User:Nbatebild/sandbox

 New: Group Proposals to edit Wikipedia Content 

Nastassja Bate-Bild, Jamie Lee & Alivia Heuer

WGS 310

11/18/18

WGS Wikipedia Edit Draft

Goal: Add a section on LGBTQ representation in the Korean Drama Wikipedia page under the history header.

Proposed edits: Although Korean culture has had a rough history with the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ people still do not have full rights in South Korea (see LGBT rights in South Korea), Korean dramas have made a recent effort to include more LGBT characters in their storylines. This inclusion of LGBT characters into K-drama storylines has caused controversy surrounding these shows as homosexuality is still stigmatized in South Korea (cite https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1724806/first-lesbian-kiss-korean-tv-drama-sparks-debate?fbclid=IwAR1225lhOsSNasyvxQK2udhAH0orhaTK_IWsSfErDoQekzTxdoPDhdSGiAU ). Shows such as Seonam High School Girl Investigators (Link this wiki page), which depicted the first ever lesbian kiss in Korean TV history, received attention from the Korea Communications Standards Commission when complaints we filed in reference to a scene where two high school girl characters shared a kiss (cite south china morning post).

Other shows to follow suit in depicting same-sex relationships include Kill Me Heal Me, Reply 1997, Long Time No See and LIfe is Beautiful which all depict romantic interactions between men. Although progress has been made with the representation of homosexual relationships in K-Drama, transgender representation is still lacking. “In 2012, KBS Joy, an entertainment subsidiary of the national KBS TV, pulled the plug on a newly launched talk show aimed at the transgender community after just one broadcast triggered an outcry from conservative groups.” ( https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1724806/first-lesbian-kiss-korean-tv-drama-sparks-debate ) The only notable representation of transgender characters in Korean Drama was in the frist episode of the series It’s Okay That’s Love (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Okay%2C_That's_Love). Actress Lee El (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_El) portrays Sera a patient who comes in for psychological treatment after being severely beaten for being transgender by her family. ( https://www.kdramastars.com/articles/30351/20140725/its-okay-its-love-lee-elles-surprise-appearance.htm?fbclid=IwAR3HdvOYKWNbXr4xo7g-SVRvbh_BQJ_8xy4i9dcvcnMkEnZwT-4_WaXiX40 ) Instead of including openly gay or transgender characters in many k-dramas, characters will engaged in a plot device known as gender-swapping ( http://kultscene.com/k-dramas-continue-to-explore-lgbt-themes-with-coy-devices/?fbclid=IwAR3rv8icqG3Vpvi0VuQBgaVq7gEdC21jR6A6Wh2WxAzLD6Uqnaf2OVyJx6k ).

Gender-swapping is a theme in K-dramas that delve into LGBT aspects without obviously representing openly queer characters. Coffee Prince (see Coffee Prince wiki) is a K-drama depicting a woman, Go Eun-chan, who disguises as a man in order to work at Choi Han-kyul’s coffee shop. Han-kyul falls in love with Eun-chan and questions his sexuality, in the end, accepting his feelings for Eun-chan regardless of gender. However, Eun-chan reveals herself to be a woman, and the question of falling in love with the same-sex is then resolved. (cite kultscene) You’re Beautiful (see You’re Beautiful wiki) is another K-drama in which a woman disguises as a man. Go Mi-nyeo must pretend to be one of the band member’s twin brother in order to maintain his position in A.N.JELL. Every member in the group falls for her, although one of them, Jeremy, is not aware she is a woman and believes he has fallen for a man. (cite kultscene)

Though k-drama shows are beginning to represent the LGBT community of Korea, it is still rare to find a show with an out character (kultscene).

 Evaluating content 

Korean Drama

Willow Rosenberg

· Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Pretty much everything I read was relevant to the character of Willow or storylines/elements pertaining to her. There was however a lot of opinion or non-factual info included.

· Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

I saw nothing discussing the issue of bisexual erasure in the series. In fact the article went so far as to say that Willow avoids labeling herself because the writers wanted to focus on the development of the relationship. While this may have been initially true shortly after falling in love with Tara the series makes it seem as if now magically Willows attraction to men has somehow disappeared and she is now gay or not attracted to men anymore. She makes many references in the series to her being gay now. During the series she had been in love with her best friend who was a male for all her life prior to meeting Tara. She also had a significant relationship with Oz who she was in love with in the series but somehow after she met Tara these lived experiences were not important anymore which is pretty much the definition of binary thinking and bisexual erasure.

Later in the section where Willows relationship with Kennedy is discussed the reason the article discusses the reasons that they decided to ‘keep Willow gay”. It asserts that Whedon made a choice to avoid the negative backlash because of the trope about women having same sex relationships but ultimately going back to a man. This still treats sexuality as a binary as if its either gay or straight. So a section on the bisexual erasure of Willow would be really welcome from my perspective in this article.

Evaluating tone

· Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

As I discussed previously it seems biased toward the idea of sexuality being a binary. I do recognize that this was also very much the attitude in the media in the 90s and early 20s because people were just starting to accept lesbian and gay representation in the media.

· Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

Again the bisexual erasure was not represented at all.

Evaluating sources

· Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

I noticed that an author named Stafford keeps getting cited with page numbers but there is no point in the citations where their book is listed. So that is problematic. Upon looking at the links further there are some opinion pieces referenced which isn’t an academic source. Since the article is about a character from a fictional show about a Vampire Slayer this may be allowable but it could also lead to bias in terms of the articles content.

· Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

There is a lot of info that isn’t factual but interpretations of the series. Even if they are commonly shared interpretations about themes it still does give a particular bias. For instance there is source that is based on an unrelated opinion piece called Lesbian Sex = death

Checking the talk page

Now take a look at how others are talking about this article on the talk page.

· What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

· How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

· How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

There is a lot of conversations and debates about the formatting changes and how the article should properly be formatted. Interesting to note that someone else brought up my point regarding the prevalence of non-academic sources. It made the article read like an opinion piece. There was some discussion about Willows many identities. There was a sarcastic remark about Willow becoming gay now but no reference to bisexual erasure. Overall I still feel like the talk page treated sexuality as binary, which is tbe opposite of what we learned about in this class. Reading queer makes us inclined to reject those interpretations of normality.