[KR] It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

Contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.

How does one begin to say goodbye?

Is it by saying thank you? I will miss you? Or is it simply by saying goodbye?

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay recently ended and I am grasping at straws — how does one move forward from this show?

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (사이코지만 괜찮아) is that series which we needed yesterday but, sadly, only comes once in a lifetime. In my 15 years of watching dramas, I haven’t seen one quite like this. One that is so intricately and purposefully written to deliver strong messaging on usually overlooked topics bravely subverting social norms and stereotypes, driven by impressively cohesive and inclusive character development, supported by exceptionally massive amount of literary devices, and uplifted even further by its overall production — from its music, direction, set design, costumes, and acting, down to the audience participation it invites, further enriching the meaning it imparts in each episode.

It is powerfully, outstandingly whole.

How does one move on from that?

Thank You.

I am thankful that It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (hereinafter, IOTNBO) came at a time when we are all struggling in the confines of our respective homes, forced to reflect on what we have been doing all our lives. IOTNBO gave us more thoughts to ponder on.

The drama touched upon topics that are so rarely talked about. It held the strongest advocacy for mental health awareness among all dramas I’ve seen — and there’s only a handful that actually talked about this subject. With the breadth of mental health conditions it portrayed, it made us understand better — not only the technicalities of these conditions, but more so, the people who are diagnosed with such: what they are going through, what they need from us.

Despite bannering mental health as its main theme, IOTNBO didn’t just talk about mental health; it went beyond that. I appreciate that it went much broader, noting that what makes one different is not only the presence of a diagnosis — that we are all different. And that is a hard fact, one which society seems to struggle with.

IOTNBO smacks us with the reality that, all this time, we all have been trying to fit ourselves in this society-made box called ‘normal’ and those that don’t easily fit, we unilaterally label as ‘abnormal’. We force them to live alone in castles. We force them to wear armors they shouldn’t have, if we’d only stop attacking them. We box them out as we box ourselves in. We forget the fact that beneath the normalcy, the mask we force ourselves to wear, lies our individual differences, only buried so deep within that we forget that it’s still us.

IOTNBO encourages us to embrace what makes us different, ‘abnormal’, because that makes us, us. It is okay to be different. Only when we embrace such differences can we utilize them as instruments to building a better world. As I said not too long ago, we may not have so much power over what made us different yet we have the choice on what we do with such difference.

In a future world where we all identify ourselves to be abnormals, we become the normal. And that would be the best kind.

Then the drama prods us — it’s one thing to know you’re different; it’s another to know they are different. Now, if we understand that, do we actually act like it? IOTNBO stresses empathy so loudly that if you watched it and you didn’t get it, you might as well have not watched it at all.

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay asks empathy of us. To be humble enough to know we must be looking at things from a different standpoint. To make an effort to understand others better, closer, by taking off our own shoes, at least temporarily, and step into theirs.

Beyond differences, IOTNBO also tackled love so extensively, utilizing various angles, yet hammering home the same message: that love betters. It talked about love between parent and child, between siblings, between partners, between friends, and love for oneself.

• Love respects the other’s individuality. They are never an extension of you. To love is to see the Other, what makes them, them — their whole being.
• Love is not belongingness, not togetherness, not self-sacrifice.

• Love is not brought forth by a pre-designed destiny. It is a conscious choice.

• Love sees. Love listens. Love frees. It is effortful.

• Love is an act of courage, of patience, of work towards betterment of the Other. It is a verb.
• Love is as love does.

IOTNBO’s messaging is so rich, so deep, so clear, and so timely. For that, I will eternally remain grateful.

“Moon KangTae belongs to Moon KangTae.”

I Will Miss You.

As I said at the beginning, this kind of drama only comes once in a lifetime. Its quality that spans all aspects just blows everything else out of the water.

Character Profiling and Development

I don’t think I have seen a drama with character development this strong, cohesive, and inclusive. And I am so honored to have been part of such journey to see:

Ko MoonYoung (played by the Seo YeJi) growing from being the Emotionless Empty Can Princess — loud but empty inside, leashed, cold, hungry, and only feeding on nightmares — to being the newly recreated Ko MoonYoung who is now free, soundly sleeping, stomach now full of warmth, and willing to share that warmth with others;

Moon KangTae (played by the Kim SooHyun) from being the Boy Wearing a Mask with an Awkward Smile — a zombie, his brother’s keeper who never sees himself — to being the new Moon KangTae who can now smile so genuinely, loving himself first, thus, can now truly love and smile with and for others;

Moon SangTae (played by the Oh JungSe) from being the Man Trapped Inside a Box — hindered from fulfilling his capacity as an older brother and his own potential as a person — to being the new Moon SangTae who has asserted himself that he is simply differently abled, still and always able to look after his younger siblings, achieve his dreams, and share himself and those he love with more people, because he is full and will never run out.

Their growth is so immense and I love how IOTNBO so clearly, so granularly portrayed their journey — individually and collectively — from the darkness of the basement where they started, to the light and height where they have now come.

Beyond these focus/primary characters, IOTNBO also made the effort to bring growth to its secondary characters. Nam JuRi (Park GyuYoung) learned to lean on other people; Lee SangIn (Kim JooHun) understood how it felt to be the one bribed for inconveniences; Jo JaeSu (Kang KiDoong) finally went out on his own, independent of KangTae, embarking on his own journey of finding, or more accurately, creating himself. And then, of course, we have the patients at the OK Psychiatric Hospital whose individual pains and growth were also highlighted in specific episodes of the story.

Allow me to zone in on JuRi — I find her as the story’s representation of us ‘normal’ people. We who have our mothers doting on us, who can throw tantrums, who can harbor crushes, who can chase after them and not be looked down upon. We who fully conform with society’s standards, their rules of normalcy.

I find it quite metaphorical that she is made quite only a secondary character in the story as opposed to the three ‘abnormals’: MoonYoung, KangTae, and SangTae. It was as if the series was telling as early from the beginning, that it is different — we are not focusing on you, normal people, which is what you have always wanted, what you have always gotten. We are shifting focus towards these people whom you’ve always considered different. Those whom you’ve always neglected, ostracized, looked down upon. This time, you are secondary.

And then we have, what I would call, background characters. They impact the persona and growth of our three focus characters but their own development and back stories hold less importance. They are simply triggers, so to speak. As Park HaengJa noted of Park OkRan, they enter the stage when needed; they simply exit when done. This includes Ko DaeHwan (MoonYoung’s dad), JuRi’s mom, Director Oh and his son, the hospital staff, SeungJae, Park OkRan, and of course, Park HaengJa / Do HuiJae (MoonYoung’s mom).

On Park HaengJa (Jang YoungNam): Honestly, I was one of those baffled at the end of the drama on the lack of closure on the story of HaengJa as the second coming of the Witch of the West, Do HuiJae. I was looking for an answer for just one question: How on earth did she survive? I had my theories, of course, but I thought it would have been best if the explanation came from the drama itself.

But nothing. Nil. Nada.

I sat on it for hours on end, unsettled that the drama I was so invested in for two months, that was so incredibly meticulous from start to end, left that lone thread so glaringly loose.

Then I saw two lines of thought: ChaseHermes‘ analysis on Tumblr; then @DramaLunar‘s enlightening post on Twitter which said:

“Many life mysteries go unsolved, but we move on anyway. We don’t need answers for closure. Why dwell on past problems? Move forward, onwards.”

Then I realized, maybe, it was Jo Yong (the writer) forcing us to wear the shoes of MoonYoung, KangTae, and SangTae. It is true that all of them also do not know how Do HuiJae survived, but they are moving on. So, as with the concept of empathy, Jo Yong had us removed from our own shoes to step in theirs. For our trio, finding peace, pursuing happiness, and further recreating themselves in the present are hundred times more important than nitpicking on the past that no longer matters. On a character that is, and should, just stay in the background.

So we move on, too, despite.

“If you can’t erase it, you just need to cover it with something better.”

Edit – 20200815: Do HuiJae’s role as merely a background character – whose existence requires no explanation for the story – is further exemplified in MoonYoung’s final book, Finding the Real Face. The book is essentially their story – it’s like the entire It’s Okay to Not Be Okay drama retold in a children’s book. But notice how the book only focused on The Emotionless Princess, The Masked Boy, and The Box Man’s journey. It featured the Shadow Witch when she impacted the lives of these three main characters but never did it show where the Shadow Witch came from, how she came to be, where did she go after they all escaped from her clutches and freed from her curse. But did it bother us? Did it bother you?

Literary Devices

Its flamboyant use of literary devices — from its sixteen (!!!) stories-within-a-story to the seemingly hundreds of metaphors, allegories, and parallelisms it employed — made IOTNBO the most enrapturing Literature class you never had. This is possibly the key differentiator of the drama because no other series has had the guts to do the massive amount of work — the planning, the focus on detail — this kind of plot entails, especially since the series wasn’t pre-produced, i.e., it was getting filmed as it was getting aired.

I myself felt like I went back to my Literature course in college. I started watching IOTNBO from the release of its first episode and as it progressed, I feel like, while watching, I had to bring out my hawk-eye to spot every minute detail, every metaphor the show uses — and reuses, because you’d realize that once they use it, they usually go back to it. And with that, they’d bring out their PhD in parallelisms which simply leave me floored. After watching, I always had to replay to do more granular dissection. Then I’d look up what the next episode’s title is — because that would hold the name of the next fairytale/folktale to be discussed.

It was basic classroom work with recitation conducted on social media and, boy, did I enjoy it.

What I appreciated about IOTNBO’s use of these literary devices is that it progresses along with the story. As abovementioned, it isn’t just inserted at one point then forgotten; it is repeated at least once, and always with either stark similarity or contrast vs. before, consequently, putting further emphasis on the character profile and development the story is trying to exhibit.

On character profile – case in point: Do HuiJae. Because she is a background character, Do HuiJae/Park HaengJa’s back story wasn’t exactly tackled in the series but there were a few ideas alluded to that clues us in on how she became the problematic Witch that she is. In episode 14 entitled ‘The Hand, the Monkfish’, she read Ko MoonYoung’s book bearing the same title and she comments: “It’s my favorite one out of everything you’ve written.” The book has this illustration showing the kid without limbs, the monkfish, drowning in the sea, asking to be rescued. In episode 3, during MoonYoung’s first nightmare, there was an uncannily similar clip shown, featuring a woman, presumably her mom, drowning in a body of water, asking to be saved.

I think it denotes that, like Ko MoonYoung, the story of the monkfish is Do HuiJae’s story, too. She was also abused as a child. She may have entered the medical field before because her family forced her to, just like the manic patient, Kwon KiDo, in episode 3. And as a mom, Do HuiJae did what she did to MoonYoung because that was the way she was raised, too. Her parents must have also told her: “You’re my creation.” They may have also treated her before as a mere artwork. And Do HuiJae suffered that for roughly 20 years.

She didn’t get to do same to MoonYoung for that long because her husband, MoonYoung’s father, intervened. And in her absence, her child got to reunite with the Moon brothers, who ultimately became her gamechanger. With them and, practically, the village they brought in, MoonYoung finally felt the warmth Do HuiJae never had.

On character development – case in point: The show wields several metaphors but its use of food / hunger is my top favorite. They used it from the very first episode up until the last and its meaning changed, progressed every time.

While MoonYoung’s first scene was her eating alone in a restaurant, the scenes that follow tell that no matter how much she eats, she always feels hungry. And then soon she got to taste food cooked by a mother (JuRi’s mom) which she explicitly said she liked. After which, she’d always ask for it. She gradually learned to eat, to feel full, to feel warm. But at her lowest, she starved herself again. She only ate when SangTae fed her, with food made by JuRi’s mom, too. Then we saw them eating plain instant noodles during their camping trip — it was warm. She was full.

In the case of the Moon brothers, food took on a different approach but with the same character. Being his brother’s keeper, KangTae would always be the first one to ask SangTae if he has eaten. Also, it can be inferred that as he assumed the role of the mother, despite being the younger brother, he’d usually suppress himself and be okay with just seeing brother eat. In the first episode, he even asked if SangTae wants Jjampong, because he thought it was his favorite — because mom, who always looked at SangTae and never at KangTae, always brought them to that old restaurant. Only to be corrected halfway through the series by SangTae himself — that Jjampong was KangTae’s favorite, and he’s the reason why they’d go to that restaurant. His mom loved him, too, after all. And soon, SangTae would start asserting his role as the big brother, too. He’d be the first one to ask KangTae if he has eaten. And he’d feed him. He’d share his food with him, a stark contrast to the past when he strongly disliked sharing his food with anybody and everybody.

Food was the centerpiece of the series and it symbolized care, warmth. It was usually juxtaposed with the image of a mother, as they are all children wanting a mother’s love, but in the absence of one, they just fed one another. Their stomachs would feel warm and full all the same.

Overall Production

Meticulous and effortful are understatements in describing the production of this drama. The toil came with the concept itself but it was incredible how every aspect of the drama pulled no punches in bringing such concept to life.

Writing and Licensing: Architecting a story within a story is work in itself; what more having to incorporate sixteen in one. And that’s not even counting the smaller stories which the drama referenced, i.e., the story of Dooly and Ko GilDong, Oh My Darling Clementine. And among those stories, they had to create five from scratch. One story is tiring enough to write; add five more. Then for the others, they likely had to secure rights to use, where applicable. And then there’s the colossal effort of weaving them all in and ensuring the main story flows and remains cohesive throughout.

Visuals, Props, Costume, Set Design: To accompany the childlike, fairytale theme of the story and the sub-stories it incorporated, the production of IOTNBO must have undertaken massive illustration effort. Aside from producing the CGI of the castle, the hallucinations of patients, Ko MoonYoung going Godzilla, they also had to illustrate almost every story told in each episode. And this does not count Ko MoonYoung’s hardbound books which they had to actually create, on top of filming. Imagine producing a 16-episode fairytale-themed series, with 16 different sub-stories, and publishing 5 children’s books on top of it. Not to mention designing the interior of a castle and planning every minute detail of the costumes of its evolving characters. ‘Massive work’ ain’t even cutting it.

Music: To fit in the fairytale and psycho themes of the story, IOTNBO had produced quite the peculiar OST. And, boy, was it fascinating. Its opening track, Sketch Book, reminds me of the wonder I’ve had as child in reading fairytales; it was very Disney princess-y. Then we have the instrumental track, Butterfly – which held the feels of a fairytale villain, very Maleficent-like. It’s a piece of music you would never hear be used in a Korean drama, even with its worst villains. Then there’s the psycho-themed tracks like I’m Your Psycho and Destiny is Nothing which are so fascinating and fitting to the radicalness of MoonYoung and IOTNBO. It’s not only these tracks but the entire OST is a treasure trove. And as it fits quite an unusual story, it is quite unusual, too. It stands out.

Acting: It is so rare to see three lead actors showcase this much individual talent and collective chemistry, all exhibited in a single story. I find it amazing how each of them — Seo YeJi, Kim SooHyun, and Oh JungSe — delivered their parts so intensely, like they were each gunning for an award at the end of the season, but never competing, only complementing the other. They shone by themselves but they shone even more brightly together.

Direction: I think we owe PD Park ShinWoo a good round of applause for pulling these all together so seamlessly, so holistically, and so magically if you will. To work with a piece of writing that has peculiar characters, a plot and setting that requires gargantuan amount of work, messaging that is too frank, too in-your-face, all to be delivered using an approach so radical, so queer that had to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable to the traditional audience, it entailed a huge risk. But he gambled. He took on that challenge and, with the heart of the entire production team, he produced magic.

Magic meant for adults. Magic meant for children trying so hard to be adults.

A magic that cures.

Goodbye?

IOTNBO ended last Sunday, August 9th. And so did our two-month-long literature class.

But as the saying goes, “death ends a life, not a relationship”; IOTNBO will stay with us. The magic it seeded in us will be kept safe, kindled in our hearts, as we grow to be better adults. Its messaging, the advocacies it rallied so hard for, will be engraved in our minds and be voiced out throughout our lives.

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay may have ended but we’ll keep the fight on.

We’ll continue to speak for the different. We’ll continue to be self-cognizant. We’ll continue to empathize. We’ll continue to love — the real and healthy way of loving as MoonYoung, KangTae, and SangTae taught us.

We’ll continue this until we create that world where we, the different, the self-accepted abnormals, become the new normal. And all will be equal. All will be loved. All will be warm.

For feeding us full and warm, thank you, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay.

We will miss you.

Goodbye.

/20200811

P.S. In case of interest, here’s a compilation of my thoughts and analyses on each episode of the drama: Twitter thread.