Aspirational Beauty Aesthetics in the Later Years in South Korea

• In Event: Imagining Beauty Differently: Beyond Superficiality and Subjugation

Abstract

This paper will discuss how notions of ageing, beauty and desirable appearance intersect and are constructed in contemporary South Korean popular visual culture. While media commentators regularly refer to South Korea as the ‘cosmetic surgery capital of Asia’, the focus of such reporting tends to concentrate on the beauty concerns and ideals of the young. K-pop aesthetics in particular are often quoted as informing young people’s cosmetic surgery and beauty regime choices, and yet these body aesthetics are beyond the reach of the majority of the population over 30. Through analyzing recent popular films and TV programs in which ageing and elderly characters have taken central roles, this paper will discuss how popular culture in South Korea attempted to reconcile the ageing body with dominant narratives of youth-focused beauty. We will also draw on interviews with a sample of 20 elderly Korean women to show how these representations of ageing bodies are read and consumed by viewers who, rather than yearning for an unobtainable fountain of youth, actively identify with certain types of characters for aspirational ideas for positive ageing. Through analyzing the significance of the visual presence of the ageing body in contemporary Korean popular culture, this paper will point to the existence of age-specific and aspirational notions of beauty in South Korean popular culture which problematize assumptions about ageing as a process of inevitable process of decline, in which the body signifies lack of aspiration, or indeed, hope.

Author

• Joanna Elfving-Hwang, The University of Western Australia