This year's gender equality drama..Beckdel Day selected 10 films, including unknown Seoul, old age, and being completely deceived
Aug 12, 2025
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On the 12th, the 'Bekdel Day 2025', a content festival that reflects gender equality representation through Korean movies and series and contributes to cultural diversity, unveiled the series category 'BekdelChoice10', which selects this year's work.
Bekdel-Day 2025 series category Bekdel-Choice 10 was selected with 'Good Partner'She Who Differences Day and Night'Unknown Seoul'Good Competition' Mrs. Ok's Exhibition'You're such an intimate traitor'Yeongnyeon' Quiet Sales''Hiperknife' (in alphabetical order). Kim Kyo-seok, a TV columnist, Kim Min-jung, a professor of literary creation at Chung-Ang University, Kim Ji-yeon, a Cineplay reporter, and Lee Hwa-jung, a Bekdel Day programmer, participated as judges in the series.
This year's series was spotlighted for works that developed female characters in detail within large-scale works such as period dramas and historical dramas. Netflix, which set a global box office record with a production cost of KRW 60 billion, was praised as a work that gave a huge emotional spectacle with a detailed development of 'Women'Mom'Grandma' that had been consumed flatly. tvN 'Jungnaei', which showed the growth history of female Gae Min-yong who worked for the Women's Gukgeuk Company in the 1950s, received high marks for being a work that combines the planning intention of the work made by female creators with female Gukgeuk that crosses gender notions. JTBC 'Occ wife exhibition', which developed subversive values through female characters protecting the weak against the backdrop of the Joseon Dynasty, was evaluated as a work that left a recordable mark in the history of historical dramas as a hero narrative that was first encountered in historical dramas.
JTBC 'She Who Differs Day and Night', which conveys the reality faced by MZ generation youth and middle-aged women, is a series that brings socially marginalized women and cheerfully suggests the social problems they are facing now, while tvN 'Unknown Seoul', which depicts the situation and overcoming of women through the reality that twin sisters hide their identities and change into each other's workplaces, is named as a masterpiece that drew sympathy from viewers with realistic touches' that excluded stimulating devices and manipulations leaning on villains.
Works that instilled new energy into genre tension through changes in gender ratio were also noticeable. Disney+ 'HyperKnife' is a series that overcomes the existing typicality through the teacher-student publication of a female-female structure in the structure of a medical drama, and described it as a pleasant provocation that deviates from the path and goes its own way no matter what you expect. MBC 'This Intimate Traitor', in which the profiler confronts his daughter's secret related to the murder case, was criticized for ' that the family's affection was used as a catalyst for increasing the density of thriller narratives, not emotional consumption for the Shinpa. SBS 'Good Partner', which depicts the settlement of a divorce lawyer's case, was also evaluated as a work that broke the structure of bromance and pleasantly realized the subversion of sex led by women'.
The narratives that solve the difficulties of reality faced by women with the power of solidarity also attracted attention. Based on the stories of girls suffering from competition for entrance exams, U+TV 'Goodwill Competition' has completed a different growth narrative with 'Development, Material, and Expression Method' which is different from the genre formula of existing youth and academy materials. JTBC 'Quiet Sales', which overcomes the reality of housewives who face violence, neglect, and discrimination by solidarity using adult product sales as an excuse, was evaluated as a work that gave three-dimensionality to female characters with 'development of characters of ordinary ladies' rather than 'ungrateful or devoted 'uncle' frequently described in the media.
Bekdel Day 2025 Lee Hwa-jeong programmer said, "Women-centered narratives that were previously considered industrially 'Risk' are now being implemented in various ways depending on the nature of the platform and the direction of planning."The expansion of the series enabled various experiments that had not been commonly seen in the film industry. In particular, the emergence of female narratives and female characters in various subjects and genres is considered one of the most pronounced changes made in recent years.
From June 2024 to May 2025, the Bekdel Day 2025 series was reviewed for 102 films released on airwaves, comprehensive programming channels, cable channels, and OTT originals. ①At least two female characters with names will appear in the movie ② No. 1 female characters will talk to each other ③ Their dialogue material or topic will not be just about male characters ④ At least one of the main staff members, including directors, producers, screenwriters, and cinematographers, will be female movies ⑤ It will be a single female protagonist movie or the role and weight of male and female protagonists will be equal ⑥ It will not contain hatred toward minorities and discriminatory gaze ⑦ We selected Beckdel-Choice 10 based on works that fit a total of seven items that female characters will not be reproduced in a stereo type.
This year's Bekdel Day 2025 will be held at KU CinemaTech for two days from September 6-7. There will be a special talk'Meeting with Bekdelian' to talk about gender equality in content with this year's Bekdelian, as well as a 'Special Planned Talk Program' to make it easier for the audience to know the purpose of Bekdelay. It will also hold a 'Free Screening' where the work selected as 'BeckelChoice 10' will be met in theaters.
lunamoon@sportschosun.com
