catherine
The Repetitive Misogyny of Second Female Leads
When it comes to Asian dramas, especially school web dramas, the saboteur second female lead is no new plot device.
When it appeared in season 1 of Best Mistake, I was pretty forgiving because it made sense — the new girl joins the group and the old character feels like they're getting pushed out. When it appeared in season 2 of Best Mistake, it was a little annoying but I felt like the main characters and their high school lives still had that light-hearted nostalgia. With season 3 kicking off with YD and HH broken up and with the addition of even more characters, it just felt like this season was rehashing the same old plots it had done before. The FL being locked in a dark room, being left on the side of a lonely street, being the subject of false rumors and photos...it's just all so overdone, even just in previous seasons. And having all this in the light of many second male leads being their typical soft and caring and heartbroken selves...it just highlighted the problems with how differently women and men are written.
And so, the plot itself just felt very annoying, with many of it being triggered by these second female leads or being self-inflicted to make drama for the sake of drama, whether it was a miscommunication or simply questionable decisions. Even though the tertiary characters had less of this, there were far too many love triangles. I'm actually someone who typically enjoys them and the commentary about different ways to love — but that's only if done well. With all these characters starting to act very similarly and just being so bland, it felt unnecessary and like lazy writing. Love triangles are fine but there just has to be more to the characters than that.
Even with all my criticisms, I appreciate the vibe and the style of the show. Visually it's bright and fun, and I loved seeing my favorite characters from Light On Me in a cameo.
When it appeared in season 1 of Best Mistake, I was pretty forgiving because it made sense — the new girl joins the group and the old character feels like they're getting pushed out. When it appeared in season 2 of Best Mistake, it was a little annoying but I felt like the main characters and their high school lives still had that light-hearted nostalgia. With season 3 kicking off with YD and HH broken up and with the addition of even more characters, it just felt like this season was rehashing the same old plots it had done before. The FL being locked in a dark room, being left on the side of a lonely street, being the subject of false rumors and photos...it's just all so overdone, even just in previous seasons. And having all this in the light of many second male leads being their typical soft and caring and heartbroken selves...it just highlighted the problems with how differently women and men are written.
And so, the plot itself just felt very annoying, with many of it being triggered by these second female leads or being self-inflicted to make drama for the sake of drama, whether it was a miscommunication or simply questionable decisions. Even though the tertiary characters had less of this, there were far too many love triangles. I'm actually someone who typically enjoys them and the commentary about different ways to love — but that's only if done well. With all these characters starting to act very similarly and just being so bland, it felt unnecessary and like lazy writing. Love triangles are fine but there just has to be more to the characters than that.
Even with all my criticisms, I appreciate the vibe and the style of the show. Visually it's bright and fun, and I loved seeing my favorite characters from Light On Me in a cameo.
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