Masters Thesis

The limits of resemblance: gender representation in the films of Hong Sang-Soo

This paper looks to Hong Sang-soo’s 2010 film, Oki’s Movie, to analyze how a middleaged male filmmaker attempts to express the subjective experience of a woman who is three decades his junior. This semi-episodic film tells four stories from the alternate perspectives of Korean men and women of different generations. Instead of simply reversing dominant gender roles, the film’s complex semi-episodic narrative encourages the audience to engage with multiple contradictory male and female perspectives simultaneously. The effects of these strategies are demonstrated through an analysis of the interaction between gender and narrative structure within the film’s four overlapping storylines. I argue that the way that Hong’s film confuses the separation between the diegeses of each episode encourages the viewer to recognize the different webs of systemic and interpersonal power that shape all gender identities. I also survey various theories of voice-over (particularly those of Britta Sjogren and Kaja Silverman) to show how point of view is sexually differentiated between each episode. Each character is then examined as a surrogate for the director himself in order to show the vital role that selfreference plays as a tool by which the author deconstructs their own privilege and authority. Finally, my paper expands the film’s gender politics to a larger critique of “phallocentric” theories of sexual difference and cultural studies. The film’s presentation of multiple subjectivities is framed as a powerful opposition to overly essentializing approaches to sexuality, identity and film theory. This approach toward Oki ’s Movie shows how an author in a majority position may respectfully speak to the subjective experience of a member of their social minority

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