Why Oh Soo Jae? (2022)

Good Enough

Korean Drama " Why Her ? " is an office melodrama that centers around the leading lady who dominated the whole drama.

The story has many layers, starting with a scandal that ruins the leading lady's career, and then, slowly, revealing the past and the clues for the main criminal case that binds everything together in the final episodes.

And yet, and even though the drama had many action scenes and suspenseful moments, the romance was unnecessary, cheesy, and not what the story needed. Plus, it was only there to fill in the gaps and had no pace and no smooth progress.

As for the performances, the leading lady gave a killer performance. The rest of the cast did a good job as well.

So, overall, 6 out of 10.

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DROPPED - Are we suppose to feel bad for Oh Su Jae???!!

I gave up in the middle of episode 3 when she brought up the first episode's mystery crime in the classroom.
This drama felt too insensitive and tone-deaf for me. The production quality and cast of actors were the only saving grace for me.
Either the Writers wanted the audience to find OSJ likable and failed,
OR
the Writers never intended to make OSJ likable and there's a villainous plot twist waiting near the middle or end of the drama to showcase that and confirm my suspicions.
Sadly, it looks like OSJ is meant to be pitied and rooted for, even though her pride, apathy, and 'holier-than-thou' attitude make it hard for me to stomach her non-existent virtues and ethics.
The more I watched this drama and OSJ, the more enraged and violent I got. So, I stopped watching.
Hopefully, I'll find other works of the actors to enjoy and appreciate their acting abilities. My issue is with the writing of this story and not the actors themselves.

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Is this the only topic that can be written about women?

'Why Her?' is a drama I had been looking forward to ever since it was announced, mostly because Seo Hyun Jin is one of my favorite actresses, but also because it was going to be Hwang In Yeop's first major leading role, and it had Bae In Hyuk included in the cast, both of which are new actors that I'm keeping my eye on. I hadn't read much about the plot when it was announced, nothing more than it being a story in the legal world and about a professor and student relationship. I don't really have a problem with teacher-student plots, as long as it's not set in a high school with a weird romanticization whenever they cross paths, or just look into each other's eyes, especially while solving math problems with a borderline psychopathic enthusiasm *side-eyeing Melancholia*.

Oh Soo Jae is a confident woman, who has escalated high up in the ladder by her own means, surviving in a tough male-dominated field, despite not having the expected educational background for people in her position. I'm still not sure about how to feel about this because the drama has not explained yet how she managed to land such important positions in a top 10 law firm as only a high school graduate, and I don't think a person with her qualifications can actually land a teaching job at a law school, but then again this is 1) fiction and 2) she was given the position, so it's not like connections can't solve everything in this case.

Then we have our male lead, Gong Chan, whose age we are still unclear about and I would personally love to have it addressed because I can totally ship him with a successful professor in her early(?) 30s if he's above 24 years old, maybe? But if he's any younger it would make me a bit uncomfortable. He spent one year in prison and it looks like he was already out of school when the murder of his step-sister happened, so he must be at least 22 years old, I would say? It would be nice if they throw in that he already served in the army, so that he would meet my desired age of 24, and then I would have peace of mind while watching the show.

But anyway, my problem is not really about either main character, or the story so far at all, but with a recurrent topic not only in 'Why Her?', but also thrown into many Kdramas nowadays.

Ep 1 starts with Oh Soo Jae's character introduction, showing the viewer she is a tough woman with no support from her coworkers or other colleagues even outside her law firm, except for her assistant and some guy that looks like he would kill on his boss' command, whoever that is. We see many graying middle-aged men (boooo) despising our female lead over the littlest things, and basically, just for being a capable woman in the industry, some of those trying to use her to their own convenience. We also see Oh Soo Jae on two occasions (if I recall correctly) sitting alone in the middle of her fancy apartment, once again showing the viewer that she may be tough on the outside, but she feels the loneliness of her lifestyle once she is all on her own.

The plot continues with a case of a woman suing her client over sexual harassment and this is where my problem starts. In order to understand why I find this so incredibly unnecessary and problematic, we would need to contextualize this drama in the place from where it comes: the South Korean society, where women's rights are violated multiple times, and —as mentioned in the Ep about three times, and inappropriately (in my opinion)— where the law is never on the woman's side in sexual harassment claims, as well as a place where sex crimes against women are one of the highest in the world, from 'developed countries', and where women have it overall really bad in this sense.

So we see our (flawed) female lead shaming the alleged sexual assault victim, giving her 'reality checks', making her feel even more miserable, despite the victim's attitude not being the particularly stereotyped attitude of a victim, and here is where I have another problem. Sexual assault victims are expected to be ashamed of themselves, to be depressed, to be in mental hospitals trying to recover from it, and overall visibly suffering, but if a woman is confident and recovered speedily from this horrible situation, then questions arise over whether she was actually assaulted or not. And we see this quite clearly in the show. Park So Young had a nonchalant attitude, quite relaxed, giving off a vibe that she's actually a gold digger and not a real assault victim. Now, I have two problems with it. One, as mentioned, sexual assault victims react differently to their assaults, some and most, actually, take it really badly and will need a lot of time to recover from it, if ever, but some are actually able to continue with their lives and it doesn't mean that they did not suffer from the assault, or that they do not deserve justice. Just because a woman is not suffering doesn't mean the predator doesn't deserve to be thrown in jail. It is unclear whether the sexual assault actually took place or not, but this is just overall dangerous to the already very stigmatized view of sexual assault victims.

Now, if Park So Young was actually lying and was a gold digger, I really don't think this is something that should be shown on dramas either. Not only in South Korea, but everywhere in the world victims of sexual assault are always questioned, doubted, shamed, and re-victimized when they come forward to raise their voices and confess that they are victims, so to raise the question in a drama where an alleged sexual assault victim is suing a powerful man perpetuates this idea and reinforces it, showing that "women can also lie about sexual assault". Now I'm not saying that this can't happen, but the percentage is very low, compared to actual assault victims that are still dismissed and never believed. It's disappointing that this drama is both written and directed by women, yet they use this problem as a plot accessory.

Actually, I have another problem with this. I don't think South Korean women, or women who watch this drama in general, need to hear from another woman the horrendous things that Oh Soo Jae told Park So Young when facing a sexual assault lawsuit. Yes, I'm sure this is just to show that our female lead is flawed and to set a standard about where she needs to start changing (which we see in Ep 2), but I personally can't really see a reason to use this specific 'flaw' on a female lead to show the viewers that she will change in the future.

Not satisfied with the female lead shaming her, the victim ends up killing herself by suicide (as we know so far), and becoming 'the flaw' of our female lead's career. Making a woman in a high position become the target of public shaming because another woman allegedly committed suicide after being raped and shamed about it really doesn't sit right with me. The drama entirely forgot the main point, that a woman being raped, and completely focused it on the female lead shaming her and leading her to suicide. I know this is how people would view it in real life, that they would shift the blame from the predator to the other woman because it's easier to blame women than predators. I know it's all true, but again, I just don't see why *this* needs to be the starting point, or the breaking point, for our female lead.

Now we have an awful start for our drama (in terms of content, not really that the drama started off badly), and we continue the drama with not only one or two, but three more cases of sexual assault. All in one ep. All to different women. Our female lead is groped and sexually harassed by a disgusting professor, then a female student is again groped and sexually harassed by said disgusting professor, and on top of everything, our male lead was previously and falsely convicted of raping and murdering his step-sister. The drama started with a sexual harassment plot, and continued with three more because obviously, that is the only thing that can be written about women, right?

This is exactly my problem: I really don't understand what's the recurrent fixation of Kdrama writers with including so many sexual assault instances in the plot. It feels like all or most recent dramas have a sexual assault minor or major plot point, all on different levels, but all there. I just don't think women need to be reminded of this when we see it all the time in the news, and it's not like it exactly helps with the 'raise awareness' attempt, because sexual predators are not the ones watching these shows so it will not prevent anything, and men who could help either already know this happens, or don't care at all, so showing this constantly on dramas will not really produce any impact in their lives. So at the end of the day, the only people being affected by this are women watching these shows, despite having to see this in our daily lives, reading news about femicides all the time, and overall facing sexual assaults on different levels every day.

Also, I might be wrong, but more than having 4 cases of sexual assault in 2 eps of a drama, I think not hiring an ex-convict of sex crimes would make a more powerful statement against sexual predators and would help to build safe places for women in the industry, so that the risks of being sexually harassed while working would reduce at least one bit, but that's just me, I guess.

Anyway, this review of only two eps is already very long, but I needed to get it out of my chest because it's something that has been bugging me a lot from dramas lately (lately being like, 2 years), but this drama was really just over the top with it.

Overall, the show looks promising if they focus it well on the romance part without neglecting the law part, but I really hope we don't have to see a certain graying middle-aged man too much (preferably not ever again), or just too many powerful, middle-aged men trying to screw our female lead over. Also, on another, totally unrelated side, I think it's funny that our female lead has not only one younger romantic interest, but two, which is uncommon because we usually see only one younger love interest in noona romances, while the love triangle develops with another, older and successful, daddy-like second male lead. But here we have two, both of which have a past connection with our female lead, and who look like they will form a nice brotherhood, so I'm actually looking forward to future eps of this drama, and I hope my complaints disappear quickly and my expectations are met so that I can enjoy this drama fully.

TL;DR: Our female lead is the perfect successful femme fatale with two completely eye-candy younger romantic interests, but our Kdrama writers have a passion for sexual assault victims and cannot go one day without including sexual assault in their works.

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I've dropped it without remorse as a matter of principles

This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes so don't read it if you eventually intend to watch the drama.

They say that power ( and money of course) change people.
In reality power and wealth can't change our character. They can give us the chance to manifest what our true character actually is.

This drama tries to depict a bad ass female character.
As bad ass though is considered a character that is daring and fearless, strong and willing to overcome any difficulties.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for the FL character of this drama who comes out from the very first episodes as person who lacks all sorts of empathy and is misusing her position and power. So this drama is depicting ( from the very first episodes) just a very bad character.

I haven't seen in any series or films such an unlikable character. We see a person that disrespects her colleagues, disheartens and discourages her juniors, is arrogant even towards to her employers ( the phrase towards the president of the law firm "your business is me and I'm your business" says everything about her attitude), slaps people while they are apologizing for their mistakes, disregards anyone who is not in her position, lacks any kind of collaborating spirit with her associates ( in a law firm that is not her own firm), disrespects the profession of a teacher and finally attacks personally, blames and despises the claims of a presumably rape victim in such a cruel and traumatic for this person way that drives it to commit suicide.

I don't know if the writers of this drama thought that these are the traits of a strong and feminist bad ass female character. If that is what they were thinking when they developed this character I can assure them that these are the traits of a narcissistic character, of a person with serious personality disorder and they are not the traits of a person that has any kind of principles or the moral foundations, is dedicated, or skillful and willing to serve, work and succeed in any field, let alone any legal field.

A character like this is an insult for all the emancipated women that try to establish their positions in the higher ups of their field with their skills and hard work.

She is the worst and the most distorted depiction of how women in positions of power are supposed to behave.

But THIS IS NOT HOW POWERFUL WOMEN ARE. It is rather how sexist S. Korean males think that powerful women are supposed to be. Psychos or even worst! lol

Personally now this depiction of female empowerment (in the South Korean style) offends me so much that I'm dropping this drama without remorse and without having the slightest inclination to give it a second chance and watch a few more episodes.
There is not chance for the writers to manage to justify the actions of the FL in the first two episodes. because some of these actions contradict so much with, at least, mine established moral and professional principles that simply can't be justified or be undone with some tricky plot twist.


1 out of 10 from me. One of the worst two episodes that I have ever watched that also made me reevaluate my opinion about S. Korean society in general.

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female lead poorly written and can't act

Okay, I know I only watched one episode all the way through, but this drama gave me nothing. Episode 1 didn't plant a single seed that convinced me of it having a WOW factor. The pace is slow, plot is whatever, characters are bland, and the female lead Oh Soo Jae was in almost every scene, making it hard to watch. I skipped a few episodes forward and nothing seems to have changed (except for that there's less Soo Jae scenes, and they're instead replaced by scenes of other boring characters).

Also, this drama is a NON-example of how a strong female lead character should be written. Her Bad B energy was refreshing at first but the impact wore off when all of her scenes had her showing off how alpha she was. Personally didn't care for the female lead's acting either. I get that she's trying to act cold and proud to fit her character but the way she delivered her lines was overly stoic and reminded me of an AI talking.

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