Recently, a scene from episode 7 of Jung Hae-in and Jung So-min’s on-going K-drama, “Love Next Door”, drew the attention of netizens for not-so-positive reasons.
In particular, this scene features the female lead Seok-ryu (played by Jung So-min) walking in a dark alley, while the male lead Seung-hyo (played by Jung Hae-in), started to follow her.
Upon sensing her follower, Seok-ryu started to panic and run in fear, until she reached a dead-end and was forced to turn around and face Seung-hyo, calling him a “crazy bastard” for scaring her.
아제발이딴개같은장면좀넣지마
특히나 남주가바로잘못인지하고사과안할거면 더더욱
한번 돌아보면 될걸 왜 무작정뛰냐고?
걸음잠깐멈췄다가 바로 폭행당하고 죽임당하는 여자들 기사가 매일매일 쏟아져나오는데 진짜 저게 로코 남주 대사임? 남자한테나 헤프닝이지 여자한텐 진짜일어나는공포라고 씨발 pic.twitter.com/y0d9DmDWwI— 누깅이 (@hiiamnugu) September 7, 2024
However, instead of comforting Seok-ryu, Seung-hyo completely brushed of Seok-ryu’s fear, and instead told her to stay quiet as they were in a residential area.
Then, when Seok-ryu asked Seung-hyo why he suddenly followed her, the latter asked her back why she started running.
When Seok-ryu said she was scared since she thought someone was chasing her, telling Seung-hyo to just call her name, Seung-hyo even shifted the blame onto her, saying, “Well, you should have checked behind you. Why were you only looking forward?”
The scene has thus, struck a nerve with female watchers who found to have hit “too close to home”.
“For f*ck’s sake, stop including stupid scenes like this in K-dramas—especially if the male lead isn’t going to realize his wrongdoing and apologize for it right away”, an audience wrote in anger, adding, “We constantly see news about women getting assaulted and even murdered for stopping to check what’s behind them. So why is a rom-com male lead saying such bullshit?? For men, this is just a normal scene, but for women, the fear is real”.
In fact, a topic criticizing this scene has even become a hot topic on the Korean forum ‘theqoo’ with over 100,000 views.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- Why is the male character like that?
- The male lead character is f*cking ruined….
- ? That’s the male lead? He doesn’t even apologize until the end.
- Instead of apologizing, he blamed the female lead?? It’s ridiculous when someone gaslights another after they’ve done something wrong.
- Damn, I want to beat up the male lead
- Ah, I hate it when people say things like that as if it’s nothing
Source: theqoo, Krb, X