Lesbian kiss in TV drama ruffles feathers

An unprecedented lesbian kiss between two high school girls on a popular Republic of Korea TV drama has fueled a debate about portrayals of sexuality in the rapidly modernizing society with its deeply conservative roots.

The government’s regulatory body for broadcast and the Internet, the Korea Communications Standards Commission, said on Friday that it had received complaints about the scene, which aired on Wednesday’s episode of Seonam Girls High School Investigators.

“We will decide whether this is an issue after we look into it, and whether there is any violation of broadcast policy,” the commission said in a statement.

Homosexuality is not illegal in the ROK, but it carries a social stigma, and few public figures are openly gay.

The country’s prolific TV drama industry, which has become a major cultural export, largely pumps out multigenerational, familyfocused soap operas with similar tragicomic plotlines.

In recent years, some productions — especially those on cable TV — have sought to include more culturally sensitive social issues such as teenage pregnancy, and a few have experimented with gay characters.

This month saw a kissing scene between two male actors in the drama Kill Me, Heal Me. But the Investigators scene was the first between two female characters, and so it caused a stir.

A spokesman for the JTBC cable channel, which produces the show, said the kiss had been included because it was “necessary to the plot”.

Several media outlets quoted an unidentified member of the production team as saying the series had been devised with a view toward touching on homosexuality.