NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM SUPERNATURAL SERIALS AS SOCIAL CRITIQUE IN RECENT SOUTH KOREAN TELEVISION SUNG-AE LEE Name Sung-Ae Lee Both are isolated by their liminal condition and the multiple Academic centre Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia personalities it entails, the ghosts because they cannot E-mail address
[email protected] communicate with the living and the ghost seers because their uncanny ability has set them apart since childhood. KEYWORDS Both lack immediate families, which further isolates them Supernatural serial; cognition and affect; multiple in a society with communal values centred on family. Both personality; genre blending; script theory. thus readily symbolize people marginalized because of gender, social status or restricted economic access, but ABSTRACT also serve as a commentary on the disintegration of the South Korean television drama often employs ghost stories family in contemporary South Korea. The viewing audience as a medium for social critique, as in the series Dokkaebi: is positioned to align and empathize with ghost and/or The Lonely and Great God (2016-17), Let’s Fight, Ghost (2016) seer in their struggles with lost identity and the quest for and Oh My Ghost (2015). Blending ghost story with other justice which will free the ghost from its liminal state, and genres, these series foreground the plight of characters is thereby implicated in a crisis of subjectivity and prompted who are either ghosts or young people able to see ghosts. to reflect upon its own position in society. 59 SERIES VOLUME V, Nº 2, WINTER 2019: 59-70 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/9158 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X SERIALS IN EAST ASIA NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM > SUNG-AE LEE SUPERNATURAL SERIALS AS SOCIAL CRITIQUE IN RECENT SOUTH KOREAN TELEVISION 0.