kdrama women’s week day 3 :: 40 + up :: everybody in DEAR MY FRIENDS
Female characters (or actresses) in dramas over the age of 40 that amaze, inspire etc. you.
An old classmate and I were sharing our woes re: post-graduation angst and generally feeling Sad and Overwhelmed and Inadequate and Afraid all the time, when she quite simply said “We won’t just stop feeling like this when we turn 30″. It wasn’t exactly a Comforting thought, but it was True. Adulthood and ageing can be very lonely and isolating experiences at every stage. There’s no age limit that we’re going to hit and then magically feel content and at peace with ourselves. We’ll be 30 for the first time, and 40 for the first time, and 50, 60, 70, if we get there, and maybe that loneliness and confusion and fear will never go away, or simply manifest differently.
And I think the core of what makes stories about older women so wonderful and vital is that they’re a reminder that your life will keep happening beyond age 40, for better and worse. Depth and multifaceted-ness aren’t just reserved for the angst of youth. There will be time to change, time for new definitions of self-worth, time to make different kinds of mistakes.. Plenty of time to be spectacular and average, to be better versions of yourself.
To quote myself; ” An elderly woman’s life isn’t any simpler or cuter or easier to navigate because she is old. Her relationships are just as complex, her emotional spectrum just as rich. .
Dear My Friends has no intention of romanticizing what [its characters] have gone through; war, abuse, illnesses, poverty, deaths, violent misogyny. There is no sanitized, saccharine version of their narratives that can be packaged for feel-good mass consumption. These women are here and their lives are still happening, they’re still growing and changing and being, long beyond what society would have considered to be their expiry dates.”
Dear My Friends is a very, very difficult show to watch, and I don’t blame people who have dropped it or put it on hold or never found it in themselves to start. But it’s so important to me that a show like this exists at all. I’m still a good decade younger than the youngest female character in this story, but something about DMF resonates on a level I can’t quite articulate? It’s like a promise - however small and vague - that I can look to my future and know that I will be okay.
image credits [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] @undergroundkdrama
Day 3: 40 + up, women in stories you adored
This is self explanatory, no? Female characters in dramas over the age of 40 that blew you away.
Cast of Dear My Friends
“How could I be so foolish? Until now, why did I think that they were endlessly walking towards their death? Just how fiercely they’ve lived in their lives in those past days. If they must go back to that same place they’ve come back from to not make a pitiful return they’re living this very moment with a great passion and dignity.
I just have one wish. I wish this moment would last a little longer. I wish this moment lasts a little longer so that they could have no regrets.”
yass i’m posting the ending scene. also wan’s monologue tho 💔 doing this set of gifs is making me cry. sigh i hope nhk makes a s2 for this drama.
#kdramawomensweek: day 3 // 40+ up women in stories that you adored
↪ dear my friends
Once I saw this category I immediately knew I would be choosing the Dear My Friends women. And as I was making this gifset and rewatching the scenes I started crying. That’s how impactful these women were for me and how deeply they touched me. They’re the kind of women you see and say, “I want to be like you when I grow up.” Their stories were so painfully truthful that after an episode, I felt a deep aching in my heart. Their sadness, joy, fear, and love was my own. Though I’m not at their age, they were still women who felt relatable in some way. Their friendship really added to my love for them, because you saw how much they depended on each other during uncertain times. Separately, everyone was interesting and watching them live their individual lives was a great experience, but together they were incredible and made watching the drama even more enjoyable. I really applaud Noh Hee Kyung for writing such complex women and this was only elevated by the amazing performances given by the cast.
Maybe it’s kind of cliche to say, but these women did teach me lessons. And the one I take close to my heart is: keep going. It’s something everyone tells you all the time, but with Dear My Friends, I felt the lesson really penetrate and stick with me. It was in the small moments, the way the women lived their lives, how they laughed hard after days of worrying and crying, and when they said death could wait, but their farm needed tending to right now.“They have no shame but they’re not shameless. They had struggled to survive for over 70 years, I regretted being mean to them as if I understood them all. I wanted to tell them that I’d been ignorant & foolish.”