder what this is really about. It is clear that they are not joking about e-commerce and call center agents. Do they give a cynical look at real-life Kim and Youn? Or are they trying to make a point about the true nature of the field in which these two established actors have worked for the last 50 years or so? 

At the end of the video, feeling outwitted and exposed for her true intention of seeking a refund for pork she had already eaten, Kim blurts out to Youn, ‘You Minari b**ch. ‘Minari’ being the title of the film in which Youn played a dying old woman and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2021, the prospect of reviewing their careers in light of this acidic tit-for-tat seems tantalizingly tempting. Both began their acting careers as contract talents for TV stations. Youn was then quickly picked up by Kim Ki-young, one of the masters in the golden age of Korean cinema, and starred in Fire Woman, which earned her the accolade of Best Actress at the Sitges Film Festival in 1971. Fame slowly approached Kim Soo-mi in 1980 when she took on the role of a granny with a short fuse and a heart of gold for Farm House Diary (1980–2002, Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation). Despite being only 32, her portrayal of an old lady who didn’t hesitate to share her views, whether asked or not, charmed the nation.

Kim was, in a way, a victim of her own success. She became trapped in a typecast wheel-cage, caricaturing old country women until she reached the actual old age of those she was mimicking. Arguably though, the image of the stubborn battle-ax became part of her public persona. Meanwhile, Youn moved to the US, married a pop singer, and then returned to Korea divorced with two children in 1984. It is hard to summarize her acting trajectory afterwards; Youn played the roles of a psychotically power-obsessed matriarch, an old prostitute, a sexually repressed housewife seeking solace in a young man, and so on. But she created a niche of characters uniquely her own. Rule-bending, wily, resistant to control, self-centered, sometimes egotistic, but in many cases, following the voice of her heart, her characters simply spoke for those who struggled to live through hostile times for women.

Back to the two YouTubers. As if to capture the major opposing archetypes of women in Korean cinema—mothers vs. b**ches—their dialogue scintillatingly balances between motherly authority and willful rebellion. This is not a war of femininities, in which either of them will emerge as a clear winner, of course. It simply reveals who is gaining the upper hand in this slow and drawn-out transition to equality for the less privileged in Korea. The story continues.