K-Drama School – Ep 123: Mr Queen and Korean Food as Vice and Pleasure

[Spoiler Alert] Grace discusses the show Mr Queen (2020-2021, tvN) based on a Chinese web series called Go Princess Go. The show is written by Park Gye-ok and Choi Ah-il. Grace compares Mr Queen to Jewel in the Palace; whereas more classic hallyu K-dramas like Jewel in the Palace utilizes Korean food as a vehicle to promote wellness, healing and medicinal properties, Mr Queen appropriates aspects of that show to promote Korean food as pleasure and vice. Mr Queen also includes aspects of trans-queerness through the embodiment of a female and male soul in one cis-female body as well as the queering of time and history through camp storytelling devices. Mr Queen promotes feminist values by exhibiting patriarchal privilege through the Queen’s embodiment of a man’s 21st century soul, as well as law reform to protect women’s right to safety and happiness in the last episode. Follow @KDramaSchool on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Visit https://www.kdramaschool.com/ to learn more.