A Study On The Change Of Male Temperament In Korean Idol Drama

Since 1993 when the first Korean TV drama 《Jealousy》was introduced in China,Korean culture represented by Korean dramas has quickly become widely popular in China. It is difficult to separate these Korean dramas’ success from their use of handsome actors and beautiful actresses. Especially for the mass female audiences in China,male characters in Korean dramas are their focal focus. This paper takes Korean popular idol dramas as the subjects of its study, utilizing the historical document approach, content analysis approach, comparative study approach etc to conduct an in depth analysis toward the change of the temperament and disposition of male characters in Korean dramas, while seeking the main reasons behind these changes.This paper firstly states the origin and definition of the theory of male disposition, while classifying male disposition into four different categories according to R. W. Cornell’s theory: namely the muscularity or dominate male temperament, the subordinate male temperament, the collusive muscularity male temperament, and the peripheral male temperament. Secondly, the paper chooses three typical Korean idol drama’s production time cycle to analyze changes in male temperament in these dramas during different time periods, focusing on their male characters’ outlook appearance and inward temperament. The paper pinpoints these temperament changes, from the original typical heavy hearted mid aged male characters, to those temperament neutral handsome male characters, and lastly the current bread of super powerful male idols. Those different male disposition and temperaments in each time period can be identified in most dramas. Lastly, the paper analyzes the main reasons behind such changes in male disposition in said Korean dramas. In today’s consumer and consumption driven society, physical and appearances consumption’s predomination and consumer’s psychological anticipation causes these changes in male character dispositions. Postmodernism defeated traditional aesthetical standards,caused dominant male disposition in Korean dramas to continuously consummate. In addition,with the wide acceptance of male cosmetology and male cosmetics surgery, Korean male characters temperament and disposition has changed accordingly.