‘Search: WWW’…An unerring medley of the personal and the professional.
Spoilers Ahead…
When we think of women-centric stories or stories with well-written, complex female characters (not necessarily always leads), what are we typically looking for? Do romantic comedies told through the eyes of its female protagonist count? Do makjangs with mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law at each other’s throats, count? Or do only stories that celebrate womanhood or that carry some sort of undercurrent of feminist agenda, count?
The questions are many and the answers vary depending on one’s preference and mood (and it’s a topic that can be discussed more in-depth) but one thing we can all agree on is how we all want female characters to be presented as the complex beings that we all are — just like our male counterparts. We have our own struggles, strengths, and weaknesses and even if the plot isn’t centered around a female character, I still would like her to be written with some depth (and I definitely don’t want a women-led movie/show to be largely male-bashing).
K-dramas generally fare quite well in this region, and in the recent years, we have got some well rounded female characters courtesy of shows like When the Camellia Blooms, Something in the Rain, Because This Is My First Life, Encounter, One Spring Night, Witch’s Court, and many others.
However, all these dramas worked, because they were told eloquently. As I mentioned in my essay on diversity and representation in Hollywood, it all boils down to storytelling. If a drama doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, regardless of it having strong women characters at its core.
Thankfully that isn’t the case with Search: WWW.
Set against the background of two competing online portal sites, Search: WWW manoeuvres (largely) through the lives of three women — Bae Ta Mi (an understated Im Soo Jung), Cha Hyun (Lee Da Hee, who finally seems quite comfortable in a role. I found her previous work in Queen of Mystery 2 and The Beauty Inside quite rigid) and Song Ga Gyeong (an excellent Jeon Hye Jin). The plot steamrolls when Ta Mi is unfairly dismissed from her job at Unicon — where Ga Gyeong is the director — after a hearing concerning the manipulation of keyword rankings doesn’t go according to the (company’s) plan. She then takes up a job at the rival company Barro — where Cha Hyun works — with the challenge of increasing Barro’s market share within the next six months.
It’s a simple enough plot but where Search: WWW is unique is in its extensive look at the lives of these career women, without pitting one against another but also not characterizing them as the bestest of friends. Because even in a drama like Because This is My First Life (another trio), we get each character as a representation of the different types of women in a society — one who wants to start her own business, a career woman; one who wants to become a stay-at-home mom, and another who wants to find love. But since they are friends since high school, they have got each other’s back as they navigate the ups and downs, and the curve balls life throws them. In contrast, all our heroines in Search: WWW are lonely. Ta Mi after losing her job doesn’t even have a single friend to grieve or rant to. Hyun spends her free time practicing Taekwondo and watching makjangs. But neither do the characters pity themselves nor do we. We get small flashbacks where we see them in their early days at the company, giving their all. Hyun works even when admitted to a hospital hooked up with an IV drip and this flashback leads to a nice bittersweet scene where she describes how much she loves her job but at the same time also detests those tough times of her 20’s. So having no friends or hobbies are just a small compensation for the successful career they have built so far.
Also, the relationship between these three women exists in a sort of grey area, where it isn’t quite clear if they are friends, mentor-mentee, or boss-colleague. And even though they have had their problems, they still do care for each other, though without interfering in each other’s personal lives. This is specifically true in the case of Ta Mi and Ga Gyeong, as they start out as a competent senior-junior pair but as Ga Gyeong’s mother-in-law’s interference in her daughter-in-law’s company increases, Ta Mi’s relationship with Ga Gyeong strains.
This table is turned when Ta Mi joins Barro and her usual business tactics which we admired of her when measured against Ga Gyeong, is seen as ruthless against Cha Hyun’s more compassionate, human outlook. This leads to some of the finest scenes of the show as Ta Mi and Hyun debate and question ethical and moral grounds over business decisions, censorship, and privacy issues concerning an open network like the internet.
But through all this, directors Jung Ji Hyun and Kwon Young Il don’t forget and let us forget that this is a K-drama first and foremost, and because of that, even though being a show obstinately about career women, it isn’t afraid to wade into the romance department, and that too in full K-drama essence with beautiful wide shots, multiple slow-mo’s, chic styling, and an earworm-y OST. In between all the serious work talk, we get some lovely moments like Ta Mi receiving Park Mogun’s (a terrific Jang Ki Young) phone call in a schoolyard famous for its terrible signal (where she always runs off to when having a terrible day), or their first kiss which takes place in a dark corridor with light spilling out of the elevator or my favourite, Hyun and Seol Ji Hwan’s (a sweet, cute Lee Jae Wook) first kiss taking place at a station’s lost and found with all the phone’s ringing and blinking together around them in a bokeh effect.
That’s why, even with all the serious business talk that goes on in the foreground, there is a sense of mythical quality about the drama, compared to say a Suits or Misaeng. One major aspect that lends the show this quality is its depiction of the working environment in large corporations. Barro’s workplace is laid back to the point where employees are given English names and asked to speak formally to each other irrespective of age or title. Unicon is led by women, and their fight for control (of the company) is against another woman, Ga Gyeong’s mother-in-law (played superbly by Ye Soo Jung). Sexual harassment or gender discrimination doesn’t seem to exist in this corporate drama-verse — and that is fine! Not every corporate story needs to touch upon this topic —but its absence does make you feel like the drama is taking place in some sort of utopia.
The romance section fares better as (thankfully) the show’s writer Kwon Eun Sol lends the same complexity and sensitivity of her female characters, to their male counterparts. Characters such as Brian (played by a wonderful Kwon Hae Hyo), Oh Jin Woo (Ji Seung Hyun), and particularly Park Mo Gun are wonderfully written. Mo Gun starts out just as a boy, head over heels in love with Ta Mi but as the show progresses it unravels more details about Mo Gun’s life. This is crucial as it forms another important crux of the show. While Mo Gun is ten years younger than Ta Mi, the show instead chooses to focus on the issue of marriage, more specifically whether they need to get married. It’s a conversation that rarely comes up in K-dramas, (instead, it is always a debate of whom should I marry), and the drama presents both sides of the argument without passing any judgment. Ta Mi is pretty clear that she doesn’t want to get married. This decision isn’t a result of her parents’ marriage or some past relationship but her own practicality. As a successful, independent woman, she argues that she doesn’t want the law to dictate her relationship terms. If you love someone and want to live together, you should go ahead and do so. Mo Gun has an emotional reason as being brought up in an orphanage, he desires to start a family of his own. The show goes back and forth on this issue, contemplating both sides of the argument but this plot thread comes at the cost of lesser of the corporate storyline. Some scenes between Ta Mi and Mo Gun do drag on for quite a long time slowing down the pace of the drama.
This was one major complaint of mine with the show. What started out as a show about online portal sites, fans out into chaebols, romance, friendships, concentrating more on the personal than the professional. The show is definitely still entertaining in these parts but the fire in the scenes between Ta Mi, Hyun, Ga Gyeong discussing various business decisions for the company was something I gravely missed in the second half.
Just like how with the internet, there is no right answer, there is no correct answer when it comes to women-centric shows, except whether it works or doesn’t, or whether it is entertaining or not. Search: WWW trailblazers this sub-genre in multiple innovative ways. In a way, this drama is no different from a regular office drama. Replace the women with the men, and the story, the scenarios largely stays the same (this is where the absence of gender discrimination and sexual harassment works to its advantage). But for once if the men are asked to dress more modestly or a man discusses whether to get a Brazilian or not, then sign me up for more of these shows, please!
