The Handmaiden: Postcolonialism, Gender, and The Vileness of Gaze

The Handmaiden (2016) is a South Korean queer revenge thriller film which explores an intricate interplay of power dynamics between gender, class, and ethnicity. The plot follows an unexpected romance between two women from different backgrounds who are involved in the schemes planned by a conman. As the three-part narrative unfolds, they join forces to overthrow their oppressors and subvert patriarchal power that constrain their lives and love. Notably, their clandestine romance not only contests dominant male power but also defies the rigid societal paradigm of heteronormativity, ethnicity, and class. Directed by Park Chan-wook, the film is set in the 1930s, during the period of Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945) which marked a significant shift in Korea’s sociocultural and political landscape. Adapted from Sarah Waters’s renowned novel Fingersmith (2002), Park and co-writer Jeong Seo-kyeong remodeled the plot and setting to create a unique variation of sapphic romance that retains the initial essence of queerness and difference, while focusing more on themes of gender and power in colonial setting.

I argue that while the film has been lauded for its subversion of the male gaze, it also presents a potentially problematic and eroticized depiction of sapphic sexuality and is too optimistic in portraying lived experience of queer individuals in the 1930s. This analysis applies a sociocultural approach related to Colonial Korea and employs multiple theoretical frameworks, including Cultural Hybridity theory, Intersectionality theory, Subaltern theory, and Visual Pleasure theory to provide a multifaceted and nuanced understanding of the film.

First, I will be discussing the film’s utilization of the colonial setting and highlight its relation in the construction of the gender paradigm in Korea through a postcolonial lens. Postcolonial studies aim to reinterpret the cultural, political, economic, and social impact of colonialism by critically examining the power structure and decoding the colonial logic and metanarrative to understand what was behind the scene (Ashcroft et al. 168; Hall 13). It challenges the hegemonic narrative and discourse that have been invented and perpetuated by the colonizers, and returns voices to the experiences and perspectives of the colonized. Also, postcolonial studies analyze how language, history, politics, and identity of the colonized were affected by developing alternative, critical, and deconstructive ways of understanding that dispersed from dominant knowledge (Ashcroft et al. 173). Furthermore, it reinforces social justice, decolonization, subversion, and empowerment of marginalized and oppressed communities.

It is imperative that HMD is situated in the 1930s, a period marked by Japanese annexation of Korea. As Park claimed in the interview with The Hollywood Reporter, this setting captures the persisting class system and conflicts between the colonizers and the colonized, that is, the Japanese and the Korean (Lee). Furthermore, it witnessed the introduction of Western-style mental institutions to Korea as part of Japanese modernization. By demonstrating the treatment of mental illness of the time, the film shed light on the prevailing attitude of the era, as evidenced by the use of the derogatory and stigmatizing term “madhouse”. Under the influence of Western modernity, Japanese imperialism aimed to instill not only its own ideology but also appropriate certain Western values and traditions such as clothing and etiquette. The appropriation of these practices can be observed through how Fujiwara incorporated a more Westernized appearance by donning Western style clothing and acquiring the fake title ‘Count’. Certainly, it is noteworthy to mention that the annexation has had an impact on his mentality. Moreover, his scheme to coerce women into a mental institution in order to silence her reflects how nonconforming women are often labeled as mentally ill or in less politically correct terms ‘mad’ (Haralu 5–6).

On August 29th, 1910, Japan colonized Korea and implemented the Assimilation Policy, resulting in several institutional changes (Lee et al. 6). This monolithic policy established a social hierarchy between the people of the two nations, positioning Japan as superior and Korea as inferior. The policy forced many Koreans to change their name to Japanese and replaced various aspects of Korea with the Japanese version, including history, religion, and education system. The policy was institutionalized in school textbooks, filtered any messages that may pose a threat to Japanese values, and forced students to learn Japanese language (Caprio 59). The Japanese administration also denounced Korean as an official language and controlled media such as newspapers to publish only in Japanese. They utilized media outlets as a means of propaganda, effectively censoring information from the public awareness (141). In this way, both the public and private lives of Koreans were controlled and monitored by the Japanese empire. This process is called Kōminka (皇民化政策) or Japanization which is to make people subjects of the imperial power (Lee et al. 324). This entailed adopting Japanese names, speaking the Japanese language, dressing like Japanese citizens, serving in the Japanese military, worshiping in Japanese shrines and honoring the Japanese emperor (149).

This strategy is how Japanese imperialism exerts control over its colonial subject through the implementation of Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) (Althusser 80). Furthermore, the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) was also employed through the use of violence and military force. It is evident in the film’s opening scene, where Japanese soldiers are shown guarding elementary school students; or the displacement of Koreans from their lands for the settlement of Japanese brothels and elitist residences, for example, Kouziki’s estate. The first Korean character that we were introduced to was Sook-hee who impersonated a poor Korean girl named Okju. However, upon arriving at Kouzuki’s estate, the head maid Mrs. Sasaki assigned her a Japanese name Tamako, which is a common name given to women. Another evidence is the illiteracy of Sook-hee who grew up in a rural area of Korea. She cannot read nor write, neither in Korean nor Japanese. Her characterization represented a colonial subject with a complex intersectional identity as a poor Korean woman. Another Korean character which plays an important role is Uncle Kouzuki. He is a Korean-born naturalized Japanese who appropriates Japanese culture, language, and political ideology. While Sook-hee is the colonial subject who seeks to escape from the colonizer, Kouzuki is the opposite end of the spectrum who join and mimic the manners of colonizers. Thus, even though colonialism is not overtly depicted in the film, Kouzuki represents the epitome of imperial power.

Depicting Japanese colonialism in South Korean film is ambitious, even Park himself acknowledged it in his earlier interview with The New York Times (Shin 690). After the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945, the Korean nationalist ideology was popularized and sustained through films, preventing any favorable depiction of Japanese imperial power. The turning point was in the 2000s, when several South Korean filmmakers decided to shed light on more complex, multifaceted aspects of Japanese imperialism and focus more on ambiguous experiences of those under colonial rule (695). However, this trend did not last long due to numerous critics and backlash, making it even more complicated to mention the benefaction of Japanese imperial power during the colonial era the decade after (691). Even so, their legacy persists and is evident in the film where Park utilized the notion of modernity ushered by Japanese colonialism in the 1910s to drive the plot and emphasized the disruptive changes in which modernity carried along. In HMD, individuality of each character appears in their personal desires: Kouzuki desired to be Japanese, Fujiwara desired to be noble, Sook-hee desired to be wealthy to leave Korea, and Hideko desired to be freed. Their experiences under colonial rule albeit occurring in the similar setting are different.

One character that embodied modernity was Kouzuki, the abusive erotica enjoyer uncle. Although as mentioned earlier that his role may be viewed as the figurative imagination of Japanese imperial power, he is nothing more than a wanna-be-Japanese who internalized Japanese culture, struggling to seek for modern legitimization. He tried to pass as Japanese by divorcing his Korean wife, Sasaki, who also happened to be the head maid of his mansion, and married a noble Japanese woman to adopt her family name. Surprisingly, it was common for Korean ruling classes and elites during the colonial time to Sadaejuui (사대주의) — voluntarily subjugate to higher power, specifically more powerful nations — and internalize themselves in respect to that power (Ongley; Topalovic). These sympathizers are “a big threat and a serious danger for other people of their nation” (Topalvic) as they are a byproduct of a fraught and ambivalent relationship between colonizer and the colonized, resulting in a construction of hybrid colonial identities. This phenomenon highlights how Kouzuki’s valorization of the Japanese overrides any disdain he may harbor towards fellow Koreans; as such, he fails to suspect Fujiwara due to his unwavering trust in all things Japanese.

On the other hand, Sook-hee is portrayed as an actual manifestation of a subversive force that dismantled the colonial and patriarchal system, thereby becoming the agent of decolonization. HMD seeks to recollect aspects of this history in order to imagine emancipatory possibilities. What makes it stand out from other colonial theme films of the time is that the line between good and evil is not explicit along the colonizer and the colonized dichotomy. It complicates the relationship between the colonizer (Hideko) and the colonized (Sook-hee) by positioning their queerness at its central conceit. We can see that the relationship between Hideko and Sook-hee started off as a hierarchical opposition and narrowed as their intimacy escalated. It vividly demonstrates the potentiality of decolonization that not only narrowed intimacy but also minimizes discrepancies in their class, age, and ethnicity. Their relationship subvert colonialism by resisting the assimilation of Japanese imperial power; rather, they unite through love and intimacy — an uncommon phenomenon between the colonized and the colonizer (S. Y. Kim 4).

Another decolonize effort is the code switching between Japanese and Korean. Throughout the film, we can see that Japanese and Korean are speaking on different occasions, and it signifies the power relations among the characters. While Japanese was depicted as elitist, ceremonial, distant, and luxurious, Korean was represented as intimate, companion, and united. During the recital of erotica, Hideko speaks Japanese, as it is the language that asserts cultural power and privilege. As a Japanese-born, it is rare for Hideko to use Japanese in daily life, since it reminds her of the time during the recital and ingrained trauma that she encountered since she was young. Rather, she seems to use Korean as an escapist way for fleeing from reality. As Hideko and Sook-hee get closer and confess their true feelings to each other, they begin to speak Korean in private and eventually Hideko only uses Korean to convey her romantic feelings. It could be said that Korean language spoken between the two characters is also a means of liberating them from being colonial and patriarchal subjects, displaying them as active agents of decolonization.

The film derives a postcolonial perspective from the notion of hybridity, which facilitates the resistance of the colonized against the colonizer through mimicry. This framework was coined by an Indian-British scholar Homi K. Bhabha, who proposed that mimicry entails the appropriation of cultural practices and habits of colonizers by the colonized as a means of achieving “authenticity” and empowerment (Bhabha 86, 88). However, Bhabha also suggests that mimicry is never complete, which creates a space for ambiguity and uncertainty within the colonizer and colonized dichotomy (86). This is exemplified in the behaviors of Kouzuki and Fujiwara, who impersonated as Japanese aristocrats and embraced modernity, acting in the same manner as the colonizers. Moreover, the hybridity of Kouzuki’s mansion, which combines Japanese and English architectural styles, further illustrates his desire to distance himself from his Korean origin and identify with Japanese culture. Nevertheless, despite his efforts, he is neither Japanese nor noble by birth, whereas Hideko is both. Kouzuki’s inferiority complex reinforced with fragile masculinity may contribute to his intense hatred toward Hideko.

The architecture of Kouzuki’s mansion emphasizes the hybridity between Japanese colonial spaces and Western modernity. It was poorly designed with no harmony between the two styles. This represents the intrusive manner of colonialism, which forced modernity into local culture. Additionally, apart from serving as a primary location for most events of the film, Kouzuki’s estate illustrates power dynamics between characters. Furthermore, it could be argued that apart from his interest in erotic literature, Kouzuki has fetishized Colonials (Japanese) aesthetics. In this way, when Hideko and Sook-hee escape from Kouzuki’s mansion and destroy his whole library and erotica collection, they not only subvert male power and Kouzuki’s hegemonic masculinity, but also contempt his fetishization of the colonizer. Kouzuki’s library represents the site of domination, oppression, and violence. It is where Hideko suffers from her uncle-in-law’s emotional, physical, mental, and even sexual abuse from a young age, as she was coerced to narrate and theatrically act-out erotic gesture to satisfy male fantasy. It is a space where an abundance of patriarchy distress has been reflected to every corner, consuming Hideko’s late aunt and her own self.

Another concept posited by Bhabha is Sly Civility which is the way in which the colonized comply with some cultural practice of the colonizer for empowerment to acquire agency, and, in turn, use it to resist and subvert the hegemonic power (99–100). Essentially, compliance is a strategy that Hideko and Sook-hee use to emancipate themselves from the restraint of colonialism, and in this context, heteropatriarchy. They initially acquiesce to Fujiwara’s plan but simultaneously devise a counter-plan, ultimately subverting his patriarchal authority and decolonizing the patriarchal structure at the same time. Through this act of civility, they regain the very agency that was deprived from them.

The next section I will discuss the proliferation of Queer Korean Cinema and answer the important question: Is HMD a feminist film? According to B. Ruby Rich, a critic of feminist and queer film, Queer Cinema refers to films that “push the edge, upset convention, defy expectation, speak the unspeakable” (mentioned in U. Kim 17). Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist, also suggests in their famous writing Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema that “The alternative cinema provides a space for a cinema to be born which is radical in both a political and an aesthetic sense and challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film” (7–8). This is true for the Queer Korean Cinema since it was kickstarted by the emergence of independent cinema and filmmakers in the 1990s, which coincided with the rising visibility of women and homosexuality in the South Korean public sphere. Park Hyuen-Seon suggests that cultural diversification allows various types of female subject to appear on screen, thereby breaking free from the traditional archetypes of ‘the good wife and wise mother’ or ‘femme fatale’ that had been commonly portrayed in films during the 1980s. (93).

Therefore, it could be said that films featuring gender-nonconforming characters are intentional and, in Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s words, “can be no apolitical” (397). This implies that any representation of gender and sexuality in media is inherently linked to political commitment. Undoubtedly, HMD as well is Park Chan-wook’s political project in which he claimed that it aims to portray the “natural and organic” relationship between two queer women (Juzwiak). This sentiment is emphasized in the interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which he stated that he wants to depict homosexuality romance as “something natural, as just a normal part of life” (Lee). Thus, it could be argued that HMD is a feminist film that not only highlights the struggle of women within patriarchal social structure but also complexifies their lived experiences with the burden of colonialism, heteronormativity, and class differences. The film invites the audience to witness the journey of two queer women, without feeling obliged to explain their queerness.

Even so, it is important to note that Hideko and Sook-hee do not share the same struggle. Hideko grows up in a dysfunctional family where her patriarch uncle manipulates and abuses her yet she is still privileged and rich as a colonizer. Meanwhile, Sook-hee’s upbringing is more scarce as she makes a living in a rural colonized area of Korea by being an illiterate pickpocket. According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, the intersectionality of Hideko and Sook-hee makes them suffer from different causes in different ways and perspectives (140). I support this theory by using the notion proposed by Chandra Talpade Mohanty that women should not be viewed as a single category since they are different in terms of class, culture, religion, language, ethnicity, ability, etc. Hence, Hideko and Sook-hee albeit the victim of colonization, struggled differently. This can also be proved by the notion of subalternity proposed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who argued that the subaltern or those marginalized by hegemonic ideology, are silenced. Their voice tends to be erased by the structure of violence of patriarchy and colonialism, which limit their agency (104). HMD clearly demonstrates that Sook-hee alone cannot escape Colonial Korea as she desired, and Hideko alone cannot overcome her trauma and abusive environment of Kouzuki’s mansion. They are subaltern in terms of women who were deprived of agency. Also, the pornographic books in Kouzuki’s library are a physical manifestation of patriarchal oppression that oppresses and frames women in the realm of private life. Women in these books are represented as submissive, helpless, and some even seductive. In one recital, Hideko was reading a lesbian pornographic book, in which she imagined herself and Sook-hee as the characters. This reveals two things: Hideko’s perception toward her own sexuality is defined by erotica made by men, reflecting the false impact of pornography on learning of sexuality; and that fetishization of lesbian intimacy has persisted since the 1930s.

The last section is Visual Pleasure, which is famously theorized by Laura Mulvey. In their article, Mulvey proposed that there are two types of pleasure based on Freudian psychoanalytic perspective: one is voyeuristic pleasure (pleasure of looking at) and another is pleasure from being looked at (16). However, this theory was criticized by other scholars since it tends to be over-simplistic, overlooks female pleasure, and only restricted to the gender binary system (Edwards 44). Tim Edwards problematized the notion of objectification in Mulvey’s by asserting that the objectification of women forced them to lack subjectivity, devoid them of emotion, and transformed them into a mere object of being looked at. Mulvey’s theory implies that objectified women cannot escape the male gaze, while Edwards asserts that women can actively subvert it. Furthermore, they posit that the way each person looks and being looked at should be interpreted differently (44).

Shohini Chauduri criticized Mulvey’s theory by asserting that it placed women in a position of “enforced passivity”, which privileged the voyeuristic perspective of the audience (33). Mulvey suggested that there are three types of gaze in cinema: the camera gaze, the spectator/audience gaze, and the character’s gaze (19–20). However, HMD challenges Mulvey’s theory by deliberately subverting the audience gaze, exemplified by the scene of the perverse old men listening to Hideko’s pornographic recital, which is analogous to the audience’s experience of watching the sex scene between Hideko and Sook-hee. This portrayal directly contradicts Mulvey’s theory of the passive female subject and challenges the notion of the privileged spectator gaze in cinema. The film’s efforts to subvert the erotic spectacle of the two women’s bodies can be observed through its use of wide angle or bird’s-eyes view shots in sex scenes. By avoiding close-ups of the women’s bodies and only providing a close-up shot when the audience views Hideko through Sook-hee’s gaze, the film implies that the intimacy depicted is not intended for the audience’s gratification, but rather for the pleasure of Sook-hee and Hideko. In these scenes, both characters are portrayed as seeing one another in a way that is free from any imbalanced power dynamics, despite their differences in ethnicity and class. The gaze, therefore, functions to promote their equality and facilitate their sexual awakening.

In conclusion, it appears that the portrayal of the sex scene in the film shares similarities with depictions found in ‘lesbian porn’, which often cater to male fantasies and consumption. These depictions typically feature unrealistic sexual encounters between women that prioritize reaching orgasm over the actual experience of sex. However, some aspect of sex scenes in HMD departs from these norms by avoiding any suggestion of traditional sex roles, such as who is the ‘top’ or the ‘bottom’, and challenging the essentialist notion of sex and heteronormativity, thus moving away from the heteropatriarchal paradigm. Furthermore, I argue that HMD may be too optimistic about the lived reality of queer individuals in the 1930s. Sook-hee may not be sent to Kouzuki’s mansion, but get sent to a Japanese military camp where Korean women during that time were forced to become comfort women. Their escape might have failed if Hideko was not privileged and rich enough to get herself a new fake passport and ticket to Shanghai. What happened in HMD was a fortunate coincidence that may seem to sugarcoat and fantasize the lived reality of women, especially sapphic individuals, in the 1930s.

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