Nation, Subculture, and Queer Representation: The Film Male Kisaeng and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality in 1960s South Korea

Abstract

A t A l l m A n w i t h A m u s c u l A r body loves knitting, needlework, and doing laundry. Inspiring the abhorrence of his company president due to his effeminacy, he is fired. Working in a kisaeng house in female masquerade to make ends meet, he eventually becomes its most popular entertainer. Still beset with guilt over his “immoral” lifestyle, he abandons his newfound profession to marry his girlfriend and begin a proper life as a cosmetics salesman. This is the storyline of the comedy film Namja kisaeng (Male kisaeng). This film, part of a boom in the genre of comedy films in the late 1960s, relies on the audience’s immediate recognition of the kisaeng figure—a female entertainer in premodern Korea who served men—in 1969, just when the kisaeng was transforming into a hostess who worked in bars during the day and as a prostitute at night. Its director, Sim U-sop, who directed over thirty films between 1968 and 1970, was particularly prolific in this genre. Many of his films went on to set box-office records, particularly Namja singmo (Male maid), which attracted over 120,000 people in its first two weeks of screening in Seoul and saved the famous but financially struggling Shin Film from bankruptcy. Despite these films’ technical flaws and stock plot elements (typically focusing on poor and